Latest / Reformed Thinking / ἀΐδιος (Aidios): God’s Eternal Power and Divine Nature

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ἀΐδιος (Aidios): God’s Eternal Power and Divine Nature · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to reformed thinking. I mean, imagine for a second
• 0:04
  that you are holding a piece of blank paper.
• 0:06
  OK, I'm picturing it. Right.
• 0:08
  So try to visualize a line drawn on that paper that represents
• 0:11
  the word always. Like a timeline.
• 0:13
  Right. Yeah, timeline, because for most
• 0:15
  of us, our brains immediately imagine a starting point, like
• 0:19
  the exact moment the pan hits the paper, and then we draw that
• 0:23
  line forward until it runs off the edge of the page.
• 0:25
  Which makes sense. That is how we handle the
• 0:27
  concept of eternity, you know, In our modern context, yes.
• 0:30
  We think of it as just a really, really long time that stretches
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  into some unknowable future. But the ancient world, they view
• 0:39
  the infinite completely differently.
• 0:40
  Oh, completely. For them, understanding the
• 0:43
  infinite wasn't about drawing a line that never ends, it was
• 0:47
  what was like waking up and realizing the paper itself has
• 0:49
  no edges. That is a great way to put it.
• 0:51
  No edges at all. There is no top, no bottom, no
• 0:54
  starting point, no pen, no ink. It was just always there.
• 0:57
  That concept of the edgeless paper is well, it's a perfect
• 1:01
  starting point for what we were doing today because we are
• 1:03
  looking at a linguistic landscape that is genuinely mind
• 1:07
  bending. It really is.
• 1:09
  So today's mission in this deep dives is to take a microscope to
• 1:14
  a single ancient Greek word. The word is edios, pronounced
• 1:18
  edios. Edios, Yeah.
• 1:20
  And we're going to trace its usage from the high minded
• 1:26
  debates of ancient Greek philosophers down into everyday
• 1:30
  bureaucratic inscriptions carved in stone, all the way to its
• 1:34
  incredibly rare appearances in the New Testament.
• 1:36
  Which are very rare, as we will see.
• 1:38
  Very. And for you listening, I want to
• 1:39
  frame this right out of the gate.
• 1:40
  This isn't some dry vocabulary lesson.
• 1:42
  No, not at all. This is a brilliant window into
• 1:45
  how the ancients wrestled with the massive, staggering concept
• 1:48
  of Infinity and time. So let's unpack the anatomy of
• 1:51
  the word itself. Where does adios actually come
• 1:53
  from? Well, the root of adios comes
• 1:55
  from the Greek adverb AI, which translates quite simply to
• 1:58
  always, just always. Yeah, just always.
• 2:01
  But the way the ancient philosophers built upon that
• 2:03
  route, that is where the history gets really fascinating, right.
• 2:06
  If we look at the pseudoplatonic writings, they offer a very
• 2:09
  specific definition. They state that something is
• 2:12
  adios if it is for all time, both past and present and not
• 2:17
  destroyed. So it implies an absolute state
• 2:20
  of existence. Spot on.
• 2:22
  But the philosopher who really weaponized this term, you know,
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  who turned it into a heavy conceptual tool, was Aristotle.
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  OK, Aristotle. And he applied it heavily to the
• 2:31
  cosmos, right? Like specifically the physical
• 2:34
  heavens. Yes, he did.
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  In his framework, the heavens have no beginning and no end.
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  He established A strict logical rule.
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  Things that exist by absolute necessity are are by definition
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  adios. They are ungenerated and
• 2:48
  indestructible. Wait, let's pause on that word
• 2:50
  ungenerated, because that is vastly different from just
• 2:52
  saying something will last a really long time.
• 2:54
  Oh, it's a totally different category.
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  Right, because being ungenerated means it never had a starting
• 2:58
  point. It was never created, birthed,
• 3:01
  or formed. It simply always was.
• 3:03
  It is the absolute absence of an origin story.
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  That is the core of the Aristotelian definition.
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  If something is adios in that strict sense, it is immune to
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  the natural cycles of birth and decay.
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  It exists outside the boundaries of deterioration.
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  Yeah, and the Greeks, they had a massive philosophical anxiety
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  about chaos and decay. I mean, everything in the
• 3:24
  physical world rots, dies or falls apart.
• 3:27
  Right, rust and moths and all that.
