Hart uses the absence of “theios” to underscore why the anarthrous “theos” in John 1:1c cannot be rendered as “a god”
No he doesn’t. You just made that up. 🙄
Hart wrote that it “could justly” be translated “a god” in Atheist Delusions and reaffirmed this view in his recent interview: the exact opposite of the words you attempt to put in his mouth. He said:
here what you have is not necessarily co-equal identity but of continuity. It is still saying the Logos is “god” but it not equating it there with God most high, and this is quite common right up through to the fourth century in Christian thought that still a very strong, what is considered an orthodox strain of thought (orthodox with a small “o”), especially in the east up until the council of Nicaea, and after, for along time after, there is a kind of subordination ascension, God most high is God in the proper sense, God the Father, and then the Logos is deuteros theos, you find this say in a Jewish thinker like Philo, but also in Christian thinkers, you can read say Eusebius before Nicaea gives you a pretty clear notion of what many consider to be orthodox Christianity in which there is not a co-equality, there is a continuity but it is vague. It can even, in the case of Arianism, the son can be seen as created and there is an ambiguity between creation and generation.
Then Hart goes on to say John 20.28 May be an exception where Jesus is ho Theos, but maybe not, it might be “honorific”, it was “debated”, or it might be an exclamation. That’s what Hart says, contrary to what you say he says.