Commenting
on the term αορατος (“unseen”/”invisible”)
as used in texts such as Col 1:15, Andrew Malone, himself a Trinitarian, wrote
the following:
The meaning
of ‘invisible’
Scholars may sometimes intend ‘invisible’ in
a nuanced fashion. But the word is no longer adequate as a convenient
shorthand. It is now too easily misunderstood and any nuance overlooked. We
need to reconsider what we understand when encountering this word—and what the
biblical authors themselves intended us to understand . . . As the Old
Testament drew to a close, Greek thought increasingly flourished. Philosophers
such as Plato (428-347 BC) and Aristotle (384-322 BC) probed the visible and
invisible realms. Plato especially was fond of describing divinity negatively:
God should be unlike anything in the imperfect created order. If creation is ‘visible’,
by definition God must be ‘in-visible’. And so a new Greek term was birthed.
The adjective for ‘visible’, oratos
(itself only recent; sometimes written horatos),
yielded a-oratos. It’s aoratos that occurs in key New Testament
passages (Col. 1:15; 1 Tim. 1:17; Heb. 11:27) and that has cemented the notion
of ‘invisible’ in Christian language.
Before considering such passages, it is
instructive to consider how other Greek authors of the era understood and used
the word.
Josephus’ life overlapped with Jesus’
disciples’ (AD 37-100). Josephus uses aoratos
to depict things that ‘are not seen’
more than things that strictly ‘cannot
be seen’. At least five of his seven uses mean this. He describes the
off-limits interior of the Jewish temple, a city concealed in the mountains, a
cave at the bottom of a well, and the deep valleys around the fortress mesa of
Masada. Only once does he describe something intrinsically invisible, the human
soul, which ‘remains invisible to human eyes, just as God himself’. This
application, including mention of God, is important. But the other uses show
that aoratos confirms only that something is unseen; it does not
explain why the object cannot be
viewed (Respectively, Josephus, Jewish
War 1.7.6 §152 [Antiquities 14.4.4
§71]; 3.7.7 §160; 3.8.1. §341; 7.8.3 §280; 7.8.7 §346).
This same sense is attested by another
contemporary author, Plutarch (AD 46-120). Souls and divine forces are ‘invisible’,
especially when he echoes forebears such as Plato and Aristotle. Yet Plutarch
also uses the word for tangible items hidden from view. He writes of captive
women who have been cloistered from men, ‘incommunicado and invisible to others’.
He describes war catapults and signal fires strategically stationed to be ‘invisible
to the enemies’ (Respectively, Plutarch, Alexander
21.3; Marcellus 15.5; Romulus 29.5). The Greek word aoratos has the broader sense, and the
English translation ‘invisible’ may be too narrow or misunderstood.
Scholars who delve into the origins and
applications of the word confirm this broader sense. One wide-ranging study of
theophanies summarizes it this way: ‘In Classical Greek invisibility is
normally affected [sic] by materially
obstructing visibility’; it is not at all a statement about (in)tangibility. A
standard Greek dictionary like-wise promulgates this breadth of meaning: ‘unseen,
not to be seen, invisible’ (Respectively, W. Wesley Williams, ‘Tajallī wa-Ru’ya: A Study of
Anthropomorphic Theophany and Visio Dei
in the Hebrew Bible, the Qur’ān and Early Sunnī Islam’ [PhD diss., University
of Michigan, 2008], p. 30-34 [quote on p. 31]; Henry George Liddell and Robert
Scott, An Intermediate Greek-English
Lexicon [Oxford: Clarendon, 1889], p. 86).
This is further affirmed by similar negated
adjectives in the New Testament. Preaching in Athens, Paul mentions an altar
dedicated ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD’ (Acts 17:23). Paul means ‘a god not currently known’ rather than one
forever knowable. Jesus fences with the Pharisees about people eating with ‘unwashed
hands’ (Matt. 15:20). He obviously means hands that ‘have not been washed’ rather than those that ‘cannot be washed’ (cf. Mark 7:2, esp. NRSV). The general consensus,
backed by Paul’s own explanation, is that the ‘inexpressible words’ he heard in
a heavenly vision are not cleared for publication (2 Cor. 12:4, esp. NRSV,
ESV); it’s less likely he is describing concepts for which there is no adequate
language. A similar phrase occurs elsewhere as Paul describes the Spirit’s
interceding through ‘unspoken groanings’ (Rom. 8:26 HCSB); though less
consensus exists here, most scholars again affirm that the Spirit could (but
does not) articulate his intercessions.
