Re: John 1:1c

From: alanf@mdhost.cse.tek.com
Date: Wed Aug 16 1995 - 20:43:47 EDT


Ken Pulliam wrote:

>1) The Word was the God (THEOS is inherently definite).
>2) The Word was a god (THEOS is indefinite).
>3) The Word was God (THEOS is qualitative).

That is my understanding of the possibilities. According to the reading
I've done, 1) is neither grammatically nor contextually possible. Is
this not correct?

As for 2), we also have variation "deity," "divine," "nature of ..."
and so on. Correct?

As for 3), it does not give the full meaning of the Greek, either
the basic words or the cultural context in which John wrote. Correct?

>I appreciate your quote from Murray Harris, but I wonder if you have
>misunderstood him. I don't think he is saying that Paul, Jesus, etc.
>were polytheists.

Yes, I realize that. What I meant, and perhaps did not make clear, was
that if Harris' argument about polytheism were correct, we must conclude
that Paul, etc. were polytheists. Since this is not acceptable we must
reject Harris' argument.

>The Maltans certainly were and thus the rendering in
>Acts is appropriate (similar situation with Nebuchadnezzar in Dan. 3).
>But in the case of Paul and Jesus, I think you have to understand their
>words in the context of 1 Cor. 8. There are many gods and lords as far as
>the pagan world is concerned. In a sense, anything that is worshipped is
>a god but that does not mean that it is truly God. I will admit that
>Harris' language is a little confusing.

This is an interesting point, and I'd appreciate some insight from
people who have studied the cultural context. The Greeks and others
around them believed in a pantheon of gods. These gods were as real
to them as our God is to us. These gods were worshiped, even though
most of them were imaginary idols.

In certain cases, though, as I described in my previous post, worship
was rendered to a "god" that is a real, live entity -- Satan. By all
Greek cultural practices that I'm aware of, Satan was a god -- not
THE GOD, of course, but a god that really exists. Jesus believed that
Satan existed, and would have called him a god. Yet Jesus certainly
cannot be described as polytheistic, nor did he ever think that this
god was God.

I know this may be somewhat confusing, but I've seen many commentators
take advantage of such confusion to argue their position.

In certain cases the OT describes situations where "by the power of
the gods" miracles were performed, such as when the Egyptian magicians
were able to perform miracles that more-or-less duplicated those Moses
performed before Pharaoah. These miracles could only have been
performed by powerful, unseen spirit forces such as the Israelites
were warned against contacting through spells and so on. Greeks would
rightly call these spirit forces gods.

>From this I would conclude that the culture in which NT Greek was
spoken allowed that "gods" were real entities. The early Christians,
of course, did not worship those gods -- whether they were imaginary
idols or the powerful spirit forces behind devilish miracles is not
relevant -- even though Christians acknowledged their existence. I
think there is a good deal of confusion on the part of people who say
that mere acknowledgement that other "gods" exist is equivalent to
polytheism. The question is one of worship, not existence. Believing
that real, live gods exist does not imply belief that these are the
same as THE GOD. We need to take the Greek cultural context into
account when talking about this subject.

Any comments on these arguments would be appreciated.

Alan Feuerbacher
alanf@mdhost.cse.tek.com



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