Posted on 09/24/2003 11:25:56 PM PDT by betty boop
This shift of attention to the individual psyche marks a decisive, revolutionary break with the characteristic habits of thought of the ancient world, the cosmological consciousness, which conceived of man mainly in terms of his connections to units larger than the individual, and envisioned a cosmos filled with gods. For Plato’s life-long meditation on the psyche – the human soul -- was deeply implicated in his speculation on the nature of the divine, which radically departed from the Hellenic people’s myth of the gods. Psyche also was the basis of Plato’s life-long meditation on “the best possible” political order.
Platonic thought can probably best be understood as a kind of spiritual autobiography. Great philosopher that he was (perhaps the greatest), Plato was not a “system builder”; he did not propound any positivist doctrine on any subject at all.
This aspect of Platonic thought is difficult for the modern imagination to grasp; for when we moderns think of a “philosopher,” we think of an intellectual who investigates propositions about truth and draws conclusive answers about the objects of his investigation. The philosopher then assembles his insights into systematic form allegedly useful in telling us about the real nature of things. (Plato called this sort of thing “philodoxy,” – love of transitory opinion -- the specialty of the Sophists, his adversaries. He would not call it “philosophy” – love of wisdom. This issue, however, is beyond the scope of the present essay.)
Although Plato is usually classed as an Idealist, his own instinct in philosophizing was uncompromisingly Realist, in the sense that he knew that certain questions can never be “closed” in principle. For the truth of existence, of Reality, is the object of zetesis -- of a search or quest -- that cannot be completed by any human being in the time of his own existence. Rather, it is a quest engaging all mankind proceeding through countless generations. Plato could point out the way. But the student must engage in the quest by and for himself, and understand it as he experiences it, according to his love for divine things.
On that note, we turn now to the consideration of psyche proper. Plato conceived of the individual human being as psyche-in-soma: an eternal soul incarnated in finite bodily existence.
The soul has a characteristic structure, a hierarchy of dynamic forces: the rational element, whose ordering power is sophia, wisdom; the spirited, whose ordering power is andreia, or manly virtue/courage; and the appetitive, whose ordering power is to “feel the pull” of physis, or bodily nature. The well-ordered soul is the healthy integration of the three forces, giving each its proper role and function.
In addition to elaborating a hierarchy of forces in the soul, the Platonic meditation also elaborates its hierarchical “structure”: At psyche’s “summit” is nous, intellect; followed by the conscious mind – including feeling, sensation; and “at bottom,” the unconscious mind, with its root in the “depth” of the soul, in which the soul’s “ground of being” can be found.
I’ve used a lot of quotation marks in the above passage for a reason. To use language like this is to intend as reified objects what are really processes on-going in the soul. We aren’t speaking of “thing-like objects” here. Processes aren’t things at all. But they are real all the same.
With that caution in mind, we have, so far, a “force field” and a “structure” for the soul, and importantly, the suggestion that the soul ought to be well-ordered.
And so the question arises: By what criteria does the soul order itself? And why would it even want to order itself?
To answer such we questions, we have to remember that the Platonic speculation maintains the immortality of the soul. The soul coming into bodily existence, however, does not remember its pre-existence at all; for at its birth into the present existence, the “circuits of the brain” become “deranged,” so the soul cannot remember anything about its life prior to its birth in this one. So it comes as a shock to the soul to discover that its body will die someday. The anxiety is acute, for the soul does not yet realize that its life is not dependent on the body, and is not destroyed with the body.
It is here (The Republic) that Plato inserts a drama in which the soul must act, the Pamphylian myth.
In the myth, “dead souls” – that is, souls separated from the body at physical death – receive reward or punishment according to their conduct in life, the bad souls going to their suffering beneath the earth, the good souls to their blessed existence in heaven. Then, after a thousand years, all the dead souls are brought into the Judgment of Lachesis, the daughter of Ananke (Necessity). And there the dead souls must draw their several lots and choose their individual fate for their next period of incarnated existence:
| Ananke’s daughter, the maiden Lachesis, her word: Souls of a day! Beginning of a new cycle, for the mortal race, to end in death! The daemon will not be allotted to you; but you shall select the daemon. The first by the lot, shall the first select the life to which he will be bound by necessity. Arete has no master; and as a man honors or dishonors her, he will have her increased or diminished. The guilt is the chooser’s; God is guiltless. |
Now a soul that had just spent one thousand years in purgative punishment in the netherworld would be most anxious to choose his daemon rightly, lest at the conclusion of the next life, he find himself returned to the suffering below for another thousand years. On the other hand, the blessed souls do not necessarily make better choices than the purged souls. And they are just as liable to wind up in punishment in the next round if they do not choose wisely.