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  So they needed a concept, a linguistic anchor that describes
• 3:32
  something entirely immune to that process.
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  The edgeless paper I mentioned. Precisely that ungenerated
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  reality became a crucial tool for thinkers trying to describe
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  the absolute highest levels of existence.
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  So this brings me a huge question for me.
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  If this term was heavily utilized by Greek philosophers
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  to describe the cosmos or these abstract, necessary truths, how
• 3:52
  does it crossover into Jewish and Christian descriptions of
• 3:55
  the divine? That is the big transition.
• 3:58
  Because you have two very different worldviews colliding
• 4:01
  here. You have Aristotle's ungenerated
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  physical universe on one side, and the Hebrew concept of a
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  creator God on the other. Right, the creator and the
• 4:10
  creature. There is a massive historical
• 4:13
  bridge between those two worlds. And his name is Philo of
• 4:16
  Alexandria. Philo.
• 4:18
  Yeah, Philo is a fascinating figure.
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  He was a Jewish philosopher living in Egypt during the 1st
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  century, right in the intellectual melting pot of the
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  ancient world. Alexandria had the Great
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  Library, right? It was the hub of Hellenistic
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  thought. He was the center of it all, and
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  Philo's entire project was translating Hebrew theological
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  concepts into terms that the Hellenized Greek speaking world
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  could understand and, you know, respect.
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  OK, so how does he use our word He?
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  Uses Ideos heavily in his writings specifically to
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  describe God. Because the God of the Hebrew
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  Scriptures is uncreated and indestructible, right?
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  The great I am, yeah. He also applies the term to the
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  Logos, the Divine Word or reason, and to anything that is
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  invisible and intelligible to the mind, rather than just the
• 5:00
  physical senses. Wait, hold on, is Philo just
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  pandering to the Greeks here? How?
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  Do you mean? Sounds like he is just slapping
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  an Aristotelian bumper sticker on his theology to make sales.
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  Like hey Greeks, you love Aristotle's idios.
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  Let me tell you my God is the real idios.
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  That's. A funny way to picture it I.
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  Mean. It feels like a marketing tactic
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  to make Hebrew texts sound sophisticated to a bunch of
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  academics in Alexandria. I get why?
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  You'd think that it is a highly logical suspicion, but if you
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  look at the grammatical mechanics of his writing, Philo
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  was doing something far more structurally significant than
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  just borrowing A trendy adjective.
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  Well, really. What was he doing?
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  Well, Philo sometimes uses idos as a stand alone noun for God
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  without even attaching the actual Greek word for God which
• 5:48
  is the ghost. Wait, he drops Theos entirely?
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  Yeah, he. Doesn't just say God is eternal.
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  He refers to God as the eternal Oh.
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  Wow, he. Takes this massive philosophical
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  adjective and turns it into the very identity, the proper name
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  of of the divine. So he.
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  Is colonizing the Greek word? Yes, he is taking it over.
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  Furthermore, Philo frequently uses a specific phrase, the
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  Ideos Word of the Ideos God. He pairs two different words for
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  eternity. He.
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  Pairs it directly with another massive Greek word for eternity.
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  This shows a deliberate, highly calculated usage.
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  So he isn't just pandering. No, he is insisting that the
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  absolute ungenerated reality the Greeks are theorizing about
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  finds its actual personal fulfillment in the Creator.
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  He is taking their highest philosophical concept and
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  claiming it for Hebrew theology. OK.
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  That shifts the perspective entirely.
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  Philo loved this word. He's using it as a central
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  pillar to explain God's uncreated nature to the
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  Hellenized world. Bite on it heavily.
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  But given that enthusiasm, you would logically expect this word
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  to be plastered all over the Septuagint, right?
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  The Greek translation of the Old Testament.
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  You. Really would, because.
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  The Septuagint was also produced in Alexandria, right in that
• 7:03
  same intellectual hub by Jewish scholars doing very similar
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  work. You'd think adios would be the
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  go to translation for anything related to God's eternal nature.
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  But it isn't. It is almost entirely absent.
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  Seriously, in the Septuagint adios is incredibly rare.
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  Across the vast collection of the Greek Old Testament, it
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  appears only twice only. Twice out of all those books,
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  yeah. Once in Wisdom 7.26, where
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  wisdom is described as a reflection of eternal light, and
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  once in Four Maccabees 10.15 which describes the eternal life
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  of the pious and. Both of those are apocryphal
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  texts, any right? That's it.
