It seems reasonable to draw conclusions from what we see with our eyes, hear with our ears, and taste, smell, and feel with the other senses. Our experience suggests that this is normal and natural. In many areas of life, the results of this approach are quite useful. In studying the natural sciences, we gather information that allows us to solve problems and develop technologies such as computers, phones, and cars, all of which are of great benefit to mankind.
We might be tempted to think of our bodies in the same way, relying on the five senses to tell us how we’re feeling and what our prognosis is for healing or health. This may have been how the man at the pool of Bethesda was feeling, who, according to the Bible, was fettered by an infirmity that prevented him from walking and had afflicted him for almost forty years (see John 5:2–9).
Along came Jesus to restore the man’s freedom. Jesus didn’t reason inductively, looking at apparent material effects to find a material cause. Quite the contrary, he reasoned deductively, starting from the one great cause, divine Principle, perfect God, Spirit, whom he called his Father. His reasoning didn’t begin with or depend on the evidence of the material senses. This cause, or Principle, God—all-knowing, all-powerful, all-present, all-loving—knows only good and creates only good, as explained in the first chapter of Genesis in the Bible.
