Thought you might have an interest in these subjects -- if you have the time, please feel free to comment. Your thoughts would be most welcome!
But if you dislike cosmology/metaphystics/theology, you can always skip down to the bold head, "Natural Law, Contingency, and the Scientific Method." Which is followed by another bold head, "Worlviews and Paradigm Shifts." The first starts near the bottom, the next follows closely.
Still, I hope you have the time and interest to get with "the culture" first.
In any case, it is always a great pleasure to hear from you.
So, if you have the time and interest, please do stop by and share your critique with me.
There was probably no such person as Plato. There was a school. Before you say he had a history, a wealthy Athenian family, all that, remember they had the same kind of history for Theseus. At least they had a ship, or they say they did, for Theseus.
If you believe something because it makes you feel good to believe it, doesn't that make you a hedonist?
Ping so I can read this later when I am suppose to be doing work.
plato ping
Slow down Wolfgang. This is precisely what the early Church did not say. The Church Fathers made a clear distinction between the created world and the uncreated and stated that there is no similarity between the two whatsoever. This was the doctrine of the Church that drove the Neoplatonism of Clement and Origen and the eternal ideas or forms of Plato from the church forever, at least in the East. In this theology of the Church, creation is not self-revelation of God.
Furthermore, the Fathers make a distinction bewteen the uncreated essence of God and the uncreated energies or divine attributes of God. God's essense is unknowable, ineffable, inconceivable, incomprehensible. Revelation of God is only possible by means of the uncreated energy or divine grace which is His outward face to his creation.
The situation in the West was different and with St. Augustine and later the scholastics, the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle enter the theological thinking of the Church. This is most likely what Wolfgang is referring to. This Platonic perspective many be true for some theologians, but it is not an indisputable fact for Christianity as a whole and certainly not at its deepest level.
WOW - please add me to your ping list. This is the stuff I have been digging into this past year through a return to college and much - much reading on the side. So much to learn, so little time!
I look forward to future discussions!
read later
That should give both sides the heegie beegies--if it should sink in.
Heavy stuff! What you assembled is an effort
of love. I really enjoy reading it, even though
some of is way past me. But it is good exercise
for these brain neurons.
Two questions:
Q1: At death do we revert to that state
we were in prior to conception?
Q2: If we exist in a universe without
beginning or end, then have we
enjoyed infinite existences without
recollections?
A note about infinity. Infinities have
different orders. e.g. The cardinality
of the real numbers is higher than that
of the integers. The set of integers is
said to be a "countable" set. But the RN
are not, since they can't be put in a one
to one correspondence with the integers.
Since time is continuous like the real
numbers, it has the same cardinality as
the RN. The point here is that "infinity"
and "nothing" are concepts that we just
can't comprhend, but we are here and
that is a "miracle", isn't it?
Looking forward to pondering this - thanks for sharing.
Add me to your ping list
Thanks
The philosophers teach the masses suffering, the priests fill their minds with false hope and demand obedience, the scientists simply stare them down.
Here's my contribution to your (erudite, as always) meditation, from the mouth of Socrates rather than from my own, since I could never hope to match wits with either him or you. I think it expresses some of what you're saying.
The soul when using the body as an instrument of perception, that is to say when using the sense of sight or hearing or some other sense (for the meaning of perceiving through the body is perceiving through the senses)...is then dragged by the body into the region of the changeable, and wanders and is confused; the world spins round her, and she is like a drunkard, when she touches change...But when returning into herself she reflects, then she passes into the other world, the region of purity, and eternity, and immortality, and unchangeableness, which are her kindred, and with them she ever lives, when she is by herself, and is not let or hindered; then she ceases from her erring ways, and being in communion with the unchanging is unchanging. And this state of the soul is called wisdom.Socrates to Cebes Dialogue of Phaedo
Good morning, Betty Boop.
At my present level of understanding, I can't see how creation could be anything other than that. Even man himself, created in the image and likeness of God is a projection of the thoughts of God. And how could that projection become substantial (individualized and seemingly separate) except in a time/space continuum?
He images us. Imagines us, therefore we reside in His mind in a time environment in order that we, as individuals, have a linear direction in which to understand God and our relationship with Him, precept upon precept.
In a sense, could we say that time is an aspect of the Grace of God? For without it we would not be 'individuated' ( Is that a word?) -- having the sense of 'becoming.' Seems that He imagined us first, then gave us time to become in His 'likeness', according to the speed of the trial and error process of how we refine our choices and desires -- as we journey toward the 'likeness' stage.
I rate this post "5 COOLS!!!!!".
Please add me to your PING LIST.
More please!
http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/panin2.htm
early church ping