Does 1 John Teach Pantheism? A Response and Guide to Greek Grammar

 Does 1 John Teach Pantheism? 

Recently, I came across an argument from some Muslims claiming that St. John, in his 1st Epistle, taught the damnable notion of Pantheism. Of course, this charge is meant to do nothing more than scandalize the faithful with the impious notion that sacred scripture does not teach monotheism. Here, I will offer a thorough response to the argument in two ways. Firstly, I will give an introductory guide to a bit of Greek Grammar in the first post, and then secondly, I will direct a concise refutation to the argument. To clarify, my intention is to teach here and then respond later. If you are not interested in my explanation of Greek grammar you are free to skip to the next post where I deal with the argument directly.

Because the argument given by our Muslim friends requires a discourse about the "predicate nominative" in Greek, I will first offer an introductory overview of the concept here so that the reader may fully understand the response to the argument later, and so I can put to use what knowledge of Greek I do have.

*Any translation, or example sentence, given below is mine. Here I have attempted to make the first post almost like a Greek Grammar. The concepts explained below are a result of my formal studies with Greek and my synthesis of different grammars for your benefit.

INTRODUCTION TO THE PREDICATE NOMINATIVE

1. Explanation of the Nominative Case 

In Greek, a clause will contain at least one subject and verb (which can be stated explicitly or implied). In any clause, the subject will be indicated by the word that appears in the nominative case. However, in Greek, nouns can have different forms depending on their function in a sentence. 

These distinct forms help us discern how the noun functions within the clause. For example, consider the word used for “God,” which is “θεὸς” (this being in the nominative form). This same noun can appear as ‘θεόν’ in the accusative case, ‘θεοῦ’ in the genitive case, or even as ‘θεῷ’ in the dative case. (For right now, it is not essential for you to know how the other cases function. All you need to know is that different cases make a noun function differently in Greek). 

Jn. 1:1 illustrates this, saying, “καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν” (trans. and the Word was with God). Here, θεὸς appears in its accusative form, “θεόν,” indicating it is the object of the preposition πρὸς in the prepositional phrase “πρὸς τὸν θεόν” and not the subject. Likewise, we see the same happening in Ex. 3:11 (LXX), with “θεόν,” when it says, “καὶ εἶπεν Μωυσῆς πρὸς τὸν θεόν…” (trans. and Moses spoke to God).

Now, in the examples above, we can see that the subjects for each clause respectively are the noun “λόγος” and the proper name “Μωυσῆς,” Because these appear in their distinct form of the nominative case, we can tell which is the subject in both instances. (It should be noted that there are multiple reasons why we know that these nouns are the subjects of their respective clauses. Here, we are simply trying to outline general principles, and then as the reader is introduced to more content, they will be introduced to more of the nuances of how we identify subjects in Greek.) 

We should also take into account that word order is not the primary way we identify something as a subject in Greek, as opposed to English. Nonetheless, a noun’s distinct form will inform us of its function, e.g., Jn. 1:26 “ἀπεκρίθη αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰωάννης λέγων…” (trans. John answered, and said unto them…). See how, even though John [Ἰωάννης] is put first in our translation (per the standard way a subject is identified in English) in Greek, “John” appears near the end of the sentence. 

What we have discussed provisionally so far holds for any clause in Greek. The noun in the nominative case, respective to its particular declension, will be the subject. But what happens if we have a clause with two nouns that appear in the nominative case and are joined with an equative verb (are, is, was)? Which one of these will be the subject? How can we discern what functions as what in this instance? 

For example, Jn. 9:8 says, “Οὐχ οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ καθήμενος καὶ προσαιτῶν” (trans. Is this one, not he who sat and begged?). Here, the pronoun “οὗτός” [this one/he] and the participles “καθήμενος” and “προσαιτῶν” are joined with the equative verb “ἐστιν” and are in the nominative case! So which of these is the subject? This question leads to our consideration of the “predicate nominative,” which will be treated below. 

2. Predicate Nominative: Definition and Examples 

A Predicate Nominative will appear when a clause has two nouns that appear in the nominative case related by an equative verb.

