What is The Logos? Reflections on the power and the limitation of “the word.”

We’ve all heard that famous Biblical passage: “In the beginning was the word.” But did you know that it originally read, “In the beginning was the logos?” What’s the difference? And how does a simple word change shed light on perhaps one of the Bible’s greatest lessons?

Read on and let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

One of the most intriguing things I’ve just begun to study in the last few months has been the term “logos.” 

I’m not expecting many people to be familiar with it, but if you’ve discovered this blog post, then perhaps you’ve been wondering the same thing: What is the logos? 

The famous biblical passage

Many of us know the following Biblical passage:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made . . . The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

— John 1:1-3, 14 (NIV)

But despite the familiarity that many of us have with this passage (and its seemingly central nature within the Bible), how many of us sit and stew upon its meaning? 

I’m guessing that most of us tend to skip over it – I know I have, especially since it’s not quite clear exactly what it seems to be telling us. In fact, it seems to be saying something rather unrelated to the other tenants of Christianity. 

Forgive me if you disagree, but Christianity seems to be a story about the nature of humans, with two main components: 

A) that we have faults

but…

B) despite our often wayward, mistaken, or wicked desires, the only path to God is not through the perfect adherence to a set of “rules,” but instead through faith. 

Where Judaism preaches the following of a strict set of rules to be “with God,” Christianity teaches that there was a personification of God (Jesus) who sacrificed himself so that humanity’s salvation need not come through the correct “doing,” but more importantly through the “remembrance” or “acceptance” of Christ as the savior. 

But in John 1, we are presented with another perspective (and a slightly different take than that of Genesis regarding what happened in “the beginning”) about the nature of existence. And damnit if it’s not worded in a way that seems rather vague. 

The importance of “the word”

Taken at face value, this passage is literally saying that not only was there something called “the word” that was there in “the beginning,” but also that the “word” was WITH God (suggesting that they were in some respect separate) and that the “word” WAS God (suggesting that they were also “the same” and not, in fact, separate). Additionally, this suggests that “the word” – whatever that is – is as holy and divine as God itself. 

This seems like a pretty bold statement, that something called “the word” was akin or part-of or equal to, God. 

And yet, despite my many years of attending a Baptist church in my youth, I don’t remember much emphasis being placed on this passage. 

Deconstructionism

Nor do we, as humans, seem to spend much time thinking about the power of words or language in our day-to-day lives. If you’ve taken a Philosophy of Literature class you’ll have been introduced to “deconstructionism”: Jacques Derrida’s philosophy that in part suggests that since all words are defined by other words, the very nature of language itself lacks a “beginning” and is therefore unstable. 

I remember (back in my English Literature days) this concept having a very unsettling effect on my worldview – it’s an odd sensation to contemplate how “unreal” words really are, and to stew upon the jump we must inevitably take between the “experienced world” and that of the world of words.

As Alan Watts likes to say, “The menu is not the meal.” Words are NOT the same as the thing they represent. They never can be.

But who else talks about this concept much, outside of English and philosophy students?

And where Derrida’s aim seems to be to point out the underlying weakness of language, the Bible seems to be pointing out the other half of this coin – the inherent power and DIVINE NATURE of words themselves.  

And that’s just one takeaway based on reading John 1 in English. 

“Word” is actually a lazy translation of “logos”

Even fewer people seem to know that the use of the English term “word” might be just a bit underwhelming, given how we understand the word “word” in English. In the original Greek, the term used was not “word” but rather “logos.” And “logos” might have had a larger, more significant, meaning. This isn’t surprising, given how central a theme “logos” seems to occupy in this passage. 

But ok – what is logos? 

Well, to be honest, I’m not sure. 

Listen to any of Dr. Jordan Peterson’s lectures on the Bible and you’ll quickly realize that he sees “logos” (this little, often misunderstood or simply not-used, term) to be CENTRAL to understanding the very Bible itself. 

What’s his take on the meaning? 

Logos: a divine act of creation

He describes “logos” as being the divine act of “creating reality” through the “truthful” telling of existence, using words. 

