The Essay Section of my ConWest Midterm Exam:

The Gospel According to John opens with an exceedingly Platonic statement: "In the beginning the Word already was." Just as Plato believed that the ideal realm - the essence of Being - has always existed and will always unchangingly exist, so John speaks of an immortal, unchanging Word. This Word is perfectly united and complete; that is, there is no separation between a reference and that which is referred to. In the physical, corporeal world, words are generally used to refer to something else, but this word is its own message. It is immortal, united, perfect - the very embodiment of the "meta" (beyond physical) realm.

Just as the Platonic paradigm tends to assert that the ideal realm preexists the physical world, this Word existed before anything corporeal came to be. After all, "in the beginning the Word already was," and the physical world was created later. Genesis recounts the creation story, and it too makes clear that something far beyond sensory perception existed first and, in fact, created the physical world. The inferior corporeal realm, then, is derived from the superior immortal Word or God.

These two realms - the "meta" and the "physical" - are distinct from one another. In John, though, the Word actually descends down into the derived physical realm in order to point the way back to the original, united perfection that is the Word. In this physical world, though, humans cannot comprehend the unity of the Word - how can the Word be both the messenger and the message? For this reason, Jesus - the Word incarnate - must refer to the original perfection in worldly terms. He constantly speaks in metaphors and parables: "I am the bread of life," he says, or "I am the water of life." This derived zone of physical reality will not permit the clarity and unity of the Word, and so the Word must speak in an ambiguous language.

Also in John is a passage about how "no one had ever seen God." Being from the "meta" realm, God or the Word is completely outside the scope of sensory perception. In order that the people trapped in the physical world might percieve the word, he must assume a corporeal, human form. In this way, the Word manages to be both divine and human at once.

The "Word" referred to in the prologue of the Gospel of John is the "meta" realm - immortal, preexisting, and united. The physical world and all that can be percieved by the senses is derived from It , yet It is distinct from the corporeal world. In order to "point back" to the original perfection, it "become flesh" and descends into the world, assuming a form and speaking in a language that those trapped in the physical realm can understand. Thus the Word degenerates into words, but point back towards itself - because it is the messenger and message in one.