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  Just two occurrences in texts that are historically late and
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  highly stylized. It is clearly functioning as a
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  philosophical rather than popular term.
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  It's like finding a highly technical astrophysics term
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  dropped into the middle of a poetry collection.
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  That's a great analogy when. You read through the Greek Old
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  Testament and you suddenly hit adios in the Book of Wisdom.
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  It stands out sharply. It demands attention it.
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  Definitely jumps off the page so.
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  Why the massive hesitation? Why would a committee of
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  translators avoid a word that seems so perfectly suited to
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  describe an eternal God? Because the translators of the
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  Septuagint were acutely aware of the heavy, specific
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  philosophical baggage that adios carry the.
• 8:18
  Aristotle, Baggage. Exactly the Aristotle baggage.
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  Remember, he used it to say the cosmos, The physical heavens
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  were ungenerated, right? But Hebrew theology, and
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  especially Reformed thought as we understand it today, insists
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  on a clear distinction. God is uncreated, but the
• 8:34
  physical universe is absolutely created.
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  Genesis 1 is non negotiable on that front.
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  In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, yes.
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  So if the translator started throwing adios around casually
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  to describe God, they risked the word bleeding over into the
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  description of the world. I see they risked implying that
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  matter itself was eternal alongside God.
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  Precisely the problem if they used adios improperly, they
• 9:00
  could accidentally endorse a massive theological error within
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  Jewish monotheism. They.
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  Would be agreeing with Aristotle that the physical universe is an
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  edgeless paper, right And they. Couldn't allow that, so they
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  reserved the word strictly for later.
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  Highly Hellenized texts where the authors were directly,
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  safely engaging with Greek philosophical concepts.
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  Like the uncreated nature of divine light?
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  Yeah. Or the precise, indestructible
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  nature of the afterlife. For the righteous, they kept it
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  locked in a glass case until they desperately needed it.
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  Knowing how rare and philosophically radioactive this
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  word is in the Greek Old Testament sets the stage
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  perfectly for what happens next. Because.
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  We hit the New Testament right. This brings us to the Apostle
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  Paul. Paul is writing his letter to
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  the Romans, a highly educated audience living in the capital
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  of the empire, a tough. Crowd and.
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  Out of all the vocabulary available to him, he
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  deliberately reaches into that glass case, pulls out adios and
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  uses it in Romans 1.20, which. Is a huge moment this.
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  Is 1 of only two times the word appears in the entire New
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  Testament. The context of Romans 1.20 is
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  crucial for understanding why he takes that risk.
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  Unpack that for us well. Paul writes that the invisible
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  attributes of God, specifically his eternal adios, might and
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  divine nature, are clearly seen being understood through the
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  things that have been made. Paul is setting up a massive
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  sensory paradox for the reader there.
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  Oh, absolutely, he says. The invisible things are clearly
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  seen. Specifically this adios might.
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  But I mean, how can a mortal finite human being equipped with
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  terribly limited physical senses possibly see a force that is
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  adios it? Sounds impossible.
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  How do you perceive something that stretches infinitely
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  backward and forward with no origin point?
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  It feels like asking a microphone to record the concept
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  of gravity. It is a category error.
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  It sounds like a contradiction until you look at the mechanics
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  of Paul's argument. This passage in Romans connects
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  directly to Stoic ways of thought and also to Philo.
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  OK. So he's using their framework?
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  Yeah. Paul is adopting a recognized
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  philosophical framework to make a theological point.
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  The logic operates like this. Finite creation logically
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  requires an infinite ungenerated source.
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  You. Cannot have a temporary created
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  world without a first 'cause that sits completely outside of
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  time in creation, right the. Visible temporary world acts as
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  a lens when you look at the sheer scale, order and existence
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  of the universe. That visible reality makes the
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  sheer unyielding continuity of the Creator's divine nature
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  obvious to the observer. So we can't see the infinite
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  directly, but we see the irrefutable evidence of it.
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  Think of it like modern astronomy.
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  We can't actually see a black hole because no light escapes
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  it. It is invisible to our eyes.
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  But we know they're there. Right, because we can clearly
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  see the light from other stars bending around the intense
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  gravity of that black hole. The visible distortion proves
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  the existence of the invisible force that.
