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Jeepers, I must have been fading fast last night - I truncated an important part of the passage. I Cor 3:1-5 continues at verse 6-7 as follows:

I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.

Taken altogether, the passage supports the view (which I believe you share) that it is the working of the Spirit and not the pedigree the doctrine that matters.

I also truncated my reply. I had intended to address this comment from post 112:

In short, truly it has been said: "The Word was made Flesh...." It seems to me this happened at the Creation (metaphorically speaking), just as it happened at the Incarnation, both events part of the historical world process. Or so it seems to me, FWIW.

It is not just a metaphor. One of the often overlooked testimonies of Scripture is that everything that was made, was made through Jesus:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. - John 1:1-3

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. - John 1:14

God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by [his] Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of [his] glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; - Hebrews 1:1-3

In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. - 1 John 4:9

A believer can miss the diety of Christ if they are under the impression that His life began inside of Mary. To the contrary, Jesus was with the Father from the beginning and will be, to the end. (Revelation, John 6).

Thus the similarity you see between the creation and Christ's entering the world in the form of a man is quite real.

Thus the similarity you see between the creation and Christ's entering the world in the form of a man is quite real.

I have no doubt of this, Alamo-Girl! Both times -- the creation and the incarnation -- the Word -- the Logos, the Alpha and Omega -- was made flesh. My use of the word "metaphor" does not refer to the "process," but to the word "flesh." For it seems people do not think of that word as applying to such things as photons, electrons, and quarks -- which may be, if the QED theorists are correct, the "stuff" that God used to make a Universe -- IF indeed He did so by means of a primary universal vacuum field, through its "instrumental agency"(for lack of a better term), the ZPF.

All of this is highly speculative, of course. Yet to me, it seems an elegant "solution" to the problem of how everything in the created universe came forth out of an original, absolute nothing. The primary universal vacuum perhaps really was "nothing," or "empty," until it generated the zero point field, ZPF. (In the language of En Sof, God's "descent by chariot" into the "Heavenly Man.")

For the info of interested Lurkers, to the best of my understanding, quantum electrodynamics suggests that the ZPF, via its characteristic particle, the photon -- light in its particle form -- is a universal field that mediates the activity of photons interacting with the matter of the universe [by means of virtual particles that seemingly "pop in" out of nowhere, and then just as suddenly "pop out"]. Photons constantly, universally interact with two types of particles: electrons and quarks. From quarks we have all the baryons -- the constituents of the atomic nucleus. The atomic nucleus (strongly bound protons and neutrons [except in the case of hydrogen, which doesn't have a neutron] plus one or more electrons, gives rise to all the elements of the periodic table. The atom, of course, is the basic constituent of all matter, living and non-living. But only living matter is called "flesh."

Which suggests that evolution, therefore, is fundamental to the expression of God's purposeful design in 4D space-time. For the living beings were the last of God's creatures to appear on earth. But this idea of evolution is not the Darwinist conception of natural evolution, which basically states that creatures evolve based on the need to adapt to changes in the "outside," environmental conditions in order to survive and successfully reproduce.

There is another concept of evolution that is often called "emergence." Emergence essentially means a successive disclosure of what is implicit in (or "designed into") a natural system, living or non-living. Thus it is not a response to an "outside pull," but to an "inside push." Very crude analogies for emergence are the seed becoming flower, or the acorn becoming oak tree.

The point is: God wants flowers and oak trees. There is Purpose in the divine design....

Anyhoot, it appears that emergence depends on the successful communication of information. Indeed, for creatures displaying sufficient "complexity" (degrees of freedom), successful communication is what gives rise to life itself.

But this is a whole 'nother bear of a topic! So I'll leave off.... This will conclude my fevered speculation in regard to cosmic origins for now!!! FWIW

Thank you so much, Alamo-Girl, for your beautiful posts -- and for the valuable links to sources.