Rom. 8:28... adverbial or adjectival prepositional phrase?

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Paul Thomson
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Re: Rom. 8:28... adverbial or adjectival prepositional phras

Post by Paul Thomson »

Stephen Carlson wrote:
Paul Thomson wrote:Why do you say "there is no noun in the clause"? κλητοῖς (invitees) is a noun?
It seems to me that κλητοῖς is a verbal adjective, especially in connection with οὖσιν.
Paul Thomson wrote:If κατὰ πρόθεσιν were adjectival, then the invitees under consideration are those who are κατὰ πρόθεσιν, as opposed to the invitees who are not κατὰ πρόθεσιν. By this I would consider Paul to be equating those who love God to those invitees who are living/behaving according to God's purpose, and he would be saying that God works all things for good for such people. There are invitees who are not living/behaving according to God's purpose, but are misbehaving. These don't love God and cannot expect God to work all things for their good.
I'm not understanding the logic of the adjectival proposal, because when you paraphrase it, it is still adverbial "living according to God's purpose" or "behaving according to God's purpose." So the alternatives are not really adverbial vs. adjectival, but adverbial with a verb in the text (called) vs. adverbial with a verb not in the text (living/behaving). I think it simpler to go with the verb in the text instead of a verb not in the text.
If the phrase is adverbial it will further define a verb, in this case "being", and tell us how they are being invitees, namely that they are invitees by God's design, not by accident.
If the phrase is adjectival, it will further define which invitees are being considered, namely that it is those invitees that are according to God's purpose, not those invitees that are not according to God's purpose. Then one considers what qualifies some invitees to be classed as being "according to God's purpose" and other invitees as being "not according to his purpose".

Clearly, in the second case, according to God's purpose v. not according to God's purpose cannot equate to by God's design v. by accident. My suggestion was that an invitee who is classified as "acccording to God's purpose" is one who is "as God intended him to be" or "according to God's requirements"; and one who is "not according to God's purpose" is one who is departing from God's requirements.

I gave a biblical example, which I thought would make my point obvious, because I thought that would be contextually relevant to another biblical text. The invitee was identified as "one not according to the king's purpose" (adjectival phrase) because he was not wearing a supplied wedding garment. Wear is a verb, and in explaining why the invitee was "not according to the king's purpose" I would have to say, in that he was not DOING what the king required. But that does not make "according to the king's purpose" adverbial if I say "The king honours all those invitees who respect his rules, who are according-to-the-king's-purpose-invitees, but he throws out those who are not according-to-his-purpose-invitees."

To put the sense of this into good ENGLISH, I would have to say something like "The king honours all those who respect his rules, invitees who are submitting to his wedding plans, but he throws out those invitees who are not submitting to his wedding plans."

You appear to expect this Koine Greek text to be rendered into English while keeping the exact same grammatical structure. Sometimes one cannot convey the idea encapsulated in one language so directly into another. The Greek is a much more compact way of saying what the English equivalent would be. That does not make the English rendition necedssarily wrong, does it?

God bless.

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Stephen Carlson
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Re: Rom. 8:28... adverbial or adjectival prepositional phras

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Paul Thomson wrote:I gave a biblical example, which I thought would make my point obvious, because I thought that would be contextually relevant to another biblical text. The invitee was identified as "one not according to the king's purpose" (adjectival phrase) because he was not wearing a supplied wedding garment. Wear is a verb, and in explaining why the invitee was "not according to the king's purpose" I would have to say, in that he was not DOING what the king required. But that does not make "according to the king's purpose" adverbial if I say "The king honours all those invitees who respect his rules, who are according-to-the-king's-purpose-invitees, but he throws out those who are not according-to-his-purpose-invitees."
Where in Matt 22:1-14 is "not according to the king's purpose"??? I can't find it.
Paul Thomson wrote:You appear to expect this Koine Greek text to be rendered into English while keeping the exact same grammatical structure.
Oh, not at all.
Paul Thomson wrote:Sometimes one cannot convey the idea encapsulated in one language so directly into another. The Greek is a much more compact way of saying what the English equivalent would be. That does not make the English rendition necedssarily wrong, does it?
That's all fine, but there's a danger that supplying words becomes a license to read whatever one wants into the text.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
Paul Thomson
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Joined: June 1st, 2011, 6:30 pm

Re: Rom. 8:28... adverbial or adjectival prepositional phras

Post by Paul Thomson »

Stephen Carlson wrote:
Paul Thomson wrote:I gave a biblical example, which I thought would make my point obvious, because I thought that would be contextually relevant to another biblical text. The invitee was identified as "one not according to the king's purpose" (adjectival phrase) because he was not wearing a supplied wedding garment. Wear is a verb, and in explaining why the invitee was "not according to the king's purpose" I would have to say, in that he was not DOING what the king required. But that does not make "according to the king's purpose" adverbial if I say "The king honours all those invitees who respect his rules, who are according-to-the-king's-purpose-invitees, but he throws out those who are not according-to-his-purpose-invitees."
Where in Matt 22:1-14 is "not according to the king's purpose"??? I can't find it.
Are you trying to suggest that the invitee who was thrown out was nevertheless "being according to the king's purpose" before he was thrown out? And the invitees who were wearing the wedding garments that the king expected were nevertheless "not being according to the king's purpose"? I really don't follow the grounds for your objection to my referencing the afforementioned parable as illustrative of what "according to his purpose" would mean if taken as a prepositional phrase rather than adverbial.

God bless

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Stephen Carlson
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Re: Rom. 8:28... adverbial or adjectival prepositional phras

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Hi Paul. This forum about the Greek text of the Bible. It is not about systematic theology. Thus, it seems that the discussion has ventured into off-topic areas.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
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