But choose they must, and thereby bind themselves to their fate over the next cycle of life and death. A soul’s only guide in the choice is the character it had acquired during its preceding life. The choice is free, but the wisdom to make a good choice may be deficient. Under the circumstances, the best course would be to make the best choice one can, and then follow Arete – Virtue. To “diminish her” – to dishonor her call to justice, temperance, courage, love of wisdom, zealous search for true being – is to incur culpable guilt. The daemon is there to warn the soul when it wanders from Arete, endeavoring to push the soul up into the light.
The daemon might be thought of as the mediator or agent of cosmic spiritual substance in the soul, a little spark of the divine in man. Plato’s symbol for the divine substance is the Agathon, the Good.
The Agathon is utterly transcendent, so immanent propositions about it cannot be constructed in principle. Yet the soul, in an act of transcendence, may have a vision of the Agathon, of its eternally divine goodness, purity, beauty, truth, and justice. Such experiences of transcendence inform the soul, building up its just order by fortifying the Arete in the soul.
Thus the soul is drawn upward into the light of the vision of the Agathon, and participates in the divine life so far as that is possible for a man.
It is important to bear in mind that the Agathon is not God. Though Plato often refers to the One God “Beyond” the world of created things, and “Beyond” the generations of the intracosmic gods (the gods of the Age or Chronos, subsequently replaced by the Olympians under the rulership of Zeus), and strongly suggests that the Logos of divine Nous is the ordering principle of the Cosmos, he does not elaborate. That elaboration had to wait for the Revelation of Christ.
For Plato, the vision of the Agathon was the basis of the idea of the human family, of a common shared humanity, of the idea of the brotherhood of mankind. As Eric Voegelin noted (Order and History, Vol. III, Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 1957), “The understanding of a universal humanity originates in the experience of transcendence; and the ineffable kinship of men under God revealed in the experience can immanently be expressed only in a myth of descent from a common mother or father….”
In this, Plato seems to anticipate St. Paul’s one body of Christ, interjecting the idea that, despite their differences, all men are equal as brothers in the sight of God.
For Plato, the daimon-mediated tensional suspense of the soul “in between” (metaxy) its cosmic ground in the “depth” of the soul and its extracosmic height in a transcendental “beyond” in the one God, was the site and sensorium of human spiritual reality. The form of the metaxy might be seen as a faint foreshadowing of the mediating process of Christ in the salvation and perfection of the soul, uniting souls to the Father through Himself, as declared by Christian revelation, most clearly in John’s Gospel.
It is possible to imagine that there are certain seed ideas in Plato that could not come into full bloom until Jesus Christ irrupted into human history four centuries after Plato’s death.
And man is unique among creatures, for he alone possess nous; and thus is capable of being drawn to the paradigm of divine Nous -- to the contemplation of divine things. Thus man is uniquely capable of ordering his soul according to the divine paradigm, in justice and in love. And by a process of transcendence, to attain wisdom, freedom, and true Being in the contemplation of the divine Idea, the Agathon.
so how do you reconcile your admiration of a Greek philosopher over the admonition of St Paul?
no, er, see to which post they refer, at the bottom. The remarks are made by you
Only the work of Christ can save anybody ... the work of the Christian life has absolutely nothing to do with salvation --- salvation is unearnable !
People holding on to their own belief - effort ... is only a false comfort --- the new and the old don't mix !
The Christian life is not works ... fruits (( branches )) --- of the Gospel (( vine )) !
funny, the Word has the answer
It seems to me that God had a plan for Plato much like He had a plan for Cyrus and Alexander the Great (not Jewish) who are specifically mentioned in the Bible. Moreover, I believe His plan was similar to the one He had for John the Baptist - but directed to the Gentiles.
Whereas some historical figures had a role in executing God’s judgments, I believe others – and particularly Plato – had a role in preparing Gentile minds and hearts to receive Christ.
