He was in the beginning with God – John 1:2 NASB
“He” indicates that the Word is not just a force, but a Person. He was in the beginning, not “it”. If you have an impersonal force operating on a rock, it drops straight towards the center of gravity. If you have the rock in possession of a person, its motions are much more sophisticated. This is the difference between a force and a person. Personhood is greater, not lesser than an impersonal force.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX7xruR12YA&w=420&h=315]
This is the difference with the Greek concept of the Logos. The stoics thought of the Logos as the active reason pervading and animating the universe. It was more like the Star Wars “Force” than a personal God. It was conceived of as material, identified with God or nature:
In Stoic philosophy, which began with Zeno of Citium c. 300 BC, the logos was the active reason pervading and animating the universe. It was conceived of as material, and is usually identified with God orNature. The Stoics also referred to the seminal logos, (“logos spermatikos”) or the law of generation in the universe, which was the principle of the active reason working in inanimate matter. Humans, too, each possess a portion of the divine logos.[24]
The Stoics took all activity to imply a Logos, or spiritual principle. As the operative principle of the world, to them, the Logos was anima mundi, a concept which later influenced Philo of Alexandria, although he derived the contents of the term from Plato.[25]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logos 8/1/2014
Many things flow from this notion of Logos as person. If the Godhead were merely manifestations of a creative but impersonal force, there could be no possibility of love, because love is the peculiar domain of a person. The members of the Godhead, including the Holy Spirit, are persons. We are made in the image of God in that we have been granted personhood and not simply physical deterministic existence. An impersonal force can be expected to be understood and manipulated, but a person is someone you can pray to, in the sense of conversation and request. Personhood is greater than impersonal force because God as a person can be expected to have feelings and compassion for your plight, whereas an impersonal force just rolls along in response to its environment. The person who comes to God saying “Lord Lord didn’t I” (Matthew 7:22-23) comes to God thinking he can be manipulated as if He is not a person but a law of rewards and returns. It is interesting that The Lord’s rebuke to them is one of relationship: “I never knew you.” They did not come to God as a person but as a force. We worship a living God, and the living God is the incarnate Word.