SPOGBOLT   |   Location: Newfoundland, Canada

July 10, 2007

Pagan transcendentalism

(Revised post)

. . . . [E]ven if Plato is not describing true creation ex nihilo, it seems clear that the 'raw material' on which Plato's Creator worked is so formless that it must make little difference to his transcendent status. If the Creator is 'in' the world, it is only the world in an utterly chaotic and dead form, not the world with which we are familiar. In the Timaeus, even the immortality of the gods, let alone the immortality of the souls of mortals, remains dependent on the goodness of the Creator; it is not an inherent property of souls . . . . Plato [also] distinguishes the divine part of man, created directly by the Creator, from man's mortal components, the creation of which is delegated to the lesser gods. Should this belief not strongly encourage respect for the essential core of the individual, irrespective of "physical or social facts"? Does this not call into question Voegelin's claims about the key advance in consciousness represented by Christianity? CONTINUE

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