Pray for Chuck

Everyone remember to pray for Chuck.  He gives his oral defense of his thesis Dec 3.  I'm sure that's a little stressful, but I'm sure he'll feel good when it's all done.  

I'm going to be out of town next week, but how about getting together Dec 12?  I know this is a busy time of year, but we'll see who can make it.  We'll meet at Rustin's house, if Rustin is available then.

More on Plato

A few posts back I said I'd post some more details of CS Lewis' comments that Plato could have been a believer.  Before I do that, though, I want to point out another option.  Contrary to what Lewis said, it very well could be that God used people like Plato to demonstrate that truth is ultimately something that comes from God, and man cannot get there through his own powers.  Taking the pursuit of truth as far as humanly possible is not far enough.  As insightful as Plato might have been, it could be that God just used him the same way he used Roman roads to spread the gospel.  Greek ideas contributed to the theology of the early church.  If you doubt this, just think about the Trinity.  But to take the pursuit of truth as far as humanly possible still falls short, and we find that the truth of the gospel really is "foolishness to the greeks."  

But Lewis' argument, and a similar one from Peter Kreeft, deserves another look.  Here is what Lewis said in Reflections on the Psalms, in the chapter "Nature":

"We do of course find in Plato a clear Theology of Creation in the Judaic and Christian sense; the whole universe -- the very conditions of time and space under which it exists -- are produced by the will of a perfect, timeless, unconditioned God who is above and outside all that he makes...; it is not ordinary Pagan religion."

Plato (and Socrates before him) recognized the failure of any of the Gods in the Greek Pantheon to meet the qualifications of the true God.  The gods of mythology are themselves just created beings.

In the chapter "Second Meanings" Lewis also recounts Plato's talk of "...a perfectly righteous man treated by all around him as a monster of wickedness.  We must picture him, still perfect, while he is bound, scourged, and finally impaled."  Just a coincidence?  Remember, Plato died about 350 years before Christ.

The test of whether or not Plato was really a believer is, what would he have done if he was confronted with Christ?  Would he have bowed down in worship and said, "this is what I have been talking about."  Who knows?  I do know that people continued to believe in Plato's "Demiurge" well after the time of Christ.  One of them, Galen, a Roman physician, seemed to believe in Plato's God, but didn't recognize Christ.  To my knowledge Galen never became a Christian (he died about 200 AD).   

But if Plato himself was as devoted to Truth as some people think, he very well might have recognized Christ for who he is.  The intro to the book Socrates Meets Jesus by Peter Kreeft suggests that Socrates likely would have recognized Christ.  (What one man says of Socrates another man says of Plato.  Most, if not all, of what we know of Socrates comes to us from Plato.  Socrates didn't write the way Plato did.)  Again, who knows?  But it is an interesting argument.  

Email

Sorry guys, but I thought every time I posted a blog it got emailed to you.  Apparently not.  I think it is set up that way now, so check out what is on there so far and feel free to post.  

Next Gathering

Hi! I'm up to having the group over to my house this Friday evening if anyone wants to come.

Hi, Vito.  Thanks for the comment.  I didn't know you were following the blog.  Rustin, I just noticed your comment on my post about meetings.  For those of us signed up as contributors, let's always make our comments as new posts, they are more obvious that way and all the contributors should get an email about it.  We can let anyone else who wants to follow along casually, or who happens to stumble on the blog, leave comments.  But for the rest of us let's use new blog postings.

If any of you want to meet at Rustin's on Friday, do it.  I won't be able to make it.

ok, someone help me out here.  Argue with me, agree with me, tell me I'm an idiot, or say something totally new, just say something.  Where are you?

I don't know why these links don't show up right.  The Reflections on the Psalms google books link is http://books.google.com/books?id=v0_YGqdIIfwC&printsec=frontcover&client=safari#PPA67,M1

Part of the Nature chapter is there, but the Second Meanings chapter is not.

Plato in heaven?

In one of my first postings I mentioned how CS Lewis had mentioned that he thought it could be possible that Plato was a believer.  I don't really agree, I don't think, but I will not be surprised or offended if I see Plato when I get there.  And I think Lewis' argument is fascinating.  I don't think he is unbiblical at all, but that is certain to bother some people for obvious reasons.  But if you want to read Lewis' explanation for yourself, it is in Reflections on the Psalms, in the chapter titled "Second Meanings."   I thought I could send you to a google books link that had that chapter, but that chapter isn't included there.  An earlier chapter in the book titled "Nature" has similar things to say about a Pharaoh named Akhenaten, and part of that chapter is on google books.  Another time I might post some of the highlights on the blog from both of those chapters.