John the Baptist certainly had the mission of preparing the Jewish minds and hearts. He was a direct fulfillment of that prophesy. But Christ said he has other sheep, not of the (Jewish) fold:
Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, [in whom] my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.
He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law.
Thus saith God the LORD, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein:
I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles;
To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, [and] them that sit in darkness out of the prison house. I [am] the LORD: that [is] my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images. Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them. – Isaiah 42:1-9
For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name [shall be] great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense [shall be] offered unto my name, and a pure offering: for my name [shall be] great among the heathen, saith the LORD of hosts. – Malachi 1:11
427-347 B.C. – Plato develops philosophies, including Logos and the God who made gods
356 to 323 B.C – Alexander the Great conquered Media/Persia spreading Greek culture and philosophy
150 B.C. – The Essenes withdraw to the wilderness to avoid the Greek influence. Texts are preserved by them.
68 A.D. – Qumran abandoned, scrolls secured
114 A.D. – Justin Martyr illustrates to the Greeks that Plato was inspired, was spreading the doctrine of Moses which he learned in his Egyptian travels; that Plato was speaking of God the Father and of Christ. Justin Martyr’s First Apology
And that you may learn that it was from our teachers--we mean the account given through the prophets--that Plato borrowed his statement that God, having altered matter which was shapeless, made the world, hear the very words spoken through Moses, who, as above shown, was the first prophet, and of greater antiquity than the Greek writers; and through whom the Spirit of prophecy, signifying how and from what materials God at first formed the world, spake thus: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was invisible and unfurnished, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God moved over the waters. And God said, Let there be light; and it was so." So that both Plato and they who agree with him, and we ourselves, have learned, and you also can be convinced, that by the word of God the whole world was made out of the substance spoken of before by Moses. And that which the poets call Erebus, we know was spoken of formerly by Moses.
CHAP. LX.--PLATO'S DOCTRINE OF THE CROSS.
And the physiological discussion concerning the Son of God in the Timoeus of Plato, where he says, "He placed him crosswise in the universe," he borrowed in like manner from Moses; for in the writings of Moses it is related how at that time, when the Israelites went out of Egypt and were in the wilderness, they fell in with poisonous beasts, both vipers and asps, and every kind of serpent, which slew the people; and that Moses, by the inspiration and influence of God, took brass, and made it into the figure of a cross, and set it in the holy tabernacle, and said to the people, "If ye look to this figure, and believe, ye shall be saved thereby." And when this was done, it is recorded that the serpents died, and it is handed down that the people thus escaped death. Which things Plato reading, and not accurately understanding, and not apprehending that it was the figure of the cross, but taking it to be a placing crosswise, he said that the power next to the first God was placed crosswise in the universe. And as to his speaking of a third, he did this because he read, as we said above, that which was spoken by Moses, "that the Spirit of God moved over the waters." For he gives the second place to the Logos which is with God, who he said was placed crosswise in the universe; and the third place to the Spirit who was said to be borne upon the water, saying, "And the third around the third." And hear how the Spirit of prophecy signified through Moses that there should be a conflagration. He spoke thus: "Everlasting fire shall descend, and shall devour to the pit beneath." It is not, then, that we hold the same opinions as others, but that all speak in imitation of ours. Among us these things can be heard and learned from persons who do not even know the forms of the letters, who are uneducated and barbarous in speech, though wise and believing in mind; some, indeed, even maimed and deprived of eyesight; so that you may understand that these things are not the effect of human wisdom, but are uttered by the power of God.
CHAPTER I.-- REASONS FOR ADDRESSING THE GREEKS.
As I begin this hortatory address to you, ye men of Greece, I pray God that I may know what I ought to say to you, and that you, shaking off your habitual love of disputing, and being livered from the error of your fathers, may how choose what is profitable; not fancying that you commit any offence against your forefathers, though the things which you formerly considered by no means salutary should now seem useful to you. For accurate investigation of matters, putting truth to the question with a more searching scrutiny, often reveals that things which have passed for excellent are of quite another sort. Since, then, we propose to discourse of the true religion(than which, I think, there is nothing which is counted more valuable by those who desire to pass through life without danger, on account of the judgment which is to be after the termination of this life, and which is announced not only by our forefathers according to God, to wit the prophets and lawgivers, but also by those among yourselves who have been esteemed wise, not poets alone, but also philosophers, who professed among you that they had attained the true and divine knowledge), I think it well first of all to examine the teachers of religion, both our own and yours, who they were, and how great, and in what times they lived; in order that those who have formerly received from their fathers the false religion, may now, when they perceive this, be extricated from that inveterate error; and that we may clearly and manifestly show that we ourselves follow the religion of our forefathers according to God.
