Ok wai ming. You stated that the article is flawed. You claim you can refute it. You wanted this debate. So, how about answering some of the questions we have posed?
Hmmm?
In my opinion, the paragraphs under the heading "the Christian concept of God" have inconsistencies both in logic and with regards to what Christians actually believe.
You claim you can refute it.
I made no such claim. I have merely exposed what I see as its problems in logic. See my #15 above.
So, how about answering some of the questions we have posed?
Which "we" and which questions?
Would you offer me the same courtesy? How about answering some of the questions I have posed?
English grammar sometimes baffles me, but here goes:
(Col 1:16) for in him all things were created,
(Comma splice. Also don't most sentences begin with a capital letter?)
Sentence analysis: Passive. Someone or something created all things. The "agent" is normally indicated with a "by phrase" as in all things were created by God, but in this case, the agent is not specified. Instead the phrase "in him" is used, and that carries other connotations.
Continuation of sentence diagram:
in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities--
(Specific examples of what is to follow after the dash)
all things were created through him and for him.
Two new prepositions here. "through" indicates passage or penetration, and "for" indicates "on his behalf".
(Col. 1:17) He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
The prepositions are ambiguous here. "Before" can mean two things: "previous" and "in front of". "In" usually refers to "within" or "inside".
Sentence diagram complete.
For what it's worth.The teaching of normative Christianity affirms creation ex nihilo. By implication, the Hebrew verb bara' refers to ex nihilo creation as well. Not so the teachings of the Restoration. The Doctrine and Covenants affirms that "the elements are eternal" (D&C 93:33). Joseph Smith, in his sermon at the funeral of King Follett, stated:
You ask the learned doctors why they say the world was made out of nothing; and they will answer, "Doesn't the Bible say He created the world?" And they infer, from the word create, that it must have been made out of nothing. Now, the word create came from the word baurau which does not mean to create out of nothing; it means to organize; the same as a man would organize materials and build a ship. Hence, we infer that God had materials to organize the world out of chaos-- chaotic matter, which is element, and in which dwells all the glory. Element had an existence from the time he had. The pure principles of element are principles which can never be destroyed; they may be organized and re-organized, but not destroyed. They had no beginning, and can have no end. [Joseph Smith, "King Follett Discourse," in Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 350-52.]
The doctrine of creatio ex nihilo was not so in the beginning of Christianity. According to Jonathan Goldstein, "medieval Jewish thinkers . . . held that the account of creation in Genesis could be interpreted to mean that God created from pre-existing formless matter, and ancient Jewish texts state that he did so." [Jonathan Goldstein, "The Origins of the Doctrine of Creation Ex Nihilo," Journal of Jewish Studies 35 (1984): 127.] Indeed, again according to Goldstein, "We have to wait until the second half of the second century to find unambiguous Christian statements of creation ex nihilo." [Ibid., 132.] In his history of the Christian teaching concerning ex nihilo creation, Gerhard May notes with some surprise (and dismay) that this doctrine was introduced only at the end of the second century, and only then by the Gnostic Basilides. [Gerhard May, Schöpfung aus dem Nichts: Die Entstehung der Lehre von der Creatio Ex Nihilo (New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1978), 53-55.] At root, this orthodox Christian doctrine may have been a Gnostic heresy! Indeed, in recent years many scholars have begun reassessing their position on ex nihilo creation. "The verb br' used in the very first sentence of the creation story," states Assyriologist Shalom M. Paul, "does not imply, as most traditional commentators believed, creatio ex nihilo, a concept that first appears in II Maccabees 7:28, but denotes, as it does throughout the Bible, a divine activity that is effortlessly effected." [Shalom M. Paul, "Creation and Cosmogony in the Bible," Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem: Encyclopaedia Judaica, 1972), 5:1059.]