Signs and Faith in the Gospel of John

The gospel of John is famous for its use of the word "signs" to describe the miracles of Jesus. In fact, the first half of the book of John is called by scholars "The Book of Signs."

And yet, there is a debate about the relation of faith to the signs Jesus performs. On the one hand, obviously, the signs are, well, signs. They point to the identity of Jesus. In short, the signs are supposed to bring about faith. The obvious passage supporting this notion comes from Chapter 20, after Jesus' initial appearances to his followers after his resurrection:

Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

Seems pretty straightforward. 

However, there are places in John where a "signs faith" seems to be denigrated, at least a little bit, in relation to a faith that comes without signs. An example of this is seen in what Jesus says to "doubting" Thomas after Jesus appears to him : 

Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

The passage seems to indicate that a faith which comes without seeing signs--"blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed"--is viewed as a more sturdy and deeper faith. And this isn't the only place in John that seems to throw some shade on a "signs faith." For example, from John 4:

Once more he visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death.

“Unless you people see signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe.”

Scholars debate the tone of Jesus' response here. If we read Jesus as exasperated, he seems to be saying that people shouldn't need signs to have faith in him, and yet they do. Yes, the signs are provided to promote faith, but you shouldn't really need them.

Other scholars don't read any frustration in Jesus' reply to the father. They read Jesus' remark as flatly descriptive, with no hint of moral evaluation. Jesus is just stating a truth aloud: Signs are necessary to promote faith. So, Jesus gives them signs . 

I don't have any big agenda for sharing this with you. Just alerting you to a little debate among Johannine scholars. I do think there is a way to split the difference here. Clearly the signs Jesus performs, starting with his turning the water into wine, point toward the activity of God in the world and Jesus' identity. But I also think it's true that we, today, don't have the signs themselves but the stories about them, and that there is something more difficult, and perhaps therefore more blessed, about a faith that flows from those stories. 

And yet, as the author of Hunting Magic Eels, I do think we still see signs. If not in the person of Jesus himself, than in the intimations of the divine all around us. As Marilynne Robinson has observed:

Ordinary things have always seems numinous to me. One Calvinist notion deeply implanted in me is that there are two sides to your encounter with the world. You don't simply perceive something that is statically present, but in fact there is a visionary quality to all experience. It means something because it is addressed to you...You can draw from perception the same way a mystic would draw from a vision.

In short, our faith may rest on stories more than signs. And blessed are those who believe. But signs are still all around us, a visionary quality to all experience, if we have the eyes to see.