Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: Blackyce
Demiurge is Gnostic thing not a Platonic thing, you've got it out of order.

See the dialogue Timeous where Plato talk about Demiurge. Platonic Demiurge failed to create the perfect world - the perfect image of the perfect eternal Forms, because he has to work what is given to him - the imperfect changing matter.

"The world of Becoming, which is constantly changing, can never completely imitate the unchanging Forms which are the Models for sensory objects. The Demiurge is constrained by the materials he has to work with. Nothing in this world is Everlasting or Unchanging. Eternity (the Form) can only be imperfectly mirrored in the physical world by something which is itself changing. The Demiurge, though constrained, tries to produce the most perfect copy that he can." (See the chapter Plato's Universe of Evolution of the Concepts of Space and Time by Michael Bradie and Comer Duncan.

106 posted on 05/09/2003 6:19:29 PM PDT by A. Pole
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 103 | View Replies ]


To: A. Pole; exmarine
Right. The Socratic Cosmology given in the Timaeus is a must read:

Now to discover the Maker and Father of this Universe were a task indeed; and having discovered Him, to declare Him unto all men were a thing impossible. However, let us return and inquire further concerning the Cosmos,--after which of the Models did its Architect construct it?

Was it after that which is self-identical and uniform, or after that which has come into existence; Now if so be that this Cosmos is beautiful and its Constructor good, it is plain that he fixed his gaze on the Eternal; but if otherwise (which is an impious supposition), his gaze was on that which has come into existence. But it is clear to everyone that his gaze was on the Eternal; for the Cosmos is the fairest of all that has come into existence, and He the best of all the Causes. So having in this wise come into existence, it has been constructed after the pattern of that which is apprehensible by reason and thought and is self-identical.


107 posted on 05/09/2003 6:38:56 PM PDT by cornelis
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 106 | View Replies ]

To: A. Pole
You are right, I had it out of order. I didnt realize plato was the one who introduced the conceot of the Demiurge. It should be said that his demiurge was a benevolent failure, while the Christian and Gnostic versions were the creators of evil.
121 posted on 05/09/2003 11:05:35 PM PDT by Blackyce (President Jacques Chirac: "As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 106 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson