This may be the most problematic part of the verse: How can something be "with" God?
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Terry Sampson
Well-Known Member
I was just curious to see whether or not you might be able to handle an alternative to "the Word".
Don't fuss with it.
Katzpur
Not your average Mormon
I don't see how "was the Word" implies that the Word came into existence after time begin. To me, it means the precise opposite. The Word was [already] in existence at the beginning. Incidentally, since the Word was said to be both "God" and "with God," to me, it simply means that there were two divine beings (it would not make sense to say that one being was "with" himself), both of whom existed prior to the beginning and that both were called "God."John opens up with: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
I don't quite understand this. Clearly the author of the book is trying to parallel this with the opening of Genesis "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." However, Genesis opens up with stating that first time itself began/came into being - i.e. there was a beginning ("In the beginning"). Next, the verse makes mention of God. Where did God come from? That's not stated, but as God was already there at the beginning and we don't know where He came from, it's inferred that He was there before the beginning.
In John, however, things appear to be different:
First there's a beginning - much like in Genesis ("In the beginning") - but then says "was the Word" - as I understand, "was" is a word that denotes coming into existence - that is, the Word came into being after time began. Yet then we are told "...and the Word was God." - if in Genesis we are made to infer that God was before time began, and here the Word was - came into being - after time began, how then can the Word be God? And how then can it be said in the next verse "He was with God in the beginning."? One entity was pre-time and the other post-time.
I hope this makes sense...
P.S. I like your sig.
If I may interject with a response to a question not originally addressed to me...
A great question and its really the element - along with a few others verses - that helped spawn Trinitarian monotheism as the 'orthodox' mainstream Christian doctrinal position believed even today by circa. 99% of the world's Christians (all 1.3 billion Catholics, roughly all 800 or so million Protestants, all 260 million Eastern Orthodox).
Firstly, Christians relied on descriptions of the Wisdom (hohkmah) of God in the Tanakh and how this same theme was interpreted by the NT in the form of the Word. "Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth...When he established the heavens, I was there...when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him/by him, like a master worker/little child; and I was daily his delight" (Proverbs 8:22- 27).
I think this is where the "with" and "was" originates in early Christian speculation about the eternality of the Word of God. Like Wisdom, the Word is both 'beside/by' God as He creates all things through Him and is an eternal attribute of God himself (i.e. not another 'god' distinct or separate from the divine essence with an individual agency and consciousness). Of course, the above is a literary personification - arguably - but the early Christians took it quite literally as a description of the divine nature.
Philo of Alexandria (a first century Hellenistic Jewish philosopher) formulated some early theories that were similar to Christian understanding in some respects, even though he wasn't himself a Christian and didn't believe Jesus to be the Messiah or the incarnation of the Wisdom of God:
https://webcache.googleusercontent.....iep.utm.edu/philo/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk
In the so-called Jewish wisdom literature we find the concept of Wisdom (hokhmah and sophia) which could be to some degree interpreted as a separate personification or individualization (hypostatization), but it is contrasted often with human stupidity...
And further, Philo finds in the Bible indications of the operation of the Logos, e.g., the biblical cherubim are the symbols of the two powers of God but the flaming sword (Gen. 3.24) is the symbol of the Logos conceived before all things and before all manifest (Cher. 1.27-28; Sacr. 59; Abr. 124-125; Her. 166; QE 2.68)...
Referring to Genesis 18: 2 Philo claims that God and his two Powers are in reality one. To the human mind they appear as a Triad, with God above the powers that belong to him: “For this cannot be so keen of spirit that, it can see Him who is above the powers that belong to Him, (namely) God, distinct from everything else. For so soon as one sets eyes on God, there also appear together with His being, the ministering powers, so that in place of one he makes the appearance of a triad (QG 4.2)....
The Logos which God begat eternally because it is a manifestation of God’s thinking-acting (Prov. 1.7; Sacr. 65; Mos. 1.283), is an agent that unites two powers of the transcendent God...
And further, Philo finds in the Bible indications of the operation of the Logos, e.g., the biblical cherubim are the symbols of the two powers of God but the flaming sword (Gen. 3.24) is the symbol of the Logos conceived before all things and before all manifest (Cher. 1.27-28; Sacr. 59; Abr. 124-125; Her. 166; QE 2.68)...
Referring to Genesis 18: 2 Philo claims that God and his two Powers are in reality one. To the human mind they appear as a Triad, with God above the powers that belong to him: “For this cannot be so keen of spirit that, it can see Him who is above the powers that belong to Him, (namely) God, distinct from everything else. For so soon as one sets eyes on God, there also appear together with His being, the ministering powers, so that in place of one he makes the appearance of a triad (QG 4.2)....
The Logos which God begat eternally because it is a manifestation of God’s thinking-acting (Prov. 1.7; Sacr. 65; Mos. 1.283), is an agent that unites two powers of the transcendent God...
Basically, Christians found themselves with a mystery: the Bible, in both Tanakh and New Testament, affirms that God is "one" and there is no other god in existence or worthy of worship (i.e. all the other elohim are created beings that came into being in time but the Word didn't come into being in time).