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  Is brilliant. Paul is telling the Romans that
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  ungenerated, indestructible reality, your philosophers
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  debate it, is visibly acting upon the world.
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  You can see the light bending around it.
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  That is an excellent way to conceptualize it.
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  Paul uses the word with its full, unadulterated
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  philosophical weight of absolute Infinity.
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  He isn't watering it down. He's.
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  Doubling down on it, he. Is, but the only other time the
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  word appears in the New Testament.
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  It behaves in a way that seems to shatter the rules of its own
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  definition. Yes.
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  The second occurrence takes us into a completely different
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  context. It's found in the Epistle of
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  Jude, specifically Jude 6. This is where things get really
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  interesting. Let me.
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  Set up the text for this one. Jude 6 describes fallen angels.
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  It says these angels are kept in everlasting chains.
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  The Greek phrase there is de Moi ediwa under darkness until the
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  judgment of the great day. So they are bound in Edios
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  chains. Right.
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  And the linguistic tension there is palpable it.
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  Really is. It's a.
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  Glaring contradiction based on everything we've just discussed.
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  I mean the if the root of the word means always, and Aristotle
• 13:00
  strictly insisted it means having no end, how can these
• 13:03
  chains have a strict expiration date?
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  That's the $1,000,000 question, Jude.
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  Literally says they're kept in these chains until the judgment
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  of the great day. That is an ending point A.
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  Very specific ending point did. The author of Jude make a
• 13:17
  vocabulary mistake. Did he just pick the wrong word
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  for long lasting it? Isn't a mistake at all, but
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  rather a specific, highly contextual application of the
• 13:25
  word. OK, explain that.
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  In this instance, the word does not mean for all of time, since
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  the ending point is the Day of Judgment.
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  To understand why Jude uses it this way, we have to look at
• 13:35
  parallel evidence from the ancient world.
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  What? Kind of evidence, look.
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  At the historian Josephus, for example, he used a remarkably
• 13:42
  similar phrase, dim, wah, ezio and wah to describe the
• 13:46
  imprisonment of a man named John.
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  Josephus calls it a lifelong imprisonment.
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  But John wasn't in prison for infinite ungenerated time, no?
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  Of course. Not he was imprisoned until he
• 13:55
  died. Exactly.
• 13:57
  When you move from abstract cosmology into legal and penal
• 14:01
  contexts, the vocabulary adapts that.
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  Makes total sense in. The ancient justice system, an
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  eternal bond or chain, does not mean an infinite philosophical
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  timeline. It means a condition that is
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  continuous, unbroken, and absolutely inescapable for the
• 14:16
  entirety of its designated age or epoch.
• 14:19
  Oh. I see we use similar language
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  today without thinking about it. We do.
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  Yeah. If a judge hands down a life
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  sentence, they aren't implying the prisoner will literally live
• 14:27
  for infinite time, right? They aren't granting
• 14:29
  immortality. They're saying the sentence
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  covers the entirety of the relevant epic, the prisoner's
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  natural life. The condition of imprisonment is
• 14:36
  absolute and inescapable until the endpoint is reached that.
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  Is a perfect parallel. So an adios chain is not a chain
• 14:43
  that exists forever in an abstract sense.
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  It's a chain that cannot be broken, picked or escaped by the
• 14:50
  prisoner. It is.
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  Absolute the. Bondage is absolute until the
• 14:53
  judge says otherwise. The certainty of the bond is
• 14:56
  what is in view, not the philosophical timeline of the
• 14:59
  medal. Yes.
• 15:00
  The angels in Jude Six are in a state of inescapable lockdown.
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  The duration is fixed by the absolute decree of the judge,
• 15:08
  and within that appointed epoch the chains are absolute, which.
• 15:11
  Perfectly aligns with a Reformed understanding of God's absolute
• 15:15
  sovereignty in judgement it. Absolutely does, and this
• 15:18
  blurring between absolute philosophical Infinity and a
• 15:21
  designated in a stable duration brings our discussion to what
• 15:25
  might be the most crucial linguistic comparison of all
• 15:28
  right we. Have to talk about the rivalry
• 15:30
  between two massive Greeks the. Heavyweights of eternity, yes.
• 15:34
  The heavyweights. In one corner we have our word
• 15:36
  for today idios and in the other corner we have Ienios these. 2
• 15:41
  terms contrast beautifully Idios pertains primarily to an
• 15:44
  unlimited duration of time. It's a.
