Different in degree or kind; language (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, December 22, 2014, 15:04 (3406 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

TONY: Well, at least from a biblical perspective, language is part of how we were designed. Apparently "let us make them in our image" included the ability to communicate and speak in a common language with our designer, because, as the story goes, humans communicated with him directly via spoken word in the beginning.Dhw: I'm not quite sure what “in the beginning” implies. According to Genesis there was only one human language to begin with, but now there are estimated to be well over 6000 in use. So either God understands people's prayers in 6000-plus different languages, or we can no longer communicate with him directly. You seem to be implying the latter, which would make a mockery of most church services, let alone those individuals who believe they have direct access. Or have I misunderstood?

TONY: Yes, you misunderstood. There was only one human language initially. God directly 'dabbled' to confuse the languages (i.e. that implies that he created the initial other root languages as well). Your statement that we can not communicate directly to him is illogical. There are translators that can speak a dozen languages. Does that mean that if you speak one of the languages that they know, that you can not communicate with them, or does it instead mean that they know more languages than you?-I was not making a statement but was puzzled by your syntax. You wrote, in relation to there being a common language, that humans communicated with God “directly via spoken word in the beginning”, which suggests they no longer communicate with him directly. Judging by your response, however, may I assume that God now communicates with people in 6000-plus languages?