Jesus and the Word: a metaphysical reflection on the Gospel of John

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"

The opening words of John's Gospel are perplexing. The 'Word', we are told, is somehow 'with God' and 'is God'. The evangelist goes on to say that the Word "became flesh and made his dwelling among us", a verse crucial to the Christian doctrine of the incarnation. Jesus Christ is the 'Word', who both 'is God' and 'is with God'. It would be tempting to interpret these claims metaphorically: perhaps Jesus is God's 'Word' in the sense of being the perfect expression of God's will, or of God's character. Certainly, other New Testament passages have that vibe (Col. 1:15). But the Johannine prologue seems to be saying something stronger than that. The Word, we are told, was "with God in the beginning", and " through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made". Hence, Jesus the Word preexists his incarnation, and even the creation of the world. Indeed, he is the means by which the world was created. As is well known, the evangelist is most likely drawing on the Hellenistic philosophical concept of logos, which English translations render as 'Word'. The logos, for Stoic and Platonist philosophers, was usually a kind of supreme divine spirit which sustains the order and existence of the natural world. Jewish thinkers commonly identified this logos with what the Hebrew Bible calls wisdom ( 'hokma' , Prov. 8) or word ('dabar'), as in the following verse from the Psalms:

"By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host." (Ps. 33:6) The word is the means by which God brings the world into existence, and we have seen that this is what John the evangelist has in mind. Crucially, the Word is an attribute of God -- the fact that the texts also call it 'wisdom' brings that out clearly. And yet, for the evangelist, the Word is also a divine person, who took flesh and walked among us. The question I wish to address here is, how is it possible for a person, Jesus, to be identical to a divine attribute, the Word? This is intuitively very odd. We don't normally think of attributes as things in their own right, but rather as features or aspects of things, like the color or solidity of my coffee mug. But Jesus the person clearly is a thing in its own right. To use the old philosophical jargon, we distinguish substances, which are things in their own right, and the attributes that such substances may have.

I think the answer to our question lies in a distinction between two different ways of thinking about the relationship between objects / substances and their attributes. I'm referring to what philosophers have called relational and constituent ontology (e.g. Wolterstoff 1991). Let us look at each of these in turn.

On a relational ontology, an object and its attributes are linked by a relation that may be called 'exemplification', 'participation' or 'instantiation' (these terms are largely interchangeable). Importantly, the attributes are conceived as being external to the object that exemplifies them. The attributes do not exist 'in' the objects that have them, rather, they exist in some abstract realm, a Platonic 'realm of forms'. The exemplification relation acts as a kind of bridge between the abstract attribute and the concrete object that has it. It should be clear that, given a relational ontology, the identification of Jesus with the Word is logically impossible, or at best utterly unintelligible. The person, Jesus, is a concrete thing that could be touched and directly perceived by those around him. But the Word, on a (purely) relational ontology, is an abstract thing. Surely it is impossible in principle for a concrete object to be identical to an abstract thing. The problem remains even if we take the traditional interpretation of the Platonic realm of forms as God's intellect. For if attributes are in fact ideas or concepts in the divine mind, then it would follow that the Word is an idea or concept in the divine mind. But the flesh-and-blood person, Jesus, is necessarily not an idea or concept. Hence, here again, it seems in principle impossible for Jesus to be the Word. On a constituent ontology, in contrast, the attributes of an object are constituents of the object. Attributes are said to inhere in the objects that have them. They are part of what 'makes up' the object -- or indeed, all that makes up the object, if one subscribes to 'bundle-of-properties'-type views. In some constituent ontologies, attributes are simply identified with the object's parts.