CHAPTER XX.--TESTIMONY OF PLATO.
But Plato, though he accepted, as is likely, the doctrine of Moses and the other prophets regarding one only God, which he learned while in Egypt, yet fearing, on account of what had befallen Socrates, lest he also should raise up some Anytus or Meletus against himself, who should accuse him before the Athenians, and say, "Plato is doing harm, and making himself mischievously busy, not acknowledging the gods recognised by the state; "in fear of the hemlockjuice, contrives an elaborate and ambiguous discourse concerning the gods, furnishing by his treatise gods to those who wish them, and none for those who are differently disposed, as may readily be seen from his own statements. For when he has laid down that everything that is made is mortal, he afterwards says that the gods were made. If, then, he would have God and matter to be the origin of all things, manifestly it is inevitably necessary to say that the gods were made of matter; but if of matter, out of which he said that evil also had its origin, he leaves right-thinking persons to consider what kind of beings the gods should be thought who are produced out of matter. For, for this very reason did he say that matter was eternal, that he might not seem to say that God is the creator of evil. And regarding the gods who were made by God, there is no doubt he said this: "Gods of gods, of whom I am the creator." And he manifestly held the correct opinion concerning the really existing God. For having heard in Egypt that God had said to Moses, when He was about to send him to the Hebrews, "I am that I am," he understood that God had not mentioned to him His own proper name.
CHAPTER XXI.--THE NAMELESSNESS OF GOD.
For God cannot be called by any proper name, for names are given to mark out and distinguish their subject-matters, because these are many and diverse; but neither did any one exist before God who could give Him a name, nor did He Himself think it fight to name Himself, seeing that He is one and unique, as He Himself also by His own prophets testifies, when He says, "I God am the first," and after this, "And beside me there is no other God." On this account, then, as I before said, God did not, when He sent Moses to the Hebrews, mention any name, but by a participle He mystically teaches them that He is the one and only God. "For," says He; "I am the Being;" manifestly contrasting Himself, "the Being," with those who are not, that those who had hitherto been deceived might see that they were attaching themselves, not to beings, but to those who had no being. Since, therefore, God knew that the first men remembered the old delusion of their forefathers, whereby the misanthropic demon contrived to deceive them when he said to them, "If ye obey me in transgressing the commandment of God, ye shall be as gods," calling those gods which had no being, in order that men, supposing that there were other gods in existence, might believe that they themselves could become gods. On this account He said to Moses, "I am the Being," that by the participle "being" He might teach the difference between God who is and those who are not. Men, therefore, having been duped by the deceiving demon, and having dared to disobey God, were cast out of Paradise, remembering the name of gods, but no longer being taught by God that there are no other gods. For it was not just that they who did not keep the first commandment, which it was easy to keep, should any longer be taught, but should rather be driven to just punishment. Being therefore banished from Paradise, and thinking that they were expelled on account of their disobedience only, not knowing that it was also because they had believed in the existence of gods which did not exist, they gave the name of gods even to the men who were afterwards born of themselves. This first false fancy, therefore, concerning gods, had its origin with the father of lies. God, therefore, knowing that the false opinion about the plurality of gods was burdening the soul of man like some disease, and wishing to remove and eradicate it, appeared first to Moses, and said to him, "I am He who is." For it was necessary, I think, that he who was to be the ruler and leader of the Hebrew people should first of all know the living God. Wherefore, having appeared to him first, as it was possible for God to appear to a man, He said to him, "I am He who is;" then, being about to send him to the Hebrews, He further orders him to say, "He who is hath sent me to you."
CHAPTER XXII.--STUDIED AMBIGUITY PLATO.