• 15:46
  Measurement of quantity right it.
• 15:48
  Tracks how long something lasts. But Ishinios behaves
• 15:51
  differently. How?
• 15:52
  So the. Most frequent use of ishinios in
• 15:54
  the New Testament is paired with the word life, as in John 3.15,
• 15:59
  and when it is used this way it carries not just a temporal
• 16:02
  element but a severe qualitative distinction.
• 16:06
  Let. Me offer an analogy to lock in
• 16:07
  your understanding of this difference for everyone
• 16:10
  listening because it is crucial. Go for it.
• 16:12
  Imagine someone is in a deep coma, kept alive purely by
• 16:16
  machines. If those machines could run
• 16:19
  forever, giving that person an unbroken duration of biological
• 16:23
  existence, that is ichin just sheer.
• 16:25
  Quantity of time stretching forward, right?
• 16:27
  But now imagine that same person waking up from the coma, not
• 16:30
  just cured, but possessing superhuman vitality, absolute
• 16:34
  clarity of mind and perfect health.
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  The total. Transformation that shift.
• 16:39
  In the nature of their existence is Ichinios.
• 16:41
  It isn't just about the timeline getting longer.
• 16:44
  The entire quality of the life is fundamentally changed that.
• 16:46
  Distinction solves a a major translation challenge that we
• 16:49
  run into all the time. What?
• 16:50
  Challenge is that well. If a translator renders eternal
• 16:54
  life simply as never dying, it creates serious
• 16:57
  misunderstandings for the reader.
• 16:59
  Why? Because a person might assume
• 17:02
  that never dying refers solely to extending their physical
• 17:04
  existence, they might picture their current flawed earthly
• 17:08
  life just dragging on forever like the person in the coma
• 17:12
  Which. Honestly sounds more like a
• 17:13
  curse than a promise. Yeah.
• 17:15
  I mean, a flawed existence stretching into Infinity is
• 17:18
  terrifying it. Is terrifying, but the texts are
• 17:21
  talking about overcoming spiritual death and entering a
• 17:24
  divine reality A. Completely new creation, yeah.
• 17:27
  Because of this, some translators have chosen to
• 17:29
  render eternal life as unending real life I love.
• 17:32
  That phrasing, that. Phrasing intentionally
• 17:34
  introduces the qualitative distinction.
• 17:37
  It is a life that is associated with divine and supernatural
• 17:40
  attributes. So.
• 17:41
  While adios guarantees the unbroken duration, ideas defines
• 17:45
  the spectacular quality of that duration you.
• 17:47
  Nailed it so. What does this all mean for the
• 17:49
  people who actually spoke this language?
• 17:52
  I mean, while the high level theologians and philosophers
• 17:55
  were sequestered in their academies debating these
• 17:58
  qualitative and quantitative distinctions, regular working
• 18:02
  class citizens in the ancient Greek speaking world were using
• 18:05
  adios in entirely practical ways.
• 18:07
  Oh. Absolutely.
• 18:08
  It wasn't just a word for the ivory tower.
• 18:10
  Well, far from it. We have fascinating epigraphic
• 18:13
  evidence to prove this. What's?
• 18:15
  Epigraphic evidence. Epigraphs are inscriptions
• 18:17
  carved into stone or metal, the public records of the ancient
• 18:20
  world. If we look at the Ditenberger
• 18:23
  silage, which is a famous collection of Greek
• 18:25
  inscriptions, we see secular everyday uses like.
• 18:30
  What? Give us some examples we.
• 18:31
  See the phrase ton adium cronon which means for all time we see
• 18:36
  Adia and nagrapha which refers to permanent records.
• 18:39
  Permanent. Records OK, and we see.
• 18:40
  Daria idios, which translates to an ongoing grant or a permanent
• 18:44
  gift. Secular historians like
• 18:46
  Thucydides and Xenophon also use the word casually to mean
• 18:50
  forever. So if I am a merchant in ancient
• 18:53
  Athens and I buy a plot of land, the deed might use the word
• 18:57
  adios to guarantee my ownership, yes?
• 18:59
  Exactly, it's the. Ancient version of a binding
• 19:01
  legal contract or a lifetime guarantee?
• 19:04
  That's spot. On it was.
• 19:05
  A language of absolute bureaucratic certainty, it meant
• 19:08
  the matter was settled, recorded and untouchable.
