all epistemology is eschatological : Resident Aliens with Visual Hearing

 "We walk by faith and not by          sight."


    But:
                     "Faith comes by          hearing [and not sight]"


Maybe it's a kind of visual hearing/hearing visualcy that we faithwalk by (and thus act on).
Spiritaneous sonar?
--


The question is not "What do I     do?"
                          but "How do I     see" ["know"].
 --
All  epistemology is eschatological.
                           All  eschatology is epistemological?

I think I know (hear) that, anyway. (:

I see that hand.
----
 Thoughts inspired by the excerpt of "Resident Aliens":

Ethically speaking, it should interest us that, in beginning the Sermon on the Mount with the Beatitudes, Jesus does not ask disciples to do anything. The Beatitudes are in the indicative, not the imperative, mood. First we are told what God has done before anything is suggested about what we are to do.


Imagine a sermon that begins: "Blessed are you poor. Blessed are those of you who are hungry. Blessed are those of you who are unemployed. Blessed are those going through marital separation. Blessed are those who are terminally ill."


The congregation does a double take. What is this? In the kingdom of the world, if you are unemployed, people treat you as if you have some sort of social disease. In the world's kingdom, terminally ill people become an embarrassment to our health-care system, people to be put away, out of sight. How can they be blessed?


The preacher responds, "I'm sorry. I should have been more clear. I am not talking about the way of the world's kingdom. I am talking about God's kingdom. In God's kingdom, the poor are royalty, the sick are blessed. I was trying to get you to see something other than that to which you have become accustomed." The Sermon  rests on the theological assumption that if the preacher can first enable us to see whom God blesses, we shall be well on the road to blessedness ourselves.  We can only act within a world we can see. Vision is the necessary prerequisite for ethics...

The Sermon is eschatological.  Matthew 4:22-12 sets the context for the Sermon...

 The eschatological context helps explain why the Sermon begins not by telling us what to do, but by helping us to see.  We can only act within that world which we see. So the primary ethical question is not, What ought I now to do? but rather, How does the world really look? The most interesting question about the Sermon  is not, Is this a practical way to live in the world? but rather, Is this really the way the world is? What is “practical” is related to what is real. If the world is a society in which only the strong, the independent, the detached, the liberated, and the successful are blessed, then we act accordingly. However, if the world is really a place where God blesses the poor, the hungry, and the persecuted for righteousness’ sake, then we must act in accordance with reality or else appear bafflingly out of step with the way things are.  -Hauerwaus and Willimon, Resident Aliens, pp, 84-88