Plato accordingly having learned this in Egypt, and being greatly taken with what was said about one God, did indeed consider it unsafe to mention the name of Moses, on account of his teaching the doctrine of one only God, for he dreaded the Areopagus; but what is very well expressed by him in his elaborate treatise, the Timæus, he has written in exact correspondence with what Moses said regarding God, though he has done so, not as if he had learned it from him, but as if he were expressing his own opinion. For he said, "In my opinion, then, we must first define what that is which exists eternally, and has no generation, and what that is which is always being generated, but never really is." Does not this, ye men of Greece, seem to those who are able to understand the matter to be one and the same thing, saving only the difference of the article? For Moses said, "He who is," and Plato, "That which is." But either of the expressions seems to apply to the ever-existent God. For He is the only one who eternally exists, and has no generation. What, then, that other thing is which is contrasted with the ever-existent, and of which he said, "And what that is which is always being generated, but never really is," we must attentively consider. For we shall find him clearly and evidently saying that He who is unbegotten is eternal, but that those that are begotten and made are generated and perish--as he said of the same class, "gods of gods, of whom I am maker"--for he speaks in the following words: "In my opinion, then, we must first define what that is which is always existent and has no birth, and what that is which is always being generated but never really is. The former, indeed, which is apprehended by reflection combined with reason, always exists in the same way; while the latter, on the other hand, is conjectured by opinion formed by the perception of the senses unaided by reason, since it never really is, but is coming into being and perishing." These expressions declare to those who can rightly understand them the death and destruction of the gods that have been brought into being. And I think it necessary to attend to this also, that Plato never names him the creator, but the fashioner of the gods, although, in the opinion of Plato, there is considerable difference between these two. For the creator creates the creature by his own capability and power, being in need of nothing else; but the fashioner frames his production when he has received from matter the capability for his work.
10. The Scrolls are of great interest to both Jews and Christians. They represent a non-rabbinic form of Judaism, and also contain many important parallels to the Jesus movement. Final interpretations of these materials, with the newly released Scrolls fully factored in, remains open.
You need to go to bible school
I shall make this exception and reply to your last assertion at post 232, that I "need to go to Bible School" - but hereafter please refrain from posting to me or about me on Free Republic.
---- response to post 232 ----
It has been asserted that Antiochus Epiphanes was the anti-Christ.
Antiochus Epiphanes (175 B.C.) cannot be the anti-Christ, though he certainly set up an abomination in the Temple. In the first place, he preceded Christ by 175 years.
Moreover, Christ refers to the Daniel prophesy as having not yet been fulfilled and we are advised that the main character of the end time prophesy will not be revealed until the Father's appointed time (which is known only to Him):
For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth [will let], until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: [Even him], whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. – 2 Thessalonians 2:7-10
And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what [shall be] the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. – Matthew 24:3-5
But of that day and hour knoweth no [man], no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. – Matthew 24:36
I see that my previous remark ("man was created for the express purpose of suffering") is finally being touched upon. The question then seems to be - Why, and to what purpose, was suffering created?
In what way is it absurd, Jesse? Does it require one to possess “the key to God’s knowledge” to qualify as a forerunner of Christ? Do you suggest that one must fully know the mind and will of God in order to be His servant, to completely devote one’s self to the fulfillment of His purpose?
Did John the Baptist possess God’s wisdom to the full, and that’s why he could be a forerunner, but Plato – who putatively did not know God at all -- could not?
But didn’t our Lord already tell us that “no man knows the Father, save the Son only”? I read that to mean that no human being in all of history has ever understood the Mind of God, with one exception only. And that was the man Jesus, in whom the Son of God was made flesh – the Lord, Christ, God Emmanuel.
How did you come by your knowledge of Plato’s concept of God, or the status of his relation with Him? My own sources would seem to differ WRT your conclusions. You wrote:
“Yet Plato’s ‘nous’ was not concerned with God, but with itself, much like the philosophy of Buddhism. Are you a new age Buddhist?
Plato distinguishes nous – there is divine Nous, and there is human nous. Nous is “mind.” God made man in His image – as possessing mind and free will. The nous of Plato was ever in search of the divine Nous of the Unnamed God.
I believe this is the same Unnamed God Who spoke to Moses at Sinai: There is only One God. And Plato gives me reason to believe he felt God’s divine “pull” in his own soul. And apparently, if his work of a lifetime sheds any light on the matter, he was completely, lovingly faithful to the Unnamed God all his life.
