From: Steven Craig Miller (scmiller@plantnet.com)
Date: Tue Jan 09 2001 - 08:59:17 EST
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To: David McKay,
David McKay wirtes: << Virgil said: The further we go into the New
Testament, the more this distinction is brought to be. Look for example at
1 John 4:8 where John makes the awesome declaration that actually described
AGAPE when he says, " The very God is existing as the very ( dative case,
singular ) personification of AGAPE." Yes, God is AGAPE, hence whatever
AGAPE is....it can be seen by looking at who and what God is. >>
The prophet Isaiah writes: "All people are grass" (Is 40:6c NRSV). Could
one learn all about grass merely by looking at people, or learn all about
people merely from looking at grass? Or do such metaphors have there
limits? The statement "God is love" (1 John 4:7d NRSV) is also a metaphor.
And surely any interpretation of this metaphor goes far beyond Greek
Grammar and the limits of this list. A similar metaphor occurs in John's
Gospel: "God is spirit" (Jn 4:24a NRSV). Some have interpreted this
metaphor to prove that God is immaterial, since they think of "spirit" as
immaterial. But some early Christians understood this passage to be proof
that God is material, since an ancient metaphysics PNEUMA was considered to
be a material substance. David L. Paulsen [1990] wrote, "The view that God
is incorporeal, without body or parts, has been the hallmark of Christian
orthodoxy, but in the beginning it was not so. ... ordinary Christians for
at least the first three centuries of the current era commonly (and perhaps
generally) believed God to be corporeal. The belief was abandoned (and then
only gradually) as Neoplatonism became more and more entrenched as the
dominant world view of Christian thinkers" (HTR 83/2:105). And John 4:24a
(among other verses) was used to support such a notion.
-Steven Craig Miller
Alton, Illinois (USA)
Old e-mail address: scmiller@plantnet.com
New e-mail address: stevencraigmiller@home.com
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