It has always been known by human beings that different things and peoples have their “ways”. There is the way of fire and the way of the Persians. One word of the Greeks for these “ways” is “natures.”

The Greeks discovered TWO unbelievably important and significant things.⬇︎

1ST: The Greeks discovered that “natures” were constant and universal, UNLIKE the laws and customs of peoples. They DISTINGUISHED natures from customs.

2ND: they discovered that all the natures FIT TOGETHER in an overarching system called “Nature.” ⬇︎

Now here is the material point:

The “natures” of things, e.g. cold or sulphuric acid or dung beetles belong TO NATURE, but are not NATURE ITSELF.

NATURE is not a nature.

The discover of Nature itself as opposed to the nature of this or that being was monumental.

There is a genos (class) of entities called gods. It was once widely thought that this was not an empty class.

But the Hebrews learned that there is something that does not belong to this class at all, but utterly transcends it (and every class), which is what we call God.

God is no more a god than Nature is a nature. Even less, since it is pretty clear that beings do have natures, and it isn’t clear that there ever are any gods.

“The gods of the nations are idols.”

Mistaking God for a god is a category error.

It is a slightly interesting category error, since the error consists not in putting something in the wrong category, but in attempting to place that which transcends categories in a category.

But that interestingness is due to the uniqueness of God.

It’s still a basic error.

Trying to have a discussion about God with someone who will only talk about gods is very much like trying to talk about goodness with someone who will only discuss dry goods.

If someone only ever talks about “goods” is the economic sense, and won’t even acknowledge the moral sense, you’ll never get to moral goods, much less to The Good Itself.

There’s no discussion to be had.

It’s doubly absurd when the dry goods person keeps accusing you of error.