RE: Potential Christian-Platonist Contradiction?
November 12, 2013 at 11:27 pm
(This post was last modified: November 12, 2013 at 11:48 pm by bennyboy.)
I assume you've seen the WLC video on absolute morality? He goes a lot into platonism and differences in the Christian view.
As for Jesus, be careful with quote mining. That statement was made in a particular context:
(Mark)
17 As He was setting out on a journey, a man ran up to Him and knelt before Him, and asked Him, "Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" 18 And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone. 19 "You know the commandments, 'DO NOT MURDER, DO NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, DO NOT STEAL, DO NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS, Do not defraud, HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER.'"…
You could look at this in a couple ways:
"I'm not God, because I'm denying that I'm good."
"I'm good, because I'm the embodiment of God."
"God is the Form of the good, so stop begging to get into heaven, and emulate that Form as well as you can, because that's the only way."
Jesus also says, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me." You could interpret that as Jesus really claiming to be all those things. You could also interpret it as him saying he's the embodiment of that Form of the Good, so only be behaving LIKE Jesus could you approach the state of bliss that is being truly Good." The idea that Jesus is both God and the Son of God makes some sense if Jesus was so good as to approach the Platonic Form of Good-- it's not a physical truth, but an idealistic one.
You could also use the same idea as evidence that Jesus never existed. If he's the perfect human embodiment of the Platonic Form of the Good, he can't be real-- instead he's a kind of archetypal perfect man. Giving him a first-person voice amounts to Goodness itself calling on mankind to better emulate it-- a pretty strange idea, but given the context of Roman mythology, the idea of having embodiments of human qualities might have had more appeal than a dick God who will flood the Earth or burn cities to ashes on a whim.
If THIS is the case, then a coalition of neo-Jewish philosophers were using a coined mythology to embody a new take on morality. And I think, for the most part, it's a pretty good one. Surely turning the other cheek, and trying to decommercialize religion, would be good things.
As for Jesus, be careful with quote mining. That statement was made in a particular context:
(Mark)
17 As He was setting out on a journey, a man ran up to Him and knelt before Him, and asked Him, "Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" 18 And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone. 19 "You know the commandments, 'DO NOT MURDER, DO NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, DO NOT STEAL, DO NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS, Do not defraud, HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER.'"…
You could look at this in a couple ways:
"I'm not God, because I'm denying that I'm good."
"I'm good, because I'm the embodiment of God."
"God is the Form of the good, so stop begging to get into heaven, and emulate that Form as well as you can, because that's the only way."
Jesus also says, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me." You could interpret that as Jesus really claiming to be all those things. You could also interpret it as him saying he's the embodiment of that Form of the Good, so only be behaving LIKE Jesus could you approach the state of bliss that is being truly Good." The idea that Jesus is both God and the Son of God makes some sense if Jesus was so good as to approach the Platonic Form of Good-- it's not a physical truth, but an idealistic one.
You could also use the same idea as evidence that Jesus never existed. If he's the perfect human embodiment of the Platonic Form of the Good, he can't be real-- instead he's a kind of archetypal perfect man. Giving him a first-person voice amounts to Goodness itself calling on mankind to better emulate it-- a pretty strange idea, but given the context of Roman mythology, the idea of having embodiments of human qualities might have had more appeal than a dick God who will flood the Earth or burn cities to ashes on a whim.
If THIS is the case, then a coalition of neo-Jewish philosophers were using a coined mythology to embody a new take on morality. And I think, for the most part, it's a pretty good one. Surely turning the other cheek, and trying to decommercialize religion, would be good things.
