Something New Every Day: Did Aristotle Misrepresent Plato?

… the essence of Plato’s doctrine of Forms or Ideas is simply this:  that the universal concept is not an abstract form devoid of objective content or references, but that to each true universal concept there corresponds an objective reality.  How far Aristotle’s criticism of Plato (that the latter hypostatised the objective reality of the concepts, imagining a transcendent world of ’separate’ universals) is justified, is a matter for discussion by itself:  whether justified or unjustified, it remains true that the essence of the Platonic theory of Ideas is not to be sought in the notion of the ’separate’ existence of universal realities, but in the belief that universal concepts have objective reference, and that the corresponding reality is of a higher order than sense-perception as such. (F. Copleston, History of Philosophy, Vol: 1 Greece and Rome, p. 151)

A Freudian Critique of Freud

[*I wrote this a few months back somewhere else]

Freud’s problem is that he did not understand the distinction between idol and icon which is detrimental to the validity of the Christian creed of belief in God.  According to Jean-Luc Marion the idol is an invisible mirror reflecting the visible whereas an icon is a visible mirror reflecting the invisible. On this distinction Marion clarifies, “Whereas the idol results from the gaze that aims at it, the icon summons sight in letting the visible…be saturated little by little with the invisible.” Further, “the gaze can never rest or settle if it looks at an icon; it always must rebound upon the visible, in order to go back in it up the infinite stream of the invisible.” [1] 

Christianity to Freud is the organized practice of wish fulfillment. He admits, “What is characteristic of illusions [belief in God] is that they are derived from human wishes.” [2] He elaborates, “When the growing individual finds that he is destined to remain a child for ever, that he can never do without protection against strange superior powers, he lends those powers the features belonging to the figure of his father.” [3] Freud has here described Christian belief as idolatry. Marion states:

The idol always marks a true and genuine experience of the divine, but for this very reason announces its limit: as an experience of the divine, starting in this way with the one who aims at it, in view of the reflex in which, through the idolatrous figure, this aim masks and marks its defection with regard to the invisible. The idol always must be read on the basis of the one whose experience of the divine takes shape there.[4] 

Contrary to this is the Christian belief that God is only knowable through creation and through Christ. Calvin explains, “His essence, indeed is incomprehensible, utterly transcending all human thought; but on each of his works his glory is engraven in characters so bright, so distinct, and so illustrious, that none, however dull and illiterate, can plead ignorance as their excuse.” [5] Christians also know that knowledge of God comes through the incarnate Son since it is he in whom “all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form.” (Colossians 2:9)

One word that Freud did not understand is “transcendence”, and the word that was the aim of his idol is “reason.” The icon demands an infinite gaze, since transcendence is not a quality of man. The idol is the projection of an aim.  Freud himself speaks, “There is no appeal to a court above that of reason.” [6]  Marion explains this phenomenon among atheists:

When a philosophical thought expresses a concept of what it then names “God”, this concept functions exactly as an idol. It gives itself to be seen, but thus all the better conceals itself as the mirror where thought, invisibly, has its forward point fixed, so that the invisible finds itself, with an aim suspended by the fixed concept, disqualified and abandoned; thought freezes, and the idolatrous concept of “God” appears, where, more than God, thought judges itself.[7] 

In other words the “God” and the “idol” become one and the same, hence Freud’s misunderstanding. Also, by Freud’s sovereignty of reason his true aim is seen, that of a carved effigy in his own image given the title “reason”.

Based on this, we must be cautious of any principle taking its queue from Freudian thought, which, at the level of presuppositions, undermines the universality of principle itself and erects an idol named “reason” by which the infinite is presumably known. Finally, (alas…the point) if one were to be sly he/she would use a Freudian critique to accuse Freud of projecting his own feelings and view of reality (idolatry) upon Christianity. In viewing the world based on his own rational idolatry (he was a materialist) Freud assumed the same for Christianity, an assumption easily disproven.

Notes:

[1] Jean-Luc Marion, God Without Being, p. 18.  [2] Sigmund Freud, The Future Of An Illusion, p. 39.  [3] Freud, p. 30. [4] Marion, pp. 27, 28.  [5] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, I.v.1.  [6] Freud, p. 35.  [7] Marion, p. 16.

Music and Disease: Casting Out “Demons”

Oliver Sack’s book Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain looks fascinating.  From the summary he tells of patients with Parkinson’s Disease and Alzheimer’s who seem to be completely healed when listening to music.  Check it out:

This gives a new perspective on David’s healing harp.