Wolterstorff notes that medieval (Christian) philosophers were themselves constituent ontologists, which is what allowed them to say, among other things, that God is his nature, i.e. his attributes taken together, rather than simply 'having' his nature. The identification of Jesus with the Word seems much less problematic given a constituent ontology. Presumably, if attributes are constituents of concrete objects, then they are (or can be) themselves concrete. Hence, identifying Jesus with the Word does not compel us to say that Jesus both is and isn't a concrete thing. Granted, the notion that one of an object's constituents could be a person, a conscious self, is still mysterious, even if the constituent isn't some otherworldly abstractum. But consider panpsychism, a metaphysical theory associated with Leibniz, and still held by some philosophers today. Panpsychists hold that fundamental entities, e.g. subatomic particles, are conscious. Arguably, this implies that such particles are conscious selves, albeit very tiny ones. If that's right, then, on panpsychism, my most basic constituents (insofar as I am ultimately constituted of subatomic particles) are conscious selves. This is would no doubt be very bizarre. But I see no reason to believe that it is in principle impossible, in the way that married bachelors, or indeed abstract persons, are impossible. I conclude that, on a constituent ontology, the identification of Jesus with the Word, while mysterious, is not in principle impossible. Some concluding observations If we take the constituent ontologist's interpretation of Jesus' identity with the Word, then, insofar as the Word is an attribute of God, and that attributes are constituents of the things that have them, it follows that Jesus the Word is a constituent of God -- more elegantly, an element of God's being. Or, to paraphrase New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham, Jesus is 'included within the divine identity'. This allows us to deal with some of the theological paradoxes in the New Testament. Jesus, qua Word, is said by John the evangelist to be 'God', as we have seen. But the texts also speak of Jesus having a God, addressing God, being vindicated by God, and so on. Clearly, the relation between Jesus and God cannot be one of numerical identity, such as in 'Batman is Bruce Wayne'. What to make then, of John's claim that Jesus 'is' God? Jesus the Word is not strictly (i.e. numerically) identical to God, but is nevertheless inseparable from God, since he is an element of God's being. He is, in that sense, well and truly divine.

This, I think, sheds some light on the words of the Nicene Creed:

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father. Through him all things were made.

Bauckham, R. (2002). God crucified. Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans. Wolterstorff, Nicholas (1991). Divine simplicity. Philosophical Perspectives 5:531-552.

Plato and Paul on the human predicament

Much philosophical and religious theorizing is fueled by the sense that humanity is in some sort of predicament, or condition, from which we ought to be liberated in order to truly flourish. A world view is partly distinguished by how it characterizes this predicament -- what we could call its diagnosis. The nature of the diagnosis will of course largely determine the proposed cure, or means of liberation -- what is sometimes called a worldview's soteriology (from the Greek soteria = 'deliverance') Platonism is no exception to this rule. Most have heard of Plato's memorable 'allegory of the cave', which expresses an understanding of the human predicament that would shape Western philosophy for centuries to come. Recall, humans are likened to prisoners in a cave, who can only see the shadows cast on the cave wall in front of them. One of the prisoners somehow escapes the cave and sees the outside world. Though the sunlight initially hurts his eyes, he is amazed at what he sees -- the sun, sky, water, trees etc -- and judges it to be far superior to the world down below. He quickly returns to his fellow cave-dwellers, to tell them of the other world he has just seen. They aren't convinced and brush him off, and some even try to kill him. As is well known, the cave wall is meant to symbolize the world as it directly appears to us, while the outside world is meant to symbolize the world as it really is -- in particular, the perfect, immutable forms. The prisoner who escapes and sees the outside world represents the philosopher, who, not content with the immediate deliverances of the senses, wants to see the world for what it is: a perfect, harmonious kosmos governed by an intelligent mind. What really matters for our purposes is that, for Plato, the human predicament is epistemological. That is, our problem is that we lack knowledge of the world as it really is. This profound ignorance prevents us from accessing the happiness and peace that come with the unhindered contemplation of the good. This perspective of the human condition dominated Greek philosophy since Plato. The Stoics, for instance, famously held that suffering is a consequence of a failure to understand that the kosmos is fundamentally good, and hence that 'evils' like the death of loved ones are really meant to be. Interestingly, the notion that ignorance is the root cause of the human predicament is also very widespread in Indian philosophical traditions, in which knowledge of reality 'as such' (jñāna) is typically deemed crucial to the achievement of liberation from suffering (moksha).

St Paul the Apostle, the most prominent New Testament author and first great Christian theologian, like Plato, believes that humanity is mired in an unfortunate condition, from which it ought to be freed. His diagnosis is laid out in the first chapter of his magnum opus, the epistle to the Romans. A cursory reading of this chapter should make it clear that Paul's diagnosis of the human predicament is very different to Plato's. Notice that Paul explicitly denies that our problem is fundamentally about ignorance. To the contrary, he tells us that we already have knowledge of ultimate matters, or at least have easy access to them:

"Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made"

