John 1:18 "No man hath seen God [the Father] at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him."John 6:46 "Not that any man hath seen the Father, save He [Jesus] which is of God, He [Jesus] hath seen the Father."
Genesis 3:8-9 "And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?
Since I believe the Word of God, and believe Christ is not a liar, and because He said "no man has seen God the Father, except Himself," and the Word of God states says the "Lord GOD walked in the Garden," the most logical conclusion to reach from the plain meaning of the text is that He who appeared and walked in the Garden was the pre-incarnate Christ, not an angel (as angels cannot be called the Lord God), was not the Spirit, as the Holy Spirit has a Name and He is not called the Lord God, and the text does not state that the Lord God appeared as a 'wind' by which the Holy Spirit may be like (see John 3:8; "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit") and not someone or something that someone else claims who the Lord God may be which contradicts the Scripture.
I never said that someone ever saw the Father. I said that in the OT sometimes God appeared as “visions or manifestations”. Clearly of other things, “like the hiring bush for example”. But not the Father Himself. I never said that.
In Gen 3:8-9 it’s easy to read too much into the word “walking” but really the word to focus on there (as far as any manifestation of God goes) is the word “voice”. Why? Because it says “voice of the Lord God walking in the garden”. As it’s “plainly written” there the “logical” conclusion to make is that the voice of God “walked” in the Garden. But this makes no sense.
This is if we read it with just the English language in mind though. It makes more sense when we realize the word for “walking” there is “hithpael” (transliterated) which means here, in Gen 3:8, “to traverse, to walk about” or “to go for oneself” or “to walk up and down”. See here : http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H1980&t=KJV
So we can see that in this verse the verb is not meant to be taken literally, as if the voice of God had two legs and was walking about. It’s meant to be taken as simply the voice of God moved through the Garden. This is truly the “plain reading”, not what you suggest. Otherwise, the Jews would have been worshipping a visible incarnate God long before Christ. Not to mention that if there were multiple incarnations of Christ the one we are familiar with would at least be diminished in meaning.
There was and is only one Incarnation of Christ, who was and is fully man and fully God. If you are saying that in Gen 3:8-9 God was fully man then too, then this goes against 2,000 years of Christian teaching. It was clearly some manifestation of the one God in Gen 3:8-9, but not fully Man. But, believe what you want.
Don’t say though, as many other non Catholics here do when a Catholic dares disagree with their interpretation of Scripture, that you “are just quoting the Word of God” and thus by implication I’m not.
No, you are giving your interpretation of the Word. Don’t conflate that with the actual Word. It’s beneath you.