One of the nouns will function as a “predicate,” simply this predicate nominative predicates something about the subject in two ways, either that the (S) has the quality/attribute/or is in the larger category of the (PN), or that (S) and the (PN) share an identity and are interchangeable.

Example Sentences

“Ἀνσώνιος ἐστιν ὁ διδάσκαλος”

trans. Ansonius is the teacher.

“Ὁ Αυγουστίνος ἐστιν ὁ επίσκοπος του ἱππου”

trans. Augustine is the Bishop of Hippo. 

“Ἀδὰμ ἦν ἄνθρωπος. ἀλλʼ ὁ ἄγγελος [ἦν] πνεῦμα” 

trans. Adam was man, but the angel [was] spirit. 

*Earlier, I mentioned that in Greek a clause can be formed with a subject and a verb (this verb either being explicitly stated or implied). I have provided an example sentence with such an occurrence to demonstrate the aforementioned principle by bracketing the implied verb “ἦν.”

Notice how in the first two examples, the proper names “Ἀνσώνιος” and “Αυγουστίνος” and the nouns “διδάσκαλος” and “επίσκοπος” appear in the nominative case; technically either could be the subject and thus would render us with two possible translations for each sentence: these being “Ansonius is the teacher” or “the teacher is Ansonius,” and “Augustine is the Bishop of Hippo” or “The Bishop of Hippo is Augustine.” 

But, in our third example, we have something more peculiar. Trying to invert the provided translation into “man was Adam, but spirit was the Angel” would be incorrect. The third example is attempting to say that Adam belongs to the larger category of “man” and that the Angel belongs to the larger category of “spirit”; or it may be indicating that Adam by nature was “man” contrastively to the Angel being “spirit” by nature. In either scenario, it would be improper to translate the sentence as treating both “man” and “spirit” as the subject leading to the trans. “Man was Adam, but spirit was an angel,” because it is not the case that all things that are “spirit” are an angel, nor is it the case that every instance, or the category, of “man” is Adam. It is improper not due to this category error alone but because of how subjects will relate to predicate nominatives. Although here, the difference may not seem very significant between these two translations, in other instances, the differences between varying translations are not merely nominal. Proper grammar and syntax will guide us away from dealing with ambiguous or indeterminate translations of any given text. 

Again, considering the first two example sentences, even though these may seem the same in meaning, there is still a correct and proper way to translate these example sentences. If we disregard the importance of grammar now with these sentences, it will have larger implications when we seek to translate anything from the NT, as will be shown in the next section. 

Further issues considered 

To demonstrate the importance of this issue, let us consider what text we will later discuss, 1Jn. 4:8. The text reads “ὁ θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν” trans. “God is love.” Now, here, both the terms “θεὸς ” and “ἀγάπη” are in the nominative case; both could function as the subject (if we don’t consider the rules of grammar that will follow in the subsequent sections). So this sentence, devoid of any rules, could either be “God is love” or “Love is God.” 

Further, without any distinction between the types of predicate nominatives, one could mistakenly take this verse to be a convertible proposition (A=B, B=A) and conclude that this verse is a statement about God in the same way the statement, “Aristotle is the greatest pagan philosopher,” functions. In other words, a kind of statement referring to identity with both terms in the sentence are interchangeable, either because (a) the possible translation “love is God” could be considered due to both nouns being the subject potentially, or (b) the mistaken notion that the original translation "God is love” could just be replaced with a convertible (A=B, B=A). In either case, this would allegedly lead to the verse in St. John’s Epistle to teach pantheism. Later we will show why 1Jn. 4:8 in fact is not saying this and is rather saying something about how God is love, not his identity to it. (Let the reader understand the gravity of this topic and proceed with the utmost caution and sobriety). 

So how do we distinguish something like 1Jn 4:8 from our earlier examples? What are the various ways a predicate nominative and a subject can function? How can we distinguish between the predicate nominative and the subject in any given clause? All of these questions will be answered and dealt with in the next post.