For Plato, nous was not “concerned with itself.” He was glad to leave that concern to the Sophists. Nor was Plato seeking to divinize himself: He was seeking God. For Plato realized that the order of his soul could not be formed by his own nous, but only by the Logos of the divine Nous.
To me, this is about as close to the Christian consciousness as one could come, for one who lived four hundred years before the Incarnation of Christ. And I strongly believe, based on long meditation of Plato that, had God chosen Plato to be the forerunner of Christ, preparing the way for His Coming in the Hellenistic cultural milieu, Plato would have taken up that charge in a heartbeat, out of the purest love for divine things.
And no, I am not a new age Buddhist.
“For Plato, this mind had to achieve enlightenment. (Sound familiar?) It was all about the individual attaining its own godhood. This is exactly the opposite of Christianity.…”
And yet Plato was not attempting to “take heaven by storm” via the exercise of his mind. (That had to wait for Hegel. :^) ) The way he typically describes his noetic experiences was as responses of his soul to the “pull” of the Unseen God. Christians call that “pull,” God’s “call.”
It is crystal clear that Plato loved the Unnamed God, the “God Beyond” the cosmos and the world of the intracosmic gods, with his whole mind and heart and soul. He wasn’t trying to displace Him by divinizing himself; he wanted to find Him. He thought the best way to do that (there not yet being a Christ to mediate his quest) was to contemplate the vision of the Agathon – Plato’s great symbol for God’s perfect goodness, justice, truth, and love -- which he understood to be “the substance” of the divine Mind.
Jesse, it seems probable that it takes more than faith in the Holy Scriptures to make a Christian. We must place our faith in God most directly – which is to say, we must ever strive to live in the Word – which is Love. For “who lives in love, lives in God, and God in him.”
Well, them be my thoughts on-topic anyway, Jesse. FWTW. Thanks so much for writing.
Thank you, oh so very much, Alamo-Girl, for your reply! You are a most capable advocate for Plato – thank you so much for the wonderful Philo and Justin Martyr excerpts!
WRT the above italics, it is so amazingly striking to me how very much Isaiah’s prophecy seems to resemble Plato’s own Myth of the Cave, in which humans are held captive, chained together and forced to look upon the cave wall, onto which shadow plays are being cast by a Light from outside the cave. And then one of the human prisoners is forced to “turn around” and away from the shadow play, mistakenly taken for “real life” by all the prisoners, and face the Light. He is unchained, and dragged up into the Light; and though semi-blinded, understands that “truth” is not at all what is going on in the shadow play of “down below,” but is to be found in the Light -- which he wonders at, responds to, but does not yet understand.
Then he, the prisoner, is forced back down "below," to tell his fellow prisoners of the Light, and to inform them that what they have taken to be “truth” – the shadow images playing on the wall of the cave – are, in Truth, illusions. (This is not welcome news to his fellow prisoners. Plato says that if they could lay hands on him, maybe they’d try to “kill the messenger.”)
The Light is immutable, truthful, and perfect Being; the shadow play the report of the eternally perishing, of the false picture of reality that deludes the human mind, with grave consequences for the human spirit.
Similarly, as Justin Martyr wrote, “God did not, when He sent Moses to the Hebrews mention any name, but by a participle He mystically teaches them that He is the one and only God. ‘For,’ says He, ‘I am the Being’; manifestly contrasting Himself, ‘the Being,’ with those who are not, that those who had hitherto been deceived might see that they were attaching themselves, not to beings, but to those who had no being.”
To me it is striking that both Isaiah and Plato after him would use the language of “prisoner” to describe the human condition.
And on the basis of John’s “…other sheep I have, which are not of this fold; them also I must bring; and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, [and] one shepherd” clearly refers to non-Jews, which by a process of default indicates the Hellenes. If God wanted to call Hellenes, what better “messenger” or “preparer of the Way” would He have chosen than Plato? And after him, Alexander, as “social carrier” of Hellenic culture to the furthest reaches on the then-known world?
Of course, that’s just a speculation on my part…but it seems to fit.
Alamo-Girl, I just loved this, also from Justin Martyr: “…the creator creates the creature by his own capability and power, being in need of nothing else; but the fashioner frames his production when he has received from matter the capability for his work.” It turns out that matter has more than one meaning in this context. For things that are “material” are not necessarily “physical.” Thank you so much for posting him! (Got a link???)
