Observe: the Greeks and their many gods. The Greeks imbued their gods with traits all too human, and it was even indeed the less admirable traits which seemed to dominate their conversations. Jealous, vain, eratic, venal in the extreme; these were Gods which may have aroused a great deal of pasion and drama, but they inspired little adoration and provoked considerable fear and dread, and fully as much among the innocent as among the guilty.
When we venture to speak of our Creator, or to speak to those matters of His realm, we can do so only in the awareness of how inadequate are our human expressions in the description of such matters. Therefore, when we read, or hear, of the 'wrath of God' it cannot be taken to mean very much the same as though we are reading of the wrath of Kublai Khan. How can we admire, much less worship, a diety of such mundane propensities? Even quantitatively elevating the idea to Olympian heights brings no relief.
Who are these Greek gods and why would the Greeks have wanted to create gods so like themselves and, at that, often reflecting the worst behavior of these self-same Greeks rather than when they were at their best? I'm no student of Greek philosophy, so I can only speculate when suggesting that perhaps the answer lies in the question. Did the Greeks create gods much like themselves to aid them (the Greeks) in wraping their arms around the so very large abstract questions and issues with which they were consumed? We can't verbalize what we can't adequately conceptualize, and likewise the contrary, so we oft find neither adequate expression nor satisfactory understanding when dealing with the idea of the Judeo-Christian God (as so commonly said, we see 'through a glass darkly') for He is not like us, though it is said that we are created in His image. The salient point is that it can not be said that we have sought, as did the Greeks and so many others, to create a God of our own likeness, but that we are blessed by our Creator with the will and with the means to transcend our own lowly status and to achieve that state intended for us by He who is our creator.
So . . . if what you observe is correct, friend boop, then I must conclude that what is written in Holy Scripture, and therefore that of which we also write and speak, is not concerned with the mundane propensities of venal deities, Greek or otherwise, and cannot be understood in any such fashion.
Amen language, any language is so crude when expressing these matters.. A God/Being/Entity that can morph matter/energy (the earth/universe/us/"walking on unfrozen water") would not be like "us"... Could be even "SHAPE(Geometry/even known Physics)" is a primitive concept.. to this being.. And may become primitive to "us" too in the future... The parable of the "talents" comes to mind(and a few others as well)..
Spot on, YHAOS! In any case, the Olympians were "intracosmic gods" -- creatures like men, but "immortals." In short, they had a Creator -- who Plato refers to as the God of the Beyond (i.e., "beyond" the cosmos, or the world of created nature). When Plato has Socrates invoke God in the Apology, as he does more than once, the God referred to is not Zeus, or Athene, or any of the other Greek gods, the gods of ancient myth. The invokation is to the God of the Beyond, who is one and eternal.
Plato even complains (e.g., in the Republic) about what bad examples the Olympians set in the context of the education of youth -- he evidently finds them quite an embarrassment. It appears that Plato himself, when he refers to God, signifies the "God of the Beyond." One speculates that Plato conceived of this God as the creator god, whose creation is an eikon, or image of his own divinity....
This is definitely not the Christian God; but it is a God who is the "One" eternal god -- from whom sprang the Olympians (a second generation of gods in ancient Greece, who replaced Chronos and his associates of more primitive times) and all creation.... That in itself is quite a breakthrough. Plato, of course, never was able to say much about this god.
Thanks ever so much for writing, YHAOS!
This is definitely not the Christian God; but it is a God who is the "One" eternal god -- from whom sprang the Olympians (a second generation of gods in ancient Greece, who replaced Chronos and his associates of more primitive times) and all creation.... That in itself is quite a breakthrough. Plato, of course, never was able to say much about this god.
I assert that all of us Christians share in the direct revelation of God that Jesus Christ is Lord. The Truth of that declaration is not something which can be determined by reason (or teeth-gritting willfulness) alone.