Sorry, no link showed up.  Try this: http://www.greatapeproject.org

Plato and the decay of democracy

Just for a little more on Plato and democracy, try the link above just to get a glimpse of how 'human rights' are now spreading to other species.  Peter Singer is the man who was a major inspiration, if not the founder, of the animal rights movement back in the 70's.  He doesn't believe in harming animals, but abortion is ok.  In fact, infanticide up to a certain age (and his age limit appears to change) is ok with him as well.  The big problem with Singer is he is the Chair of the Philosophy Department at Princeton, and he is a media darling.  They love to spread whatever he says.  His books are interesting for the fact that it shows that if you don't begin with the right premises, you will get the wrong conclusions.  His logic is actually quite valid, he just starts with the wrong premises.  He does state somewhere that (paraphrased) the only way to hold to the sanctity of human life is if we indeed are created in the image of God.  But one of his premises is that we are not created in the image of God.

Maybe I digress too far from Plato, but I think this is a worthwhile rabbit trail, and not unrelated.  The decay of democracy on a world wide level started shortly after the American Revolution.  It can be seen in the contrast between the US and French Revolutions.  Have you ever noticed that the founding fathers didn't speak of 'human rights'?   'Rights' are discussed for sure.  But the Declaration of Independence says that we are 'endowed by our creator' with these rights.  The French Revolution was a much different thing.  In France it was largely an atheistic, humanistic revolt.  They had nothing to ground their belief in rights on, so they came up with an arbitrary criteria and just said, ok, if you are human you should have rights.  But if that's just an arbitrary criteria, why can't it be changed to someone else's criteria?  To PETA, any sentient organism has rights.  Over time 'rights' and 'human rights' have become synonymous.  But I think there is an important distinction there.  

Another reason this makes a difference is looking at things like 'gay rights'.  To gays, they should have rights.  They speak easily of 'human rights'.  It doesn't seem to occur to them at all that to exercise their 'rights' they infringe upon others rights.  This is all too obvious recently in the way gays expect to be able to overturn a fair election if they don't get their way.   But if 'rights' are not based on any solid ground (ie being endowed with them by God) the assertion of rights is just an exercise in political power.  There is no right or wrong, only power.  Thus, an election means nothing.  

You have probably noticed that I'm using the term 'democracy' loosely.  Technically we live in a representative republic, but I think the argument stays the same.

Plato

Chapter 2 is all about Plato.  There is a lot to say about Plato and Christianity, but for now I just wanted to point out one of the things Plato was wrong about.  Colin Brown mentioned his theory of government.  Now, if Plato's philosopher kings were truly wise and good the system might be plausible.  But apart from having truly godly men run the place, they are just men and bound to make a mess of things.  Even if godly men could pull it off for a while, it would be bound to fail.   Churchill was right (paraphrased), "Democracy is the worse form of government there is, except for all the rest."  I'm not aware that Karl Marx or any socialists have ever appealed to Plato to support their ideas.  But what Plato believes in regard to government, the family and education, sounds just like Marxism.  

But Plato was very prescient in recognizing some of the weaknesses of democracy.  In Republic, he said:

"It makes its way into private households and in the end breeds anarchy even among the animals...I mean that a father accustoms himself to behave like a child and fear his sons, while the son behaves like a father, feeling neither shame nor fear in front of his parents, in order to be free.  A resident alien or a foreign visitor is made equal to a citizen, and he is their equal...A teacher in such a community is afraid of his students and flatters them, while the students despise their teachers or tutors...What about the animals?...No one who hasn't experienced it would believe how much freer domestic animals are in a democratic city than anywhere else...horses and donkeys are accustomed to roam freely and proudly along the streets, bumping into anyone who doesn't get out of their way; and all the rest are equally full of freedom."

Can anyone say, children's rights, animal rights, open borders, constitutional rights for terrorists?  Plato failed to recognize what Churchill said, but he was still right about his criticism of democracy.  Have you heard how in Spain they have given rights equal to 'human rights' to all primates?  I haven't heard the latest details, but that has been going on.  Makes you wonder.

Aristotle, fortunately, championed the common sense of the common man.  Aristotle had a significant amount of influence on the founding fathers of our country.  But I'll have to finish that thought another time.

Next Meeting

It was great to finally get together last Friday.   Like we had talked about from the beginning, it is going to be hard to find time to meet regularly.  I won't be able to for several weeks.  I'm either going to be covering people on vacation or on vacation myself until the middle of December.  But if everyone else wants to get together at Rustin's house, by all means do it.  But I will continue to post on the blog as time allows.  Let's move on to chapter 2, but if anyone has more on chapter 1, bring it up.