God bless you for your post at #220, A-G. It gladdened my heart, and filled me with gratitude and praise unto the glory of our Lord.
In post #219, you wrote: “On the basis of Genesis and what I have learned about cosmology and physics, I envision that the first element of creation (the big bang) was geometric and harmonic – which gave rise to wave functions and thus, energy, particles, etc. – the physical laws that make up the natural realm.” And we can still “hear” the primaeval “harmonic” in the microwave background radiation that permeates our universe….
As to the question of a primaeval “geometry,” there is this from Tegmark: “If physics is unitary, then the standard picture of how quantum fluctuations operated early in the big bang must change. These fluctuations did not generate initial conditions at random. Rather they generated a quantum superposition of all possible initial conditions, which coexisted simultaneously….” [emphasis added]
Evan Harris Walker has speculated on this theme to similar effect. To my mind, I am able to envision the Logos of the Beginning as a fully specified superposition of all possibilities that may occur in the evolution of the universe – meaning that non-possibilities (i.e., those not “logoically-specified”) cannot occur in the universe. Therefore, the universe is not perfectly random, nor is it completely determined.
In the light of faith, I would put the matter this way: Both universal law and free will exist in this universe by virtue of the Logos of the Beginning – Who, with Philo, I identify as the Son of God. (Thanks so much for the Philo! Your posts are feasts for Lurkers and “regular” posters alike.)
“I see spirit of Adamic man as altogether non-corporeal, non-spatial, non-temporal.” Just as God is not “contained” within His space/time creation, neither is the human soul. This is the most amazing thing to think about; yet what better way to understand the significance of what it is to have been created imago dei?
Alamo-Girl, as ever, thank you so much for writing!
I don't know.
But I can tell you what little I do know, which is the classical and Christian view of the matter. In the Roman tradition at least. I'm not at all clear what Reformed Church thinks on this question, but would be eager to learn.
The classical understanding of suffering precedes Plato, going back to the great Greek tragedians, in particular Aeschylus. Suffering, on this view, is purification of the soul. Plato gives much evidence of endorsing this view.
And the Purgatory of the Roman Church is the "place" which sinful but salvagable souls must repine for purification purposes, before they may stand before the Throne of God on Judgment Day.)
In the Gorgias, Plato goes so far as to suggest that a man devoted to justice, should he break the law of the polis, would not try to avoid punishment, suffering; but would embrace it, for his own good, his own purification -- so that when he finally stood before his Divine Judge (as inevitably he must), his soul would be as pure and clean as possible, purged of the stains incurred in the conduct of a sinful life.
Such explanations probably come as cold comfort to the modern mind.
There is the view, of course, that human beings are saved by grace alone, that they really don't have to do anything but have faith in God; for Christ does all the work of salvation for us. Effort ("works") from the human side counts for exactly nothing.
In that case, it seems to me that suffering would be perfectly pointless and gratuitous, too.
Thoughts, pointy head? Whatta question! Thank you so much for writing.
You are aware of the fact that I am ignoring your posts, thus your posts to me - especially considering their tone - can only be construed as a provocation
I quote from your Post #190:
But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more [than others]? do not even the publicans so?
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. Matthew 5:43-48
And this from the same post:
Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law (like an Admin Moderator) before the unjust, and not before the saints? Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?
If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church. I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? no, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren? But brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers.
Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law (like an Admin Moderator) one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? why do ye not rather [suffer yourselves to] be defrauded? Nay, ye do wrong, and defraud, and that [your] brethren. – I Cor 6:1-8
So, what's the scoop? Where you just kidding? How come you "Christians" are so thin-skinned?
You and betty boop have certainly convinced me!
Hank
And so you conclude, Hank, that Alamo-Girl violates this law merely by suggesting that she prefers peace and quiet to the din and disorder of people who seem to enjoy making pointed, personal attacks on her?
Because she wishes for peace and quiet doesn't entail the necessary conclusion that she wishes anyone ill. I feel certain she prays for all the people to whom you have come rushing in indignant defense. I feel certain she prays for you too, Hank.
You really do enjoy casting Christians into bad light whenever and wherever possible, Hank. That's an observation, not mere conjecture. I wonder: Why do you do that?
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