Brian....I'm about to go to bed, but I wanted to welcome you to the board and say that you've posed a number of terrific thought-provoking questions. Each one is worthy of a thread in its own right.
And the Word was with God
by Narkissos 70 Replies latest watchtower bible
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tetrapod.sapien
nice thread. i have enjoyed reading it. thanks.
TS
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Narkissos
Ross,
I guess we can draw all kinds of sketches since we do it onto the sand anyway...
Also, provided we understand that two different sketches can mean neither the same thing (there is no such thing as true synonymy: shifting from logos to sophia, for instance, changes everything) nor something else (same cake cut differently: that's about what remains of the long-overrated number One).
X-Logos-Sophia wouldn't be too far from Real-Symbolic-Imaginary (as the "mirror" image applies especially to sophia).
Now when you say:
man is an extension of logos as an emanation, thus the words of men are further creations in their own right?
you are coming (dangerously?) close to what I was trying to express in my first post: the radical antagonism between "words" and "things" which even "God" cannot escape. The same contemplative questions can apply to both ("what am I looking at?" "who is looking?" / "What am I saying?" "Who is speaking?").
Creation is only meaningful as creatio continua for the same reason that theology is meaningful from within.
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Narkissos
Hi Brian, and welcome!
Since this was not meant to be a serious Trinity thread, I hope you don't mind if I try to reply to your questions with other questions:
1. Did God become a Father only when He created, or is He a Father from all eternity?
Is time part of what God "created"? What do "become" or "from" mean apart from time?
2. Before God created, was He alone? If God is love, does that mean that before He created, He loved only Himself?
Same question for "Before". Hmm... did "He" not loved only "Himself" if "He" and "Himself" stand for "God"? (Careful here.)
3. When God uses the term "us" in Genesis, is He speaking to Himself, or to the angels? If He is speaking to the latter, does that mean that man is made in the image and likeness of the angels?
Or does that mean that man is made in the image and likeness of a divine plurality?
4. When the average, non-scholarly person, reads the Bible, how does he or she know which translation to trust, when many people who are very well-educated and have studied the ancient Greek manuscripts disagree on fundamentals points of interpretation.
Or are ambiguity and potential disagreement essential to the "message"?
5. Does traditional Jehovah's Witness theology on this point have more in common with Islam than with traditional Christianity?
Might some segments of early Christianity (e.g. judeo-christianity) have more in common with Islam than with "traditional Christianity" too?
6. If the Trinity is a correct doctrine, what does God's revelation of Himself as a Family of Persons teach us about the human condition?
And what does this teach us about the elaboration of ideas, including about "God"?
7. If the Trinity is an incorrect doctrine, then why did Jehovah God suffer it to be widely accepted by followers of Jesus for so long? Why didn't Jehovah God allow Arianism to become the orthodox form of Christianity?
What does "God" or "Providence" teach every believer by allowing every religion in the world to affect only a relative minority of mankind?
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Midget-Sasquatch
Kinda like the tension caused by holding magnets near each other?
I like that analogy. Usually in nature we see "like dissolves like" (<--- works nicely for unity). The two interacting magnetic fields works neatly here. Could the analogy also be stretched in comparing the two different magnetic poles as being two opposing inclinations within the same being? At least the OT Yahweh matches that description (nice, then nasty, then nice again)
Could it be said that man is an extension of logos as an emanation, thus the words of men are further creations in their own right?
This made me think about the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. That the act of a conscious observer results in one reality being fixed from all of the possible ones. We may be bringing forth a reality then, like a creator-god, of sorts.
Creation is only meaningful as creatio continua for the same reason that theology is meaningful from within.
If the multiverses interpretation of quantum mechanics is right, then this process of creation has been going non-stop for a very long time.
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LittleToe
Didier:
I guess we can draw all kinds of sketches since we do it onto the sand anyway...
Sounds good to me
Also, provided we understand that...
A few ground-rules might certainly keep things reasonably on track.
you are coming (dangerously?) close to what I was trying to express in my first post: the radical antagonism between "words" and "things" which even "God" cannot escape.
Just words? Or are thoughts and intents also able to give rise to a changed reality?
