In the beginning was the word

There are many kinds of influence. A logos is a particular kind of influence. Logos became a technical term in philosophy, beginning with Heraclitus, who used the term for a principle of order and knowledge. Philo distinguished between logos prophorikos (the uttered word) and the logos endiathetos (the word remaining within).The Stoics also spoke of the logos spermatikos (the generative principle of the Universe). Based on the context of John 1, I’d say the latter meaning applies most directly i.e. logos as the creative, generating word.

Perhaps replace ‘word’ with ‘information‘, and we may be somewhat nearer to what is meant?

I don’t think it was a coincidence that both Heraclitus, who coined the word Logos, and the gospel of John, who used the word Logos, were both of Ephesus. Logos must have been the mindset in Ephesus.

I seriously doubt that John used the actual word “Logos”. Logos is a particular concept that the translators recognized. It means “the fundamental reason/logic” (ie. “First Cause”, “God”, or in QM “Standard Model”).

I seriously doubt that John wrote the gospel of John. Not to mention that Acts 4:13 says both John and Peter were illiterate.

Btw, another “word” for “Logos” is “ToE” - “Theory of Everything”.

Reference please? Or are you being arbitrary?

In the Chinese Bible Logos is translated as Dao, or Tao. That’s a good fit.

“Arbitrary”??

Yep. Same concept; “The Way” [it All works].
…or were you being arbitrary?

What, no reference? Are you pulling that the Logos is ToE out yer backside?

Here’s my reference :
“Tao is God, according to the Chinese who translate Gospel John 1:1 thus: “In the beginning was the Tao, and the Tao was with God, and the Tao was God.” According to the English translation of the Bible, the Word is God.” http://www.thegreattao.com/html/introfounderyelemp.html. You can find much more proof that the Logos is translated in Chinese into Tao all over the web.

Now how about a valid reference to back your claim? You know better than to make claims without backing them up.

When you actually know the Logos that they were talking about, their efforts to translate what other people meant, doesn’t carry much weight.
Yes, I pulled it out of my “backside” (which is more respectable than most other sources on many subjects ).

Or were you looking for a debate?

No, just looking for some reference or source documentation that Logos is the ToE.

First of all we don’t have a theory of everything. Second, how does the Logos relate to the ToE? Does it provide the missing answer to the ToE?

The Logos (“reasoning”) of Jesus was proposed as their “Theory of Everything”.
Quantum Mechanics’s “Theory of Everything” is the “Standard Model”. That is why they were so enthused about trying to find the Higg’s boson.
But Rational Metaphysics has the real ToE, “Principles of Affectance”, and includes all of their concerns and more.

Simply put, what the writer was expressing was that Christ, as the Word, was with the father from the beginning through all of eternity…he did not just have his origin at the moment of conception. Sort of an expression of the Blessed Trinity (along with the Holy Spirit) for those who believe.

Though I’m agnostic, I might subtitute “Word” used here for Reality.

In the beginning was the reality. Now it finally makes sense. Thanks AD …

[size=150]CAUSE OF[/size] Reality …
…jezzz… get it straight.

Again reference please. As I understand it we don’t have a ToE, and therefore no model.

If I claimed the Logos is the ToE I would have gone with : “. . . and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.”

They call the Higgs Boson the God particle. But more accurately, according to the opening of the gospel of John, it’s the Jesus particle. The Higgs is scratchin down to the Jesus Logos.

Heraclitus of Ephesus coined the word Logos. To him it basically meant “the creating and sustaining force of the cosmos.” Now isn’t that what the narrator of John is saying? Didn’t John then, with the Logos concept, weave in Greek paganism into the early primitive Christ movement?

But I think I might be getting closer to understanding your claim that the Logos is the ToE. Thanks for explaining St. James …

You say “we” as if the entire human race was some open, visible collective.

They rightfully fear boasting that it is the actual “ToE”.

A Logos can be properly fit into very many paradigms and remain accurate. It is mostly just an issue of what is being meant by the variety of names that a culture has been using. The Roman and Greek “gods” were actual/real concepts to those who understood it all. The population assumes all kinds of anthropomorphic wierdness and is seldom told otherwise (anything for the sake of faith). So no doubt John and his speakers spoke in terms of whatever the Greeks could understand. To do otherwise would be pretty foolish. But that isn’t the same as lying to get support. but rather merely attempting to communicate as closely as possible. I don’t know that they didn’t “cheat” in some way, but I doubt it.

As far as I can tell, even the Apostles couldn’t fully understand the Logos to the degree that Jesus would have preferred. Having experience in that type of arena, I can tell you that getting anyone to fully see a precise concept is very difficult. Gautama stated that after forty years and over 100 direct disciples, there was only one of them that actually “got it”… and they were speaking the same language and had similar backgrounds (very unlike the Jews and Greeks).

I don’t know if you are being ‘real’ or facetious here.

Cause of Reality…but James, that would only be true if there is a divine reality - one phrase for god. Oh, what the hell, something has to have been the cause of all of this…but god is such a boring explanation for it…tells us nothing.
How very many so-called Big Bangs were there before our universe came into existence and what was the cause for the first one and what was the cause for the cause? It is so very interesting, isn’t it?
James, are you a priest?

Oh I very much agree that merely saying “believe in God” is kind of an empty phrase leading people to rather believe in what the local priests say rather than God Himself, thus Jesus proclaimed that “The Spirit of God is within you”. Of course he was talking only to his Church at the time.

All of that is trivially resolved. The idea that the entire universe began out of nothingness into a Big Bang was silly from the start. That isn’t to say that there wasn’t a BB at some point, but there is no big mystery or magic as to its cause.

I couldn’t afford the pay cut.