“Anaxagoras sought such a principle in a cosmic mind; Empedocles sought it in the inherent forces that made for evolution.”
Spirited: Greek nature philosophers were initiates of the occult Mysteries, thus Anaxagoras and Empedocles were debating the nature of the universe, in particular the dialectic of form-matter with emphasis on the concept of the continuity of being, an idea basic to Greek thought and religion.
For Egyptian thought, god and man were of a common nature and alike products of a common substance, called Nu by the Sun-god Ra. Both gods and men evolved out of Nu. The Egyptians were monophysites: many men and many gods, but all ultimately of one nature.
Returning to the Greeks, the one-substance was known as Chaos rather than Nu. And out of Chaos comes the two-in-one, the androgyn, and according to Plato in the “Symposium” out of the splitting of the androgyn came the two sexes.
Human nature was originally ‘one’ (androgynous) and as the one-substance (Chaos) is asexual, then human nature must become one again. Hence the truest symbol of perfection is the hermaphrodite, for which reason the “bisexuality of the philosophers amounts to asexuality...” (Hermaphrodite: Myths and Rites of the Bisexual Figure in Classical Antiquity, Marie Delacourt, p. 69)
The form-matter dialectic of Greek culture exemplified by Anaxagorus and Empedocles came to be as a result of long development.
For one school, the one-substance (the world of nature) was matter-—of hard-reality, atoms,and void.
For the other, the one-substance is ‘form’ or ideas and universals. Divinity resides in men, an idea held by Aristotle, Plato and Empedocles.
With the first school, matter is given to change and flux; with the second, form is timeless, unchanging, eternal.
Reality, the real world, was thus made up of two antithetical,irreconciable elements: matter and mind.
If matter is stressed, then god or gods, spirit, soul, and mind (and belief, OldNavyVet) are reduced to matter and the movement of chemicals in the brain. Man is nothing more than a highly evolved animal; god (or gods)is reduced to the unseen force behind evolution, gravity and natural laws.
Cynicism, scoffing, sneering, ridicule, despair, sexual anarchy, lawlessness and cultural collapse are the consequences.
If form is stressed, then mysticism becomes man’s way of contact with the one-substance on the one hand and escape from the false world of matter on the other, for mysticism reduces the real world to illusion. The one-substance absorbs reality and condemns individuality as unhealthy separation. Irrationalism and totalitarianism are the consequences.
The mystical contempt of the material world has as its counterpart the materialistic contempt of God, spirit, soul, moral law and meaning as subjective, relative and irrelevant.
For both schools of thought, the one-substance is the “what” and evolution is the mechanical “how.”
Only the supernatural Creator can link mind and matter and give meaning to both.
How does the doctrine of "special creation" of the species based on the account of Creation from the Book of Genesis give "meaning" to matter?
The "meaning" of the physical universe should be implict in it's properties. YEC doctrine says that the physical evidence is a lie.
Well written, nice presentation, and actually appreciated. Thank you.