In short, there’s every basis to take such
negated adjectives as describing something that, for whatever reason, does not
happen. There is no claim being made as to whether it could happen or not. This means it’s far wiser to translate aoratos as something that is currently ‘unseen’,
not something that is permanently ‘invisible’. (Andrew Malone, Knowing Jesus in the Old Testament? A Fresh
Look at Christophanies [Nottingham: Inter-Varsity Press, 2015], 47-50)
In other
words, as LDS apologists have been arguing for a long time, αορατος is not about the ontological nature of God; instead, it just means God
is “unseen” in the sense we cannot see him, not that it is impossible to see
him as he has no “form” or is, ontologically, invisible. On Col 1:15, see Anthony Hoekema on Man being in the "Image" and "Likeness" of God
With respect
to 1 Tim 1:17 and 6:16, two common "proof-texts" against the historicity of the First Vision, Malone wrote:
In the first and last chapters of this
letter, Paul breaks into praise of ‘the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the
only God . . . who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can
see’. Once again, the New Testament seems to teach that God cannot be seen and,
thus, has not been. Case closed? . . . this may be a way of praising God’s
excellence without fully defining him as never
seen, never mortal, and so on. Thus we need to determine whether Paul is
praising God this way because God is unique
in all these respects or whether Paul is using this idiom as part of his
rhetoric without intending the claims to be taken as absolutes.
Long story
short: reading these as absolute claims creates many more difficulties than if
we see them as a way of exalting God with superlative idioms. Consider the
problems if we insist that Paul is being completely definitive.
The word ‘only’ recurs several times in these
doxologies, praising ‘the only God’, ‘the . . . only Ruler, the King of kings
and Lord of lords, who alone [only] is immortal’ (1:17; 6:15-16). We have to
presume that Paul is describing God the Father; if the Son is addressed in any
way, a new dilemma is created with the Son himself praised as ‘invisible’! But
then it’s the Father who is the ‘only Ruler’. Common sense tells us that the
word ‘only’ is being used in a special way, not least because there are other
human rulers named in Scripture (e.g., Luke 1:52; Acts 8:27). Moreover, the
last book of the Bible says it’s the resurrected Lamb—God the Son—who is the
King of kings and Lord of lords (Rev. 1:5; 17:14; 19:16; cf. Jude 4).
And what does it mean that the Father is ‘the
only One who has immortality’ (1 Tim. 6:16 HCSB)? Have we just denied the
immortality of the Son and Spirit? Paul teaches elsewhere that our own mortal
bodies look forward to ‘immortality’ and ‘the imperishable’ (1 Cor. 15:53-54),
the same terms that belong ‘only’ to the Father according to 1 Timothy (though
not always clear in English translations).
Rather, words like ‘only’ must have a
relative sense. God is being contrasted with any potential rival and protected
from any comparison. Paul ‘affirms four truths about God’s sovereign power,
four ways in which he is altogether beyond human control or manipulation’ (John
R. W. Stott, The Meaning of 1 Timothy
& Titus, BST [Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1996], p. 159). In
idol-filled Ephesus, where Timothy is ministering, pagans could approach and
view their gods at any time. But the true God, by comparison, is unapproachable
and invisible. Again we’re dealing with relative language. As in the Old
Testament and John’s Gospel, Paul is emphasizing that our God cannot just be
tracked down on a human whim. The Old and New Testaments affirm that God can be approached—through Jesus.
Relatively speaking, God is unapproachable. Relatively speaking, he is the only
one who controls immortality. Relatively speaking, God is not seen. Although it
can feel like a subtle distinction, ‘contrasted with the visible’ is not the
same as saying ‘never visible’.
And so the notion of the Father’s
invisibility—the foundational evidence for Old Testament theophanies being
construed as christophanies—continues to evaporate. (Ibid., 61-62, emphasis in
bold added; cf. James Stutz, Can
a Man See God? 1 Timothy 6:16 in Light of Ancient and Modern Revelation)
