Sunday, December 24, 2023

D. Charles Pyle on Colossians 1:15-20

But another situation is the occurrence of the singular verbs that correlate with the Greek phrase τα παντα here. This is to be expected since this often is taken as a collective plural. Here we need to discuss and give further consideration not the cosmological meaning of this pertinent Greek phrase. One such definition is “the universe.” There are several passages where this phrase has such a meaning. A number of these are listed in Greek-English Lexicons. Some of such passages are as follows: Romans 11:36; 1 Corinthians 8:6; Ephesians 1:10; 3:9; Hebrews 1:3; 2:20 (the longer reading of Revelation 4:11 also is found in the same list). But this meaning parallels that sometimes in the Greek τα παντα (from which English gets its word cosmos) that is seen in Acts 17:24. In such usage it refers to the material or observable universe as a whole. So it is with the Greek phrase κοσμος. To this list, based on textual and other evidence, the author feels that the passage at Colossians 1:16-20 should be added. (The following are also reasons why I think it would be so understood in Colossians 1:15-20.)

 

For instance, in the text of verse 20 Paul was not writing that literally everything was to be reconciled to God, including all evil angels and those who refuse to know Christ. Rather, he was arguing that God was reconciling the material universe to himself. To understand τα παντα in verse 20 in any other way is to introduce considerable confusion. We must take it either to mean that literally everything will be reconciled to God through Christ, or to mean that the material universe is to be reconciled to God through the Christ (with the exception of certain other individuals, such as evil angels, reprobates, etc.). This latter meaning and understanding makes far more sense in relation to the entire teaching of the Bible, which also states that the Devil himself definitely will not be reconciled to God (compare, for instance, Revelation 20:10).

 

This further is solidified by giving consideration to how Greek readers and hearers would have understood the above Colossians passage in question, in hearing it read. The Greek dialect in which the Greek New Testament is written was the common street language of the day in most provinces of the Roman Empire. The cultural understanding underlying these words also should be resorted to if we are to understand the cosmological sense that the Greeks would see in this scripture passage. How would the ancient Greeks have understood the meaning of the phrase, or its constituent words? How would people in general have understood the meaning of the words all things in a cosmological sense? The philosophers said that “The first cause of everything is Zeus and also all things form Zeus.” (Greek: αρχη απαντων Ζευς τε και εκ Διος παντα [from Aelius Aristides]) Yet, what else do we know about Zeus, the god of the Greeks? We also know that he not only had a father, named Kronos, who also had a father named Ouranos, but he also had a number of brothers and sisters who coexisted with him. And yet Zeus was known to the Greeks as “the father of gods and men.” (“Then terribly thundered the father of gods and men form on high” [Homer, Iliad 20.56-57]) This cosmological background of the words most likely is that Greeks would have had in mind and understood upon hearing that τα παντα was created by Christ.

 

In its cosmological meaning, usage, and also background, as well as the fuller contexts of this passage (as well as of other passages) the text here refers to the material or the observable universe, as a whole, rather than speaking literally of each and every single thing including all the individual elements used in the universe’s organization. It becomes a case of missing the entire forest for the trees to accept the latter meaning. But it cannot be used to attack the LDS doctrine of creation using matter or element. If we did take this passage hyperliterally, merely at its face value, to address in its meaning each and every single thing, then the same has to be done with verse 20 of this passage. That would make little to no sense in light of the Bible, when taken as a whole. The same words occur in the same overall unit of thought, so it is extremely unlikely that Paul suddenly would thus switch the meaning on his readers in this selfsame sentence like that without some sort of clarification. An English translation that takes into consideration all of the above could be rendered similarly to what follows:

 

Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation: For by means of him the universe was created, the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth, the things visible and the things invisible, whether thrones or dominions, whether principalities or powers: the universe through him and for him was created: and he is before all else, and by him the universe is constituted, and he is the head of the body of the Church: he who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all he might be preeminent; for it seemed good to God that in him should all the fulness dwell, and through him to reconcile the universe to Himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross; through him, whether the things upon the earth or things in the heavens.

 

The translation is consistent, true to the meaning of the Greek text, and eliminates potential pitfalls in understanding. But in any case, the above passage in the Bible is not of as great utility as the critics long have thought was the situation. It does not even address the LDS doctrine of the creation! With all of the passages that have the cosmological meaning the situation is similar, so long as we all keep context and underlying meaning in mind while reading. None of those passages address the situation either. None use the Greek word that in texts more absolutely means everything, or the whole, neither απας nor any of its forms. But even that word can have its own inherently limited meaning in some passages where it is found.

 

D. Charles Pyle, I Have Said Ye Are Gods: Concepts Conducive to the Early Christian Doctrine of Deification in Patristic Literature and the Underlying Strata of the Greek New Testament (Revised and Supplemented) (North Charleston, S.C.: CreateSpace, 2018), 333-37


. . . in Colossians 1:16 the root word is κτιζω, and its most ancient usage means I fabricate, or, I organize, or, I colonize, or, I found a city or a colony. It is the action of a process of organization. Assuming that angels are referred to here (and that is not yet a given herein), did the writer intend to convey the thought that Jesus created all the angels from scratch, or rather that he organized the angels into ranks and orders? The actual meanings of the Greek words in Colossians 1:16 herein rendered “thrones, dominions, principalities and powers,” due to the lack of the article, are abstractive (this also is conducive to the idea of organizing orders or ranks of angels), rather than absolute (which would refer to the beings). It only is by metonymy (the substitution of the name of an attribute for the thing meant) that most everyone else (excepting some scholars and some few of the early Christian writers) assumed that these classes of beings actually were certain types of angels. But does this passage refer to angels at all? If it actually did, then why did it not specifically name angels at all? If it actually did, then why did it not specially name angels as being among the creations of Jesus? Again, let there be called to mind the distinct absence in Colossians 1:16 of the mention of angels as being created by Christ, as well as the fact that both Paul and Peter (in other places in scripture cited above) make mention of principalities and powers, with the addition of the angels as a separate class. Was this a simple oversight of a sort on the part of Paul? Or, was it deliberate? Paul himself elsewhere lists angels and those titles as separated classes. Colossians 1:16 mentions things in heaven and in earth but also does not differentiate or specify.

 

So then, are the principalities and so forth, earthly things and not heavenly, or vice versa? Or, do they dwell in both the realms of heaven and earth? Or, are thrones and dominions paralleled with visible things, and principalities and powers paralleled with invisible things? Or, are they names of offices only? Which really is the case here? It also is worth noting, in relation to the above line of questioning, that “it is disputed whether the authorities esp[ecially] in the Pauline literature, . . . are supernatural powers . . .” . (Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, 2:11) Origen casts doubt upon this as well. While discussing these terms within another context, he writes concerning them, that:

 

“Throne” is not a species of living being, nor “dominion,” nor “principality,” nor “power”; these are names of the businesses to which those clothed with the names have been appointed; the subjects themselves are nothing but men, but the subject has some to be a throne, or a dominion, or a principality, or a power. (Origen’s Commentary on John II.17)

 

Indeed, if these subjects only are men, as Origen suggested—and he would have recognized that those Greek terms actually are abstractive—then, even if we took the passage the most literal way possible, it could be set down as a correct view in the most literal of meanings, for the creation of man on earth indeed was by means of Christ Jesus. If so, it does not make any contact against the teachings of the LDS Christian faith, and critics still cannot use this as a weapon against LDS views and doctrines on the creation, or even in correlation with the critics’ ideation that this verse somehow argues against the LDS idea that Lucifer is related to all mankind, and to Christ.

 

Ibid., 344-46

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