LOGOS

Logos  from wikipedia

 

Logos (Greek λόγος) is an important term in philosophy, analytical psychology, rhetoric and religion.

Its semantic field extends beyond "word" to notions such as "thought, speech, account, meaning, reason, proportion, principle, standard", or "logic". In English, the word is the root of "log" (as in record), of "logic," and of the "-ology" suffix (e.g., geology).

Heraclitus established the term in Western philosophy as meaning the fundamental order of the cosmos. The sophists used the term to mean discourse, and Aristotle applied the term to argument from reason.

 

After Judaism came under Hellenistic influence, Philo adopted the term into Jewish philosophy. The Gospel of John identifies Jesus as the incarnation of the Logos, through which all things are made. The gospel further identifies the Logos as God (theos),

 

[edit] Uses in ancient Greek

In ordinary, non-technical Greek, logos had two overlapping meanings:

It meant an instance of speaking: "sentence, saying, oration"; the antithesis with ergon ("action" or "work") was a commonplace. Despite the conventional translation as "word", it is not used for a word in the grammatical sense; that's lexis.

It also means the inward intention underlying the speech act: "opinion, thought, grounds for belief, common sense". ^[1]

[edit] Use in ancient philosophy

Heraclitus (c 535–475 BCE) established the term in Western philosophy and was one of the first to associate it with fire

Heraclitus also used Logos to mean the undifferentiated material substrate from which all things came: "Listening not to me but to the Logos it is wise to agree that all [things] are one." ^{[citation needed]} In this sense, Logos is the arche, the first principle of the cosmos in Pre-Socratic philosophy. Logos therefore designates both the material substrate itself and the universal, mechanical, "just" way in which this substrate manifests itself in and as individual things; that is, it subsumes within itself the later Platonic distinction (in Timaeus) between "form" and "matter".^{[citation needed]}

By the 300s BC, the time of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, logos described the faculty of human reason and the knowledge men had of the world and of each other. ^{[dubious – discuss]}

 Plato allowed his characters to engage in the conceit of describing logos as a living being in some of his dialogues. ^{[citation needed]} The development of the Academy with hypomnemata brought logos closer to the literal text. ^{[citation needed]} Aristotle, who studied under Plato, first developed the concept of logic as depicting the rules of human rationality. ^{[citation needed]}

The Stoics understood Logos as the animating power of the universe.

[edit] Philo of Alexandria

Philo (20 BC - 50 AD), a Hellenized Jew, used the term logos to mean the creative principle. Philo followed the Platonic distinction between imperfect matter and perfect idea. The logos was necessary, he taught, because God cannot come into contact with matter. He sometimes identified logos as divine wisdom.

[edit] Use In Christianity,

the prologue of the Gospel of John calls Jesus "the Logos" . Christians who profess belief in the Trinity often consider this to be a central text in their belief that Jesus is the Divine Son of God, in connection with the idea that God and Jesus are equals.

Other scholars^{[citation needed]}, however, disagree with this translation and the subsequent interpretation of the text.

Some Translations render John 1:1 to state "and the Word was a god" rather than the more Traditional "the Word was God." This translation is seen in Bible Versions such as the NWT, as well as several German Translations.

The Latin Vulgate states, "In principio erat Verbum et Verbum erat apud Deum et Deus erat Verbum" ("In the beginning was the Word: and the Word was with God: and the Word was God.").

The literal Greek text reads: “In beginning was the word, and the word was toward the god, and god was the word.” There are no capitals, and thus the translator must supply them. It is clearly proper to capitalize “God” in translating the phrase “the god,” since this must identify the Almighty God with whom the Word, or Logos, was. However, capitalizing the second instance of the word “god” cannot be justified in the same way.^{[citation needed]}

As noted below, some translations say "the Word was God", while others say "the Word was a god". While it is true that there is no indefinite article ('a', or 'an') in the original Greek text, this is because Koine Greek had no indefinite article in the language. Thus, translators are required to use the indefinite article, or not, based on their understanding of the text.

 

There is good reason for utilizing the indefinite article in translation of this text.^{[citation needed]} Note first that the Word was "with" God, and hence could not "be" Almighty God, although this could be describing the oftentimes unclear relationship between God the Father and Christ the Son, and their equality. Additionally, the word for "god' in it's second occurence is significantly without the definite article "the". Regarding this fact, Ernst Haenchen, in a commentary on the Gospel of John (chapters 1-6), stated: “[the·os′] and [ho the·os′] (‘god, divine’ and ‘the God’) were not the same thing in this period. . . . In fact, for the . . . Evangelist, only the Father was ‘God’ ([ho the·os′]; cf. 17:3); ‘the Son’ was subordinate to him (cf. 14:28). But that is only hinted at in this passage because here the emphasis is on the proximity of the one to the other . . . . It was quite possible in Jewish and Christian monotheism to speak of divine beings that existed alongside and under God but were not identical with him. Phil 2:6-10 proves that. In that passage Paul depicts just such a divine being, who later became man in Jesus Christ . . . Thus, in both Philippians and John 1:1 it is not a matter of a dialectical relationship between two-in-one, but of a personal union of two entities.”—John 1, translated by R. W. Funk, 1984, pp. 109, 110. This may , however, contradict the assertion in many parts of both the New and Old Testament that there is only one God. In Christianity, the concept of the Trinity is used to describe a God of three Persons. The Gospel of John can be seen to confirm that God can be a God of multiple Persons while remaining at the same time one God.