The passage goes on to say that though humans 'knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him". Paul's use of words is important here. 'Honor' and 'give thanks' have to do with your attitude towards someone. The term 'honor', however outdated it seems today, refers to the kind of humble reverence that is owed to, say, a parent, a teacher, or perhaps even an older, wiser friend. To 'give thanks' is to gratefully recognize someone's generosity. An attitude of gratefulness and deep respect is a necessary precondition for a healthy relationship with someone whose responsibility it is to look after us (again, like a parent or teacher). Failure to (sincerely) honor and give thanks to God, then, can only mean that our relationship with God will fail as well. In short, our predicament, for Paul, is fundamentally relational rather than epistemological: humanity has somehow collectively alienated itself from God. The result of that, according to Paul, is that humans are "futile in their understanding", arrogantly "claiming to be wise" despite having become "fools" who worship idols or "images". God's initial response is to "give them up" to their madness, which further exacerbates their alienation, and leads them to be alienated even from one another (as they become'selfish', 'murderous' 'slanderers' and so on).

This take on the human condition is of course not original to Paul. In fact, Paul's account reveals his deeply Jewish mindset, since it really retells the Ancient Jewish narrative of the 'Fall of Man'. Human corruption and suffering comes into the world when Adam and Eve break fellowship with God, preferring to be their own gods. This pattern is repeated throughout the Hebrew Bible, not least in the Prophets, where oppression and injustice invariably arise when Israel rejects its covenant with God in order to pursue idols of their own making.

To sum up, then, for Plato, humans do not truly flourish because they are ignorant of the divine. It is quite telling that Plato rejected the possibility of akrasia, i.e. acting against your better judgment. If you really know the good, he tells us, then, necessarily, you will follow it.

For Paul, humans do not truly flourish because they do not have fellowship with the divine. Against Plato, Paul directly affirms the possibility of akrasia: "For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate (...) For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do." (Rom. 7:14-20). To put it informally, ours is a 'heart' rather than a 'brain' problem.

As I said at the start, different diagnoses suggest different cures, or soteriologies. For Plato, the cure lies in ridding ourselves of our ignorance through the philosophical contemplation of the perfect forms. This consists in a kind of recollection (anamnesis) since, for Plato, the soul had direct access to the forms prior to being embodied in the physical world. Hence it is fair to say that Plato and his followers advance an intellectualist soteriology. For Paul, since our predicament is a lack of fellowship with God, the cure lies not in contemplation but in reconciliation (what theologians call atonement, literally "at one"-ment). This is a point on which his fellow Jews would have agreed. Paul parts company with his more conservative Jewish brethren when he declares that this reconciliation is somehow achieved through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the incarnate Son of God: "God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation." (2 Cor. 5:19).

An application: Christians sometimes present salvation as simply a matter of understanding and accepting a set of religious doctrines. In doing so, we are perhaps being more Platonic than Paulinian. An observation: it speaks volumes that platonistic pseudo-Christian cults in the Ancient World called themselves 'gnostics' (gnosis = 'knowledge') and held that liberation is attained by acquiring esoteric knowledge of the divine.

Dualism: from an explanatory to an ontological gap

Property dualism: at least some mental properties are fundamental, i.e. not identical to any non-mental properties, like neurochemical or functional properties. Typically, property dualists contend, against materialists, that what philosophers call a phenomenal state, i.e. the undergoing of an experience with a distinctive qualitative character, is not identical to any neurochemical (or functional) state. For example, an experience of pain is not identical to the undergoing of C-fibre stimulation, even if C-fibre stimulation always occurs when we experience pain, and vice versa. Hence, the phenomenal property of being in a state of pain is not identical to the neurochemical property of being in a state of C-fibre stimulation, or any other neurochemical (or functional) property. As we have seen, property dualists generally argue that there is an unbridgeable explanatory gap between neurochemical and phenomenal facts. That is, we lack an explanation as to how it is that phenomenal states 'just are' neurochemical states. If two things X and Y are numerically identical, then it is logically impossible for one to exist without the other. Thus, we may say that a logically necessary connection holds between X and Y, such that the existence of X logically entails that of Y, and vice versa. The dualist complaint is that there is no explanation as to why such a connection should hold between, say, the state of experiencing pain and the state of undergoing C-fibre stimulation. For many dualists, this is strong reason to reject the thesis that the state of experiencing pain 'just is' the state of undergoing C-fibre stimulation, as well as all identifications of phenomenal states with neurological ones.

We can reconstruct the argument as follows:

(1) There is no explanation as to how phenomenal states are identical to neurochemical states.

