Romans 11:36
Posted: June 8th, 2013, 4:00 am
What is the distinction between "of Him" (ex autou) and "through Him" (di' autou) in Romans 11:36?
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[Rom 11:36] οτι εξ αυτου και δι αυτου και εις αυτον τα παντα αυτω η δοξα εις τους αιωνας αμηνMike Burke wrote:What is the distinction between "of Him" (ex autou) and "through Him" (di' autou) in Romans 11:36?
But what is meant by "channel"?In brief, here "εκ" denotes the source and "δια" denotes the channel and "εις" denotes the reason.
It is natural for such directional prepositions to have figurative or abstract implications, and I think it is quite obvious that "δι αυτου" here implies "through his power". The English "through him" is more than clear enough, and I used "channel" only as a rough link the physical and the abstract meanings. For precise meanings, you need the examples of usage given in lexicons such as http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/mor ... ek#lexicon and http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/mor ... ek#lexicon.Mike Burke wrote:But what is meant by "channel"?In brief, here "εκ" denotes the source and "δια" denotes the channel and "εις" denotes the reason.
If channel means instrumentality, wouldn't that imply something or someone using God as an instrument?
That's your problem. Maybe you are so eager to see the orthodox doctrine there that you can't see behind the language, both biblical language and grammatical jargon. "Instrumental" is a grammatical/linguistic expression, it says nothing about a referent of a word being inferior or inactive with regards to something else. It doesn't necessarily mean that someone is using something as an instrument like surgeon is using a scalpel or musician is using a piano.Mike Burke wrote: (from an orthodox Christian point of view.)
Eeli, thanks for expressing how I felt regarding the question. Mike, I want to just read things as it is written and not view them from a particular predetermined viewpoint. If however you really want philosophical explanation, Stephen has given you an answer from an Aristotelian perspective, but you might do well to look elsewhere as B-Greek wasn't meant for philosophical discussion. But perhaps I should try to further clarify what I mean. We can say in English "Do it by yourself!", meaning "Do it without others' help!", but in no way implying "Use yourself as an instrument to do it!". Likewise, we may say "It was out of love.", meaning that love was the (non-physical) source. Try to understand the Greek prepositions in a similarly way. We distinguish between "out of myself" and "by myself" and "for myself" in English, in much the same way that those prepositions in Rom 11:36 should I think be distinguished. I personally don't believe an Aristotelian reading of Rom 11:36 is the most accurate, but that is not for this forum.Eeli Kaikkonen wrote:That's your problem. Maybe you are so eager to see the orthodox doctrine there that you can't see behind the language, both biblical language and grammatical jargon. "Instrumental" is a grammatical/linguistic expression, it says nothing about a referent of a word being inferior or inactive with regards to something else. It doesn't necessarily mean that someone is using something as an instrument like surgeon is using a scalpel or musician is using a piano.Mike Burke wrote: (from an orthodox Christian point of view.)
I guess part of my problem is that I don't really see the distinction between those prepositions in English.Try to understand the Greek prepositions in a similarly way. We distinguish between "out of myself" and "by myself" and "for myself" in English, in much the same way that those prepositions in Rom 11:36 should I think be distinguished.
Hi Mike,Mike Burke wrote:If I wrote a book, and I said the book was out of me, and thru me, and for me, what would that mean?
Surely I'm the author (out of me?), and I have a right to the profits (for me?), but what would "thru me" mean (and what would be the distinction between "out of" and "thru" me)?
When I think about Lincoln's Gettysburg address, I'm not even sure what distinction he intended between government "of the people" and government "by the people."
What do these prepositions mean?