After giving as a translation of John 1:1c “and divine (of the category divinity) was the Word,” Haenchen goes on to state: “In this instance, the verb ‘was’ ([en]) simply expresses predication. And the predicate noun must accordingly be more carefully observed: [the·os′] is not the same thing as [ho the·os′] (‘divine’ is not the same thing as ‘God’).” Other scholars, such as Philip B. Harner elaborate on the grammatical construction found here. (Journal of Biblical Literature, 1973, pp. 85, 87)

 

Some scholars of the Bible have suggested that John made creative use of double meaning in the word "Logos" to communicate to both Jews, who were familiar with the Wisdom tradition in Judaism, and Hellenic polytheism, especially followers of Philo. Each of these two groups had its own history associated with the concept of the Logos, and each could understand John's use of the term from one or both of those contexts. Especially for the Hellenists, however, John turns the concept of the Logos on its head when he claimed "the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us" (v. 14). Similarly, some translations of the Gospel of John into Chinese have used the word "Tao (道)" to translate the "Logos" in a provocative way.

Christian apologist Justin Martyr (c 150) identified Jesus as the Logos. He portrayed Jesus not as "the Maker of all things" but as "the Angel of the Lord", subject to the Maker of all things.^[2]

Early Christians who opposed the concept of Jesus as the Logos were known as alogoi.

John's placement of the Word at creation reflects Genesis, in which God (Elohim) speaks the world into being, beginning with the words "Let there be light." The term Logos ("word") also reflects the term dabar Yahweh" ("Word of God") in the Hebrew Bible.

Gordon Clark (1902 - 1985), a Calvinist theologian and expert on pre-Socratic philosophy, famously translated Logos as "Logic": "In the beginning was the Logic, and the Logic was with God and the Logic was God." He meant to imply by this translation that the laws of logic were contained in the Bible itself and were therefore not a secular principle imposed on the Christian world_view. His theology was founded on propositional truth and logic.

On April 1, 2005, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (who would become Pope Benedict XVI just over two weeks later) referred to the Christian religion as the religion of the Logos:

Christianity must always remember that it is the religion of the "Logos." It is faith in the "Creator Spiritus," in the Creator Spirit, from which proceeds everything that exists. Today, this should be precisely its philosophical strength, in so far as the problem is whether the world comes from the irrational, and reason is not, therefore, other than a "sub-product," on occasion even harmful of its development or whether the world comes from reason, and is, as a consequence, its criterion and goal. The Christian faith inclines toward this second thesis, thus having, from the purely philosophical point of view, really good cards to play, despite the fact that many today consider only the first thesis as the only modern and rational one par excellence. However, a reason that springs from the irrational, and that is, in the final analysis, itself irrational, does not constitute a solution for our problems. only creative reason, which in the crucified God is manifested as love, can really show us the way. In the so necessary dialogue between secularists and Catholics, we Christians must be very careful to remain faithful to this fundamental line: to live a faith that comes from the "Logos," from creative reason, and that, because of this, is also open to all that is truly rational.^[3]

Catholics can use logos to refer to the moral law written in human hearts. This comes from Jeremiah 31:33 (prophecy of new covenant): "I will write my law on their hearts." St. Justin wrote that those who have not accepted Christ but follow the moral law of their hearts (logos) follow God, because it is God who has written the moral law in each person's heart. Though man may not explicitly recognize God, he has the spirit of Christ if he follows Jesus' moral laws, written in his heart. According to Fr. William Most's article for EWTN (Catholic television network), those who have the spirit of Christ belong to the body of Christ. He writes, "Those who follow the Spirit of Christ, the Logos who writes the law on their hearts, are Christians, are members of Christ, are members of His Church. They may lack indeed external adherence; they may never have heard of the Church. But yet, in the substantial sense, without formal adherence, they do belong to Christ, to His Church."

그리스 철학과 신학에서 우주에 내재하면서 우주를 다스리고 우주에 형식과 의미를 부여하는 신(神)의 이성으로 이해되는 개념.

'로고스'라는 용어로 정의되는 개념은 그리스·인도·이집트·페르시아 등의 철학·신학 체계에서 찾아볼 수 있지만, 그리스도교 문헌과 교리에서 특히 중요한 의미를 가진다.

그리스 사상에서 로고스 개념은 적어도 BC 6세기의 철학자 헤라클레이토스까지 거슬러 올라간다. 그는 우주의 진행과정에는 인간의 이성능력과 비슷한 어떤 로고스가 존재한다고 생각했다(→ 그리스 종교).

 

그 뒤 키티온의 사상가 제논(BC 4~3세기)의 가르침을 따르는 스토아 학파는 로고스를 모든 실재에 스며 있는 활동적인 이성적·정신적 원리로 규정했다. 그들은 로고스를 섭리, 자연, 신과 우주적 영혼 등으로 불렀으며 이 로고스는 우주의 로고스에 포함되어 있는 많은 종자 '로고이'(logoi)로 이루어져 있다고 보았다.

 

1세기 유대인 철학자 알렉산드리아의 필론은 로고스가 신과 우주를 매개하고 창조를 수행하며 인간정신이 신의 존재를 믿고 신의 뜻을 따르게 하는 역할을 한다고 가르쳤다. 필론과 중세 플라톤주의자(BC 4세기 그리스의 대표적인 철학자 플라톤의 가르침을 종교용어로 해석한 사람들)에 따르면, 로고스는 세계에 내재하며 동시에 초월적인 신적 정신이었다.