• 19:11
  Think about the impact that has on the original listener of the
• 19:14
  New Testament texts. Yeah.
• 19:16
  Put us in their shoes when? A 1st century person, perhaps a
• 19:19
  merchant or a tradesman, heard Paul use adios regarding God's
• 19:24
  attributes or heard Jude use it regarding spiritual realities.
• 19:28
  They weren't just hearing abstract philosophical jargon.
• 19:31
  They were. Hearing the vocabulary of the
• 19:32
  marketplace right? They were hearing the language
• 19:35
  of permanent royal decrees and unbreakable legal land grants.
• 19:39
  It grounded the highest, most abstract theological ideas in
• 19:43
  hard, undeniable, concrete reality.
• 19:45
  Yes. It made it real for them it.
• 19:47
  Told them this truth about God is as solid and reliable as the
• 19:51
  deed to your house in fact, it's infinitely more solid it.
• 19:54
  Removed the concept of eternity from the clouds and anchored it
• 19:58
  into the bedrock of their daily legal and social understanding.
• 20:02
  Let's step back and look at the whole picture.
• 20:05
  We've traced this single word idios across a massive
• 20:09
  conceptual landscape. Today we.
• 20:11
  Really covered a lot of ground we.
• 20:12
  Saw it operate as an Aristotelian absolute, a
• 20:16
  description of something with no origin, completely ungenerated
• 20:19
  the. Edgeless paper, right?
• 20:21
  The edgeless paper. We watched Philo use it to
• 20:24
  colonize Greek philosophy, defending the majesty of the
• 20:27
  divine to a Hellenized audience. Turning the adjective into the
• 20:31
  noun. Yep.
• 20:32
  Then we noticed the Septuagint translators treated like
• 20:35
  handling dynamite, using it only twice with extreme caution to
• 20:39
  avoid endorsing uncreated matter because.
• 20:41
  Of Genesis 1 because. Of Genesis 1, we read Paul
• 20:44
  utilizing it to describe the creator's raw, undeniable might,
• 20:47
  visible through the lens of creation, the.
• 20:49
  Invisible made visible. And we saw it function in the
• 20:52
  penal system of the ancient world as a legal term for an
• 20:56
  inescapable, unbroken bond. And finally, we saw it etched
• 21:01
  into the stone of the ancient marketplace as the ultimate
• 21:04
  stamp of bureaucratic permanence.
• 21:06
  It. Is an incredibly versatile word
• 21:08
  it. Is and for you listening, I want
• 21:10
  you to consider how vastly different this ancient concept
• 21:14
  of continuous, unbreakable time is from our modern experience
• 21:19
  we. Live in a very different world,
• 21:20
  we. Live in an era of fleeting
• 21:22
  attention spans. We measure our days and
• 21:24
  notifications, swiping past information in seconds.
• 21:27
  We are constantly looking for the next momentary distraction.
• 21:30
  Everything feels temporary. Contracts are broken,
• 21:33
  commitments fade, and everything feels disposable.
• 21:36
  But the ancients built an entire vocabulary around the concept of
• 21:39
  an unyielding, permanent reality that sits quietly underneath all
• 21:43
  of our temporary noise that. Is a heavy thought, and it
• 21:46
  raises an essential question for us to consider as we close.
• 21:48
  What's that? If the ancients understood adios
• 21:51
  not just as a mathematical measurement of infinite time,
• 21:54
  but as an inescapable reality, like a permanent public record
• 21:58
  carved in stone, or an unbreakable chain holding a
• 22:01
  prisoner for an appointed epoch, how does that alter the way you
• 22:05
  view the realities in your own life, whether it is a promise
• 22:09
  given to you or a warning set before you?
• 22:11
  Are we entirely too casual with the word forever?
• 22:15
  When we strip away our modern flippancy, we are forced to
• 22:18
  reckon with the sheer gravity of a reality that cannot be
• 22:21
  altered, paused or escaped. That's.
• 22:23
  A staggering thought to walk away with.
• 22:25
  We're forced to realize that the ruler we use to measure our days
• 22:28
  is totally insufficient for the reality that surrounds us.
• 22:31
  The timeline isn't just long. The paper has no edges.
• 22:35
  Thank you for joining us on this deep dive, and we'll look
• 22:36
  forward to having you with us next time.