St. Paul for instance writes: "we know that no idol in the world really exists and that there is no God but one. Indeed, even though there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth...yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist" (1 Corinthians 8:4-5).
So, the first line of the Nicene Creed in 325 CE (the standard confession of faith for the world's roughly over 2 billion Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox Christians) affirms monotheism in its first line "We believe in one God...."
But, here's where early orthodox Christianity takes a turn from what became normative orthodox Judaism (despite Christianity originating as a sect within Second Temple Judaism).
Paul continued his above statement (which up to that point concurs with classical Judaism) to say something more and "heretical" from a Rabbinical Jewish pov: "yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist."
Likewise, the Nicene Creed continues after affirming monotheism:
"We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made."
This, of course, is where orthodox Judaism and orthodox Christianity part ways.
Christians had to reconcile the New Testament declarations of Jesus being the eternal, pre-existent, uncreated, timeless Wisdom of God - "through" whom He created all things - with the equally clear New Testament arguments in favour of their only being one God and not "gods" (in the plural polytheistic sense).
How do you square that circle? And what about the Holy Spirit as well, how does that feature in?
And thus, orthodox Christians articulated the idea that Jesus in His pre-incarnate form is one Being (ousia) with God the Father, a single divine being despite their also having two (indeed three) hypostases - a Greek word often translated as "persons" yet in its original context referring to the masks worn by actors during Greek dramas.
The word was chosen to represent the fact that in the NT, the Word/Wisdom is both with the Father (in relationship with Him) yet also is one divine being and essence with Him. As such, there are not for mainstream Christians - of the Catholic, Protestant or Orthodox Nicene persuasion - two or three "gods" each with an individual centre of consciousness, essence and will. There is one God, one divine essence, one consciousness, one being etc.
Yet we have this enigma at the heart of our monotheism because the Word must - in our theology and as demonstrated by my linguistic explanation earlier about genesthai (coming into being) and eimi/en (am/is always eternally subsisting) - be placed on the "Creator" side of the Creator/creature line and thus be understood as God without that thereby infringing monotheism.
Are you confused?
Imagine what it was like for the Church Fathers trying to square the circle...........
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I fussed with it until I came up with that answer (with help from a fellow Jew
). That's the answer: how can anything be with God? Either it's God or not. If it's not, then what are you (not necessarily you you, but anyone in general) saying? That God is not all that there is?
Same happened when they decided to steer away from using the Jewish calendar to figure out when Easter was. What can I say, the Jews are much better at figuring out these things. Christians brought all these difficulties upon themselves. Yet they say Jews are stiff-necked. Oh well.
syo
Well-Known Member
Word first, the starting point later.
Welcome to the site @stupid (btw, wondering why you chose that as your username...
). It seems to me that you're explaining to me what the Word is, when that was not my question.
syo
Well-Known Member
The Word is the pen. The ''in the beginning'' is the starting point of the line the pen draws.
I hope I'm not offtopic.
EDIT- I use metaphors. The Word is like a pen etc.-
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syo
Well-Known Member
I would leave it as it is.I don't get it...
If you would have had to rewrite the first verse in a more understandable way, how would you have written it?
In the beginning (of creation) was the Word (the Father of all that will be created).
syo
Well-Known Member
the "idea/masterplan''
and
the ''starting point of creation''. (putting the masterplan into action.)
Terry Sampson
Well-Known Member
With a pen?
syo
Well-Known Member
My post #152 is a metaphor. Read it as a metaphor.I don't get it...
If you would have had to rewrite the first verse in a more understandable way, how would you have written it?
Of course @Katzpur, I'd be happy to clarify.
The word "being" is from the Greek ousia and can also be translated into English as 'essence' or 'essential substance/nature' (i.e. some renderings of the Nicene Creed in English have, "consubstantial with the Father" rather than "of one Being with" but they really mean the same thing).
"Person" is from the Greek hypostasis and can also mean 'underlying substance' but the sense in which Nicene'rs use it (the Trinitarian formula "three hypostases in one ousia") is that 'ousia' is the general whilst 'hypostasis' is the particular. So, 'ousia' can be taken to mean the essential essence and nature of something, whereas 'hypostasis' can be taken to mean the individual relation of something to another. Likewise, the 'Trinity' means that there are three distinct relations within one single divine Being - or rather, "three actions".
Indeed, 'person' (hypostasis) was first used in the context of Greek drama to refer to the 'relations' between different roles played by the one actor in a play. It doesn't mean what the English language implies with regards 'personhood' (i.e. individual centres of consciousness disembodied from one another). So, there aren't three individuals or gods or properties who make up God for Trinitarian Christians like myself. Nor is it 'modalism' because the three modes of being, actions or relations are noninterchangeable and distinctive without introducing any division into the Godhead.
'Being' refers to what God is (one essence/substance/reality/isness), whereas 'person' refers to who God is (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) in relation to both Himself and His creation. Thus, Nicene Christians say that there is One God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Really, its a 'dynamic' and 'relational' understanding of God's eternal and immutable being (which is One).
A complicated, mysterious and indeed "mystical" doctrine no doubt, but its what we believe.