am i like. stupid. or is it really unclear what john meant by describing christ as the logos. like i know philo and earlier greek philosophers use this to describe a sort of pervading reason or order that comes from god but identifying it with christ is kinda weird right. why dont christians talk about this more. anyway i think it makes somewhat more sense if you think of both christ and the logos as like "emanating"' from god to the material world, like thats their commonality? theres the father up in heaven, and then theres like the way god manifests on earth, via the logos? and then the holy spirit is there for stupid greke reasons. god i cant eblieve were stuck with the holy spirit
ok so if you assume the philo thing is legit then like
Philo also treats the divine powers of God as a single independent being, or demiurge,[50] which he designates "Logos". Philo's conception of the Logos is influenced by Heraclitus' conception of the "dividing Logos" (λόγος τομεύς), which calls the various objects into existence by the combination of contrasts ("Quis Rerum Divinarum Heres Sit," § 43 [i. 503]), as well as the Stoic characterization of the Logos as the active and vivifying power.
But Philo followed the Platonic distinction between imperfect matter and perfect Form, and Philo's conception of the Logos is directly related to the Middle Platonic view of God as unmoved and utterly transcendent, therefore intermediary beings were necessary to bridge the enormous gap between God and the material world.[51] The Logos was the highest of these intermediary beings, and was called by Philo "the first-born of God."[51][52]
man this shit sucks. the ancient greeks were so stupid
i guess this is why its better when it's just cryptic. "jesus is word made flesh" is awesome but if you try to like. make that mean something then its just like. well. calling that logos is kind of silly isnt it.
Language as bridge between the human and the infinite is cool, no? I mean, in terms of the actual mechanics of the universe, this emanation stuff is probably not true, but if you're doing religion anyway, it kicks ass.
In its ability to compose and denote arbitrary concepts, language gives human beings the ability to identify and reach toward the divine, but it's still not identical with the things it represents.
And its ability to name, divide, and order the world is obviously cognate with the act of creation, conjuring shapes and systems from formless and intractable chaos. It's the basis of all complex knowledge, abstract thought, philosophy, science. It makes perfect sense that it's directly beneath God.
hmm. yeah this is pretty convincing. or its like...theres a necker-cube-ness to it, the mystical-ness of language keeps popping back and forth, on one hand a prosaic tool for communicating about collections of matter, on the other hand this weird mystical slippery thing.
anyway i guess this makes identifying it with christ pretty silly tho like hes just not that logos-y. hes mostly just a guy with magic powers. theyre not even language themed really. sometimes he talks to do his powers but i think not always. and also commands are like easily the least interesting part of language
Christ is very logos-y because on the one hand he is the eternal living god-man, whom you are supposed to deal with and he with you on a personal basis. He is a man-shaped Word of God, but here's the problem: when you actually look to see what he is, he's a literary character. Everyone who is having a relationship with Christ, past some very fleeting and practically mythical "apostolic age", is actually having a relationship with a *character*, and characters are made of words. The Evangelists are praised for writing the gospels, and rightly because the recurring theme of anyone who "goes back to the text" is that the Gospels are powerful - the motor of monasticism, Protestantism, Mormonism, the historical-critical method, Frye-and-Bloom literary criticism, and so on - and its power is revealed through Discourse (logos): most powerfully (but inaccessibly except through faith) in the actual parabolic preaching of Jesus, then second in the first tier of Discourse that is the Gospels, then in the third tier of discourse that is the most ancient sacred tradition and the non-gospel New Testament, and then in the fourth, fifth, ... nth tier that is the Church through time.
Christianity is about what happens when you take the idea that "God is Discourse" seriously. It is very dependent on the somewhat wider idea that "at bottom, the world is made of stories" -- which is not at all a purely Christian idea, but is certainly central to the Church.
Does that make me the antichrist?
