Sure 'Spiritualquest.' 'Theist' just means means someone that asserts an original 'source' or ground of things that does not itself have a previous ground (like God, for example). This comes from the Greek word 'theos.' On the other hand, the word 'a-theist' is formed by taking the root word of 'theism,' and putting something called an alpha-privative in front of it. Grammatically, the 'a' is meant to negate what comes after it, which makes it the equivalent of saying 'not-theistic.' Simply put, in normal non-philosophical usage, it is the difference between saying there is a god (theism) or there isn't a god (atheism). The negation also gives us the other distinction of 'a-gnosticism' (gnosis meaning something like 'knowing'). Greek also uses an alpha modification of the root to do something called 'intensitivum' in the Latin, but that doesn't really apply here. Hope that helps and wasn't too technical. Regards; John |