And this is where we get metaphysical. 

Because according to this vein of thought, it’s as if the very use of words is what brings the world into being. 

Not that there’s just nothingness out there before words, or that the universe “pops” into being once we name it. No, words don’t magically create “stuff.” But but rather that the state of “being” – perceived reality – can’t exist without… well… words, or at least the things that they represent.

Because what are words? They are concepts – concepts made into sounds and visual symbols. Thus, by using or perceiving (or simply experiencing) concepts, we break the world into parts that can be imagined and conceived. 

And so the Bible, in the first chapter of John, is stating something so simple and yet so fundamental that it’s often not even explored. 

Yet who can argue that there is a real power hidden in words. We, as people, so often forget that concepts and the words that represent them are in some way a choice – even if that “choice” is forgotten by the user. We forget that the “definition” of a word is in many ways a social agreement (as Derrida would remind us); two separate individuals can only communicate ideas if they agree upon the meaning of the words that they use to communicate. 

Still, I’m not saying everyone must agree with this hypothesis about what the Bible is trying to say… this jump from “word” to “logos,” and from “logos” to “the act of creating the world through the use of concepts.” 

But it certainly seems an interesting first step toward putting some sort of framework around this oft-sidestepped, and yet seemingly ESSENTIAL passage of the Bible.

The “responsibility” of logos – the perfect balance for the wisdom of the Tao

And as a hypothesis, it’s a perfect balance to the other philosophical tradition toward which I lean: Taoism. 

To reiterate, the Bible states, “In the beginning was the word / logos.” The first “thing” was “logos” – or “the conscious use of words and concept to define reality.” And it states that this process, this “doing,” was not just as old as existence itself, but is in fact divine. 

The Tao, on the other hand, begins by saying this:  

The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao

The name that can be named 

is not the eternal Name. The unnamable is the eternally real. 

-Tao te Ching

Which could be read to mean “that which you can define is inherently limited” and is thus perishable. 

Why is something that is limited inherently “perishable?”

Well, if you understand that in this universe, change is the only constant, you must also concede that any time you try to hold the universe still, you will eventually lose that “thing” you are determined to hold. 

No “thing” lasts forever, not even if that “thing” is an idea.

Many Taoists (and Buddhists) rally behind this statement. Some take it so far as to say, “Let’s not define anything,” or that “nirvana” (being with God) is only attained by “emptying” one’s mind of all thoughts. Perhaps Derrida was a Taoist.

Even the Tao honors the divinity of the ego

But even Taoists forget the rest of the first verse of the Tao. For if you continue reading you come across these lines (from Stephen Mitchell’s translation):

Naming is the origin 

of all particular things. Free from desire, you realize the mystery. 

Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations. Yet mystery and manifestations 

arise from the same source. 

This source is called darkness. Darkness within darkness. 

The gateway to all understanding. 

- Tao te Ching

“Yet mystery and manifestations arise from the same source.” When I first understood this line it filled me with joy.

Why? 

Because even the Tao, which emphasizes the importance of non-doing, non-thinking (which are, in many ways, the same ideas as faith in God), includes in its very first verse, a subtle and not-often-quoted reminder that BOTH states of mind are equally as divine. It reminds us that the experience of “mystery” through faith AND our use of words, concepts, and the subsequent egoic attachment to "manifestations" are actually both the world as it should be. 

In general, Taoism and Buddhism are psychologies that serve as reminders that our minds and our egos set their own traps - that we, as conscious beings, tend to cling to very definitions we create and it’s this very clinging that causes suffering. And while the wording may be slightly different, the wisdom of the Bible is similar - its first statement is to remind us the very real POWER of words and concepts, and that the act of definition is itself not just powerful, but divine. For why else would we do it? Wouldn’t it be simpler not to exist? Not to be conscious?

But despite it all we DO exist; we are conscious. How could that be if it weren’t what was supposed to be: if it wasn’t, in some way, for the joy of God?

Have you learned more about the concept of logos? Please chime in below!

~Cecil

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