You mentioned that some scriptures hint at an immaterial or intangible God, what are some of those scriptures?
And do all these beliefs of an immaterial God just come from from the canon, or do you think some of it is apocryphal?
By the way don't let my officious sounding post make me seem like a scholar or some authority. I'm not making traditional arguments or even the best arguments, just brainstorming.
Any NT scripture that uses 'Theos'. Also there is 'Logos' and 'Father' or 'Heavenly Father'. The easiest is theos, and the most difficult is father.
Logos is one of twin terms Heraclitus coins: Aether is substance without form, and Logos is that which organizes the Aether into something; and for Heraclitus these are the two things which make the world. The existence of aether is assumed just like in
Genesis the earth is there just without form and void. Logos is often translated as 'Word' in the gospel of
John to show how the passage is similar to the English opening of
Genesis, but anything which copies
Genesis is also commenting on the language in
Genesis. By using 'logos',
John interprets the words spoken in
Genesis to be form given to chaos. This, then, well suits a pre-existent God with no body, for God is not limited to the forming power nor the pre existing chaos that it organizes.
John has God as not limited to the aether or the logos, and
John has God not limited to the light and dark in
Genesis.
Father is the more difficult to explain (and I do it roughly), but the lack of 'Mother' makes it easier. There's no heavenly mother and for what reason? Its because 'Father' does not imply masculinity at all but merely inheritance. Similarly all are referred to as brothers in the NT, women included. Paul says there is neither male nor female in Christ, which adds to this. Therefore if the Heavenly Father is not male and the brethren are neither male nor female, then their fellowship is not male or female in nature. It is considered nonsexual. They inherit from the Father nonhuman characteristics. This suits a non physical God, not a God with a specific form; because they are not inheriting any physical form from the heavenly father but spiritual qualities instead.