(2) If there is no explanation as to how phenomenal states are identical to neurochemical states, phenomenal states are not identical to neurochemical states. (3) Therefore, phenomenal states are not identical to neurochemical states. Notice that the argument's begins with the statement of an explanatory gap (premise (1) ) and ends with the statement of an ontological gap (conclusion (3) ). That is, the argument, through premise (2), infers a claim about the manner in which things exist, from a claim about a lack of explanation. As some materialist critics of the argument have shown, e.g. Papineau 1998, one can try to block this inference by putting pressure on premise (2). One can accept the argument's first premise, but deny that the ontological gap follows from the explanatory gap, by arguing that the demand for an explanation is unreasonable. If two things X and Y are identical, it makes sense to ask how we know that they are identical, but it seems odd to ask why they are identical. For example, if you tell me that Bruce Wayne is Batman, I may ask you how you know this, but you'd be surprised if I asked you, 'But why is Bruce Wayne Batman?' You might interpret my question along the lines of 'Why did Bruce Wayne become a masked vigilante?', but you'd be very puzzled if I replied with 'No, I mean why is the person Bruce Wayne the same person as the person Batman?'. This is like asking, 'why am I the same person as myself?'. Things just are what they are, and, on the face of it, it makes little sense to ask why this is so. Thus, it could be argued, the absence of an explanation for the identity of, say, the experience of pain and C-fibre stimulation is nothing to be worried about, and, against premise (2), certainly shouldn't lead us to deny that they are identical. I think this objection rests on an ambiguity in the request for an 'explanation'. If I ask you to explain to me why my phone has disappeared, I am asking you to give me the cause of my phone's disappearance, i.e. the prior event or fact that brought about its disappearance. If on the other hand I ask you to explain Spinoza's theory that God is the only substance, I am asking you to make the theory intelligible to me.

The way I see it, the 'explanatory gap' problem is not that we know of no prior cause of the identity between the experience of pain and C-fibre stimulation, but rather that such an identification is unintelligible. If things X and Y are identical, their identity, while not 'caused', is nevertheless made true by some other fact. The identity of Batman and Bruce Wayne is made true by the fact that they are the product of the same particular fertilization event, i.e. involving the same sperm and egg. The fact that my Dad's car today is the same as the car that existed three years ago is made true by the fact that there is some special kind of causal continuity between the two. Given such facts, the non-identity of X and Y is inconceivable: for example, given that Batman and Bruce Wayne are the product of the same particular fertilisation event, it is impossible to conceive of their non-identity. Arguably, it is part of the very concept of identity that identity-claims be made true by some other fact in this way. And therein lies the problem for the identification of the experience of pain with C-fibre stimulation: materialists cannot give us any fact by which the relevant identity-claim is made true. This is why thought experiments about, say, the conceivability of C-fibre stimulation existing without the experience of pain, or vice versa, are so prominent in the case for dualism. If the experience of pain and C-fibre stimulation were identical, there would be some fact given which it would be impossible to conceive of one without the other. But, we know of no such fact, and we can't even conceive of a fact that would do the job. This last point allows us to deal with a common rejoinder to dualist arguments. It used to be thought that the Morning Star and the Evening Star were two different stars, though we now know that they are in fact the same planet, Venus. But before this discovery, people presumably would have been able to conceive of the Morning Star existing without the Evening Star, or vice versa (or, at any rate, it would have seemed to them that they could conceive of this). Hence, we are told, the conceivability of pain without C-fibre stimulation, or vice versa (or the appearance of this conceivability), is no good reason to disbelieve that they are the same thing. But there is a key difference between the two cases: if I was born before the discovery of the identity of the Morning Star with the Evening Star, I wouldn't know how they are identical, but, after a bit of thinking, I would know how they could be identical. That is, I could imagine that they are the result of the same particular planet-formation event, and understand that this would entail that they are the same thing, though perceived from different perspectives. Indeed, I would understand that, if it were the case that they were the result of the same particular planet-formation event, the existence of one without the other would be inconceivable. In contrast, in the case of pain and C-fibre stimulation, I can't even see what sort of fact would make true the statement of their identity, and hence do not understand how they could be identical. I can think of no possible neurochemical (or other) state of affairs such that, if it obtained, the existence of C-fibre stimulation without the experience of pain would be inconceivable. It is in this sense, I think, that the (alleged) identity of phenomenal states and neurochemical states lacks an explanation: it is unintelligible, because we cannot see how they could be identical. And if that's right, then it seems to me that, insofar as a metaphysical system ought to minimize unintelligible claims, this is strong reason to reject the identification of phenomenal states with neurochemical states. This, in my view, is how the explanatory gap leads us to an ontological gap.