The same contemplative questions can apply to both ("what am I looking at?" "who is looking?" / "What am I saying?" "Who is speaking?").
A suitable point for JamesThomas to enter the discussion, methinks
Creation is only meaningful as creatio continua for the same reason that theology is meaningful from within.
Agreed.
Midget:
We may be bringing forth a reality then, like a creator-god, of sorts.
We?
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Narkissos
you are coming (dangerously?) close to what I was trying to express in my first post: the radical antagonism between "words" and "things" which even "God" cannot escape.
Just words? Or are thoughts and intents also able to give rise to a changed reality?I feel "thoughts" and "intents" belong to the realm of logos -- they are inseparably tied in with language. And once the logos has begun changing reality, reality can never be simple (again): as "meaning" and "subject" come into "being," they cannot "be" just as stones, stars, vegetables or animals "are". The logos presupposes being but exceeds it.
That might be, in short, the core of my (friendly) disagreement with JamesThomas: I do agree there is a radical antagonism between language and being, but I am basically wary of a spiritual way which advocates giving up language and getting back into "just being". "Just being" was never what mankind was about imho.
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defd
It is actually very simple when considering the REST of what the bible has to say about it. The word (Jesus) was with God (Jehovah) Simple huh?
D.
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LittleToe
Derrick:Philosophising needen't be factual. It's the fun of examining and expressing the ideas that's so delightful. If turning the pebble happens to bring something valuable to light, so much the better
Didier:
Some fine thoughts to bounce around, here:I feel "thoughts" and "intents" belong to the realm of logos -- they are inseparably tied in with language.
Hmmm. I'm not so sure I'm with you there. Unless you are breaking down the concept of language to the very building blocks of symbol - surely language has more structure than that. I'm put in mind of Einstien's comments concerning simplifying things beyond the point of usefulness. And yet, "thoughts" and "intents" can sometimes be a mere reflection of simple symbol and emotion, to be captured and codified in language. Maybe I'm taking this at too primative a level, though. I concede that structured and articulatable thoughts and intents are inseparably tied in with language.
And once the logos has begun changing reality, reality can never be simple (again): as "meaning" and "subject" come into "being," they cannot "be" just as stones, stars, vegetables or animals "are". The logos presupposes being but exceeds it.
You would need to define "reality" for me. If you mean that which is subjectively realised, rather than that which is objective, I can follow that. To a degree I can also follow the idea of a creative Logos, in this context, though the concept of "eternity" complicates it. We can contain this in "time", if you wish, to simplify it.
That might be, in short, the core of my (friendly) disagreement with JamesThomas: I do agree there is a radical antagonism between language and being, but I am basically wary of a spiritual way which advocates giving up language and getting back into "just being".
I think I see your perspective, and yet looking at Logos from a vantage point of merely "being" is quite different from being active as a creative principle oneself. I would liken it to the stage of Wu Chi moving into Tai Chi in Taoism. This might be likened to the "Spirit" that gives birth to Logos in eternity.
"Just being" was never what mankind was about imho.
I concur. Whilst it is centering, we have to live and have activity in the realised (created) world. Hence it can surely be useful preceding "creative acts", but isn't a desirable fixed state as it stymies part of that which we have - the thing "observed".
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bebu
I am so very un-good at theologically expressing things, but here I go anyway.
I recall a comment I read long ago, don't recall who wrote it, but the gist was that if God truly is love, then that would explain something about the multiplicity of personality in the godhead. That is, that love must love an other. And if God is love, and eternal, then an other must have existed "with" God eternally.
That relationship I think is very akin to male/female relationships here; we complement each other in the differences. The word antagonism conjures up 'conflict', but I don't think this is actually the best word for differences. My husband and I complement each other thru many of our differences, and we still have unity and enjoy what differences there are. (I realize that these are theological terms that are used, but they still tend to give me trouble. I wish there were better terms, but that's where all this hashing out must happen I guess.) Some people believe we created God in our image; but if the reverse is true--that humanity reflects God as individuals, families, societies, and as a whole--then we are an amazing creation.
2 cents... and now back to the regular big guns (who are interesting, when I can catch the references!)
bebu