The other evening, while enjoying dinner with the family, my sons and I engaged in a discussion of biblical import. We found ourselves discoursing about the account of Jesus walking on water. What was of particular interest to us was the disciples reaction to Christ, "walking on the sea." (Matt. 14:25-26)
As the waves and winds of their existential dilemma were pounding their consciousness a most phenomenological incongruity unfolds...Christ, the one they had been following for some time embarks on a sea excursion the likes of which they had never encountered before. Jesus was, "walking on the sea!!!" (14:25). Of course this truth wasn't immediately acknowledged or recognized by the disciples.
At first prima facie first glance it appears to be an alien encounter or an experience with a poltergeist of sorts, at least from the perspective of the disciples whose worlds were being blown about at that moment in time! Their ghastly response was, "It is a ghost!" (14:26) This event was confounding their assumptions of real experience, it was twisting their perspectival construct and it was re-orienting their epistemological (how we know things) matrix. Christ then assuages their perspectival and epistemological dilemmas by identifying himself, "Take courage. It is I; do not be afraid"(14:27)
One thing that's worthy of note is that while the disciples were grappling with this existential maelstrom they weren't entirely unreceptive to a calming "truth" that would quiet their respective epistemological and perspectival storms. One lesson we must learn from this is that we should always be willing to allow the truth of the Word within scripture to define our perspectives despite what assumptions or pre-conceptions we may have. The disciples had initially concluded Christ, who is the truth, to be an apparition. They had no reason to suppose it was a real, corporeal being based upon their cumulative knowledge and experience prior to that event. It simply was not an expression of truth that they had encountered before. Yet, when Christ spoke they were attentive. And as He spoke they interacted with His truthful assertions and inevitably came to a truthful resolution regarding this unfamiliar event. The Word of God should always take precedence within our reasoning.
Another principle should enter the doors of our Christian reasoning as we consider this account. We must be willing to wrestle with the truth and unreservedly strive to harmonize our experience with the vox Dei (voice of God). We see Peter venturing into new vista's of truth as he reconciles the truth Christ was speaking. Instead of reckoning that the former existential and sensory conclusions he had assimilated into his epistemological framework were incontrovertible he subjected his pre-conceptions to transmogrification vis a vis the truth of the person and work of Christ. Peter, as well as the other disciples, had already been witness to Christ healing a man with a withered hand (15:13), healing 'them all' (15:15), healing a demon possessed man (15:22), feeding multitudes miraculously (ch.14), et cetera, and yet we find Peter in a momentary state of disbelief. This goes to show that we must always subject our conclusions and assumptions to the scrutiny of the vox Dei (voice of God) despite how experienced or seasoned in the Christian faith we think we are. We must wrestle with the truths of Scripture to the extent that we are willing to be overcome by the waves of change as Peter did when he endeavored to walk on water. As Ignatius of Antioch opined, "I am forever a learner." How often do we treat the truth as a passing phantasm or ghost because it doesn't inhere with conclusions we have already made about that very truth thereby being haunted by our own ghosts of prideful pre-conceptions as the truth passes us by. We need to be practicing ghost-busters who vanquish the vertiable ghosts of our pre-conceptions instead of allowing any of those faulty pre-conceptions to render the truths of the Word a passing apparition.
Of course the aforementioned does not mean the revealed truth in holy writ is progressive in any way. There are certain demonstrable truths of Scripture that need not undergo reconsideration or embellishment (ex. the fundamentals truths affirmed in the Apostles Creed and the like) yet the application of those truths, practically, must always be subject to the renewing of our minds vis a vis sanctification.
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