God and Plato
PostPosted: Mon Mar 29, 2004 11:06 pm
Lately, I've had huge doubts about Scripture and God in general. If you want a list of things I once believed that I no longer believe, PM me.
I've always come from a premise that Scripture is 100% true and completely God-breathed. Unfortunately, when you stack this up against reality, therein lies problems. We are told that God "inspired" all Scripture, but then again, men, not God *actually* wrote the Scripture.
Then again, there were many who said they were "spoken to" by God whose texts never made it into the Biblical canon. THEN AGAIN, the Council of Jamnia, and later the Church decided to close the canon. Revelation of John, perhaps? Maybe these people who decided what to canonize had an extra dose of spiritual goodness and were spoken to by God and had all the wisdom and guidance to know what should and shouldn't be called Scripture!
THEN AGAIN (I'll say that a lot), look at all the people today who say they "heard God's voice." They're ususally a bunch of whacko extremists who have only worldly goals in mind. Their deeds usually discredit them as to following a gracious and loving God. Or, the other extreme of people who "heard God's voice" are people overcome with emotion, guilt, and so forth at looking at kindness, poverty, generosity, what have you. So if people today who "hear God's voice" are extremists/people ruled by emotion, who is to say that people 2000 years ago weren't? And often, we see that the will of God often closely corresponds with the will of others.
Even if you're a hard-core atheist, you know that people aren't perfect. If the Bible was written by men, who we know aren't perfect, how can we trust it as "the inspired word of God?" When making a critical analysis of the Bible, we see that there are apparent contradictions in it and differences of treatment of persons/people (some books in the Bible give greater respect to Aaron over Moses, vice versa, etc.) (for the sake of argument, let's exclude exegesis).
Where does Plato fit into this? Plato's philosophy (in a nutshell) was that "ideas" and "forms" were the ultimate reality. These "ideas" and "forms" existed in a realm outside time and space, and were not accesible through the five senses. "Ideas" and "forms" were perfect, indestructible, and unchanging, and uniform. The things of the material world were not "as real" as the forms and ideas Plato envisioned, but at best, led to an understanding of the forms and ideas. And all material versions of the "forms," though they may differ from each other, ultimately derive their similarities from the "form" or "idea" of a the material thing. Take a table, for example. No two tables look alike (especially on a molecular level). Some may be big, some may be small, others white, brown, etc. Yet, they all have unifying characteristics that exhibit "tableness." They all, in some way, shape or form, mimic the "idea" of table that exists in a pefect world outside of time and space. As I said, the "ideas" cannot be accessed through the senses. They can only be accessed through use of the intellect. The "idea" cannot be defined by its components, but only the other way around. To define something an "idea" based on what we see is ultimately misleading. As for this "ultimate table," we cannot go to one table and define "tableness" based on the characteristics of this one table--because, what would that make all other tables? Chairs? Pieces of cloth? No, we must contemplate the idea of "tableness" and see if all other material objects fit the idea.
Plato's philosophy tackles the abstract more than the concrete, yet I feel the need to make an analogy.
I finally came to a conclusion about God. If God is perfect, indestructible, and unchanging, then God must be a "form" as Plato sees it. Everything written and said about Him is material, and therefore misleading. Men are imperfect. My conclusion was that the Bible was inherently misleading, if not incorrect, and could only give us a thought as to who or what God is. Scripture is only a "really bad ballpark estimate of God" since Man is imperfect (and as I have learned, there are many difficulties when comparing the Bible to reality). Thus, the only way to know what God really is through constant thought and meditation.
It's really late, I'm really tired, really confused, and not sure if my point is logical. I'm sure I must have left something out about Platonic epistomology. But deep in my heart of hearts, I wish everything I learned about God and the Bible were 100% true. That would at least end my confusion.
I've always come from a premise that Scripture is 100% true and completely God-breathed. Unfortunately, when you stack this up against reality, therein lies problems. We are told that God "inspired" all Scripture, but then again, men, not God *actually* wrote the Scripture.
Then again, there were many who said they were "spoken to" by God whose texts never made it into the Biblical canon. THEN AGAIN, the Council of Jamnia, and later the Church decided to close the canon. Revelation of John, perhaps? Maybe these people who decided what to canonize had an extra dose of spiritual goodness and were spoken to by God and had all the wisdom and guidance to know what should and shouldn't be called Scripture!
THEN AGAIN (I'll say that a lot), look at all the people today who say they "heard God's voice." They're ususally a bunch of whacko extremists who have only worldly goals in mind. Their deeds usually discredit them as to following a gracious and loving God. Or, the other extreme of people who "heard God's voice" are people overcome with emotion, guilt, and so forth at looking at kindness, poverty, generosity, what have you. So if people today who "hear God's voice" are extremists/people ruled by emotion, who is to say that people 2000 years ago weren't? And often, we see that the will of God often closely corresponds with the will of others.
Even if you're a hard-core atheist, you know that people aren't perfect. If the Bible was written by men, who we know aren't perfect, how can we trust it as "the inspired word of God?" When making a critical analysis of the Bible, we see that there are apparent contradictions in it and differences of treatment of persons/people (some books in the Bible give greater respect to Aaron over Moses, vice versa, etc.) (for the sake of argument, let's exclude exegesis).
Where does Plato fit into this? Plato's philosophy (in a nutshell) was that "ideas" and "forms" were the ultimate reality. These "ideas" and "forms" existed in a realm outside time and space, and were not accesible through the five senses. "Ideas" and "forms" were perfect, indestructible, and unchanging, and uniform. The things of the material world were not "as real" as the forms and ideas Plato envisioned, but at best, led to an understanding of the forms and ideas. And all material versions of the "forms," though they may differ from each other, ultimately derive their similarities from the "form" or "idea" of a the material thing. Take a table, for example. No two tables look alike (especially on a molecular level). Some may be big, some may be small, others white, brown, etc. Yet, they all have unifying characteristics that exhibit "tableness." They all, in some way, shape or form, mimic the "idea" of table that exists in a pefect world outside of time and space. As I said, the "ideas" cannot be accessed through the senses. They can only be accessed through use of the intellect. The "idea" cannot be defined by its components, but only the other way around. To define something an "idea" based on what we see is ultimately misleading. As for this "ultimate table," we cannot go to one table and define "tableness" based on the characteristics of this one table--because, what would that make all other tables? Chairs? Pieces of cloth? No, we must contemplate the idea of "tableness" and see if all other material objects fit the idea.
Plato's philosophy tackles the abstract more than the concrete, yet I feel the need to make an analogy.
I finally came to a conclusion about God. If God is perfect, indestructible, and unchanging, then God must be a "form" as Plato sees it. Everything written and said about Him is material, and therefore misleading. Men are imperfect. My conclusion was that the Bible was inherently misleading, if not incorrect, and could only give us a thought as to who or what God is. Scripture is only a "really bad ballpark estimate of God" since Man is imperfect (and as I have learned, there are many difficulties when comparing the Bible to reality). Thus, the only way to know what God really is through constant thought and meditation.
It's really late, I'm really tired, really confused, and not sure if my point is logical. I'm sure I must have left something out about Platonic epistomology. But deep in my heart of hearts, I wish everything I learned about God and the Bible were 100% true. That would at least end my confusion.