Introduction

I'll try to explain my present poorly formed understanding of what we
christians call God, the Father and the Word.

My explanations are by no means perfect,
with lots of gap and is subject to futher review

What is God, who is the being?

I'll call the being 'him' to simplify my language.

Let's start our exploration by using an example of fire/flame
(even if its not too accurate) to try to conceptualise this being

Fire has a number of properties
it provides light, it can warm and it can burn, it can melt gold etc

However, our perception of fire is many times what we harness it to perform.


ASSERTION 1:
God likewise is everything and yet nothing
in this being there is male, female, variety of beings, good, evil,
begining, end, planets, universes, finite and infinite, time and timelessnes

What is God, who is the being? ....cntd

Within this concept of God, every human ultimately connects
or seeks to connect to him.

The guy who worships a tree, seeks to connect to a a part of this God concept
probaly the part of seasonal renewal.

The Aethist armed with science, dismisses him as being non-existent
but goes ahead to trace the source of all material-being to a big bang.
Withing the science circle it is acknowledged that this big bang comes from nothing

What is God, who is the being? ....cntd

The anti-xtian leaning Aethist might even point out
that the old testament is replete of stories of God induced genocides
and that a God who is described as loving is ever so willing
to fling infedels and criminals alike into a furnace that burns forever
A judgement that even the most strictest of judicial systems
would cringe at doing

Such genocides lying side by side with declaration of love
is even described by some Aethists as schizophrenic

The devil worshiper, acknowledges that
there is a rebel spirit being that he'd like to connect to


All of this when viewed detachedly by a God believer
seems to suggest that my ASSERTION 1 has some credence

So what is the WORD?

I'll give another imperfect anology using Nairaland
In the world of Nairaland, there is some someone out there that
is an unknown, undescribed entity. He has never logged on to Nairaland

The first knowledge/ ascription of the person is when the person clicks on NL
we can then describe the person as 1 guest viewing

The person goes further to register on NL and dorns a moniker
the person is no longer a guest, but is now recognisable by a name

As the person writes, we begin to see a pattern/characteristics of the person
With further contributions from the moniker, we can better describe the persons xteristics

So what is the WORD? ....cntd

ASSERTION 2:
The WORD is the defined attribute of God that puts things into context

Now lets go to John's gospel.
He starts by saying "In the beginning was the word,
and the word was with God, and the word was God

Utilizing my ASSERIONs 1 and 2, this is what I see:
there was always God -the all and timeless
however, there was a point that the All God characterised himself by the WORD
this is what is decribed as the begining

So the Word was indeed with God and was God. The same was in the beginging with God

so what/who is the father?

Now this one and the SPIRIT are the concepts
i've not been able to conviniently conceptualize

I vaguely feel that the FATHER concept stradles between the All God and the Word
probaly an expression that captures and embodies the sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham
and thus establishes a unique father and son convenant between God and christ/man


.."For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son"

....***scratches my head, picks my bible and whistles away ***

Interesting approach, esere826. There are some questions though? What quality does God as you have defined him here would be responsible for the fact of creation? That is, why does this being that is everything and nothing, that contains good and evil, male and female and so on bother to create?

Secondly, how exactly would you say that the Word was with God?

ihedinobi2:
Interesting approach, esere826. There are some questions though? What quality does God as you have defined him here would be responsible for the fact of creation? That is, why does this being that is everything and nothing, that contains good and evil, male and female and so on bother to create?

Secondly, how exactly would you say that the Word was with God?

Based on this theory
this being could have made a choice to create a system and made a choice to make that system have an order and made the choice to respect that order

Probably, the point in timelessness were this decision was taken was what what the writer of John considered as the beginning
and that decision was the word itself
so in the beginning, the Word was with God

still within my rough likely wrong sketch
if we try to juxtapose that concept against the theological christian beliefs about christ it could be any or both of these:
the word was the authority name that was bestowed upon the human christ
that he became the human merged with all the esence of the Word and became God

or that the Word was the spirit that was breathed in baby Jesus
so Jesus carried all the Word and its/he's powers plus the blueprints of the universal rules which had been established in the beginning of tangibility

uhmmm... this sound like those funny messages now