[PS:  Ed, I haven't forgotten ... will reply in a day or so]

Semester’s Over!

 

Now I can read what I want and nobody can stop me!!

Historical Vindication

Solomon prays to YHWH in his dedication of the Temple:  ”Then hear thou in heaven, and do, and judge thy servants, condemning the wicked, to bring his way upon his head; and justifying the righteous, to give him according to his righteousness.” (1 Kings 8:32)

Sometimes I can see where N.T. Wright is coming from.  Only the KJV translated TSEDIK in this verse as “to justify.”  The ESV has “vindicate.”  It is obvious that this reference is to a historia salutis type of justification.  We either don’t recognize that this type exists or relegate its importance.  Or perhaps we’re afraid that the historia hermeneutic will trump the ordo.  If I can be a bit radical for a moment:  I propose the historia as symbolic of the ordo.  What God has done objectively is a sign of what he extends to the subjective.  Jesus’ resurrection is a sign of God’s desire that all creation be recreated, that the recreation has begun.  

Takin’ A Break…

Finals start next week here in Jackson.  So, as usual - because I don’t like to study - I’m taking as many breaks as possible.  If anyone else is in the same boat and laments that he/she missed Radiohead on VH1 the other night here’s a great 5-min breather:

Exclusion and Evangelism

I fear that many pastors today have fallen into the error of preaching the doctrines of grace theoretically instead of preaching them practically and using the truths of Scripture to draw men to Christ.  Instead of using the Bible as our instrument to draw men into fellowship with God, biblical doctrine has become our grounds to exclude those - even other believers - who disagree with us.  Instead of using the Scripture as the sword of the Spirit to conquer men for Christ, we spend our energies defending it, as if it were fragile and easily broken. (C. John Miller, Powerful Evangelism, 13)

If Christ Is the One Idea…

This does not mean that all esse commune (created being) is redeemed by virtue of the incarnation or his one act on the cross. Of course there is an eschatological element in which all of creation has the promise of redemption now through Christ’s realization of that promise.  However, those who espouse a universalist atonement based on folks like Aquinas attributing Platonic principles to Christ’s being are incorrect.  I agree that the Logos ensarkos (i.e. Jesus) is the One through whom all things were made and are recreated.  Through his incarnation the Son united himself, not only with humanity, but with created being, esse commune. Although, just as Christ’s two natures are united via the Holy Spirit, esse commune is only recreated by this One whom St. Augustine defined as that Bond of Love between the Father and the Son - the Paraklete. In other words, there is no redemption without Pentecost just as there is no Atonement without Golgatha.     

Calvin: To Obey the Church Is to Obey Christ

Ronald Wallace notes that the response of the believing individual to the Church is seen by Calvin as identical to responding to Christ.  This is affirmed by Calvin in his Commentary on Isaiah 45:14:  

When he says that the Israelites shall be victorious over all the nations, this depends on the mutual relation between the head and the members.  Because the only begotten Son of God unites to Himself those who believe in Him, so that they are one with Him.  It frequently happens that what belongs to Him is transferred to the Church which is His body and fulness. In this sense, rule also is attributed to the Church, not so as to obscure by haughty domination the glory of her Head, or even to claim the authority which belongs to Him, or in a word, so as to have anything separate from her Head; but because the preaching of the Gosel which is omitted to her is the spiritual scepter of Christ, by which He displays His power.  In this respect no man can bow down submissively before Christ, without also obeying the Church, so far as the obedience of faith is joined to the ministry of doctrine, yet so that Christ their Head alone reigns, and alone exercises His authority.

Therefore, the ministry of the church is the ministry of Christ.  When the church pronounces forgiveness of sins Christ does the same.  This does not mean that the Church functions ex opere operato but that it signifies the reality of Christ’s invisible work, and God, as Calvin says in numerous places, does not deceive us with empty signs. 

Liturgical Theology

[In baptism] the infant, a silent preacher of the doctrine of St. Paul, cannot even appear to be performing a work of righteousness, it only “suffers the divine love.”  The child of nature’s womb has first of all to be re-formed in the Church’s womb, elevated to the point of being able to have a relationship of life with Christ and through him with the whole human family.  This is a dramatically anti-Pelagian gesture in which individual helplessness is met and mended in solidarity with others. (Peter A. Kwasniewski, “Aquinas on Eucharistic Ecstasy,” Nova et Vetera [Winter 2008])