[kosta50]

Would you agree that in the first words of his gospel, John is positing that the Word, the Logos who became flesh and dwelt among us, was at the beginning, was with the Cause, and was Himself Cause?

I am not sure I understand what you are diving at. Why John? Anything can be the cause. For what it's worth, the Son is not the Cause, having himself been caused (begotten).

[kosta50]

diving=driving

[Belteshazzar]

kosta50 wrote:
“For what it’s worth, the Son is not the Cause, having himself been caused (begotten).”

I didn’t say that the Son was the Cause, I said we was Cause. I am following the thought and careful language of John. And regarding whether the Logos was “caused (begotten)” as you said, that is, equating the terms “caused” and “begotten,” you are straying from Niceno-Constantinopolitan language. To you, perhaps, it doesn’t matter. To me it does.

OK, what am I driving at? Your question. I am trying to explore what it is you think you know or don’t know about God and how provable or unprovable the existence of God is. You use - at least somewhat - the language of Aristotle and Thomas, but you don’t seem to want to play on their playground. I thought going to the language of John would be helpful in this matter in that John is the one of the four Gospels of which it could be said that it is written from above as opposed to from below. Please note, that I am with that statement making no assertion that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are somehow inferior or less reliable or inspired to a lesser degree or somehow corrupted. No, it is merely a matter of perspective, perspective of the author, He writes as “from above,” so much of the time, that those who read him are often confused. As an aside, it is ironic that so often John’s Gospel is the one first handed out to the new Christian or to the prospect, the assumption being that John with his simple, childlike language is the easiest of the Gospels to understand and the obvious entree to Christ. Nothing could be farther from the truth. John is the hardest Gospel to understand ... by far.

John’s Gospel is quite distinct in its style, perspective, and purpose from the other three, not to mention its being written a significant amount of time later than the others.

So, why John’s Gospel in this discussion? Because John talks about what you claim to want to know about, both the what of God and the how do we know the what.