Your lectures earlier this year encouraged me to crack open Plato's "The Republic," but this seems like a bigger ask. I've been hoping you'd get back to the philosophical tête-à-têtes with academics I barely understood, and I want to follow (on Podcast Addict and Substack) the artist who wrote that phenomenal play, but religious faith is a bit like that cloud-touching cathedral in Limerick: striking from a distance, interesting up close, but closed to someone like me, I'm afraid, even if I peek inside or hear the hymns when the rain lets up. I don't want to unsubscribe though, even though you promise to be annoying. Hope that's all right.
I appreciate your candor as always Erik and I really enjoy your thoughts on the Substack so glad you won't be unsubscribing! I'm still going to finish the Republic course and have another planned on Aristotle for next year and there's still lots of tete-a-tetes with incomprehensible academics to come, so should still be some stuff of interest!
How does your new outlook change your position on Plato? Do you feel that the philosophy of the dialogues is compatible with your Christian perspective? If not, which part most so?
I am not a big fan of Paul's trashing of the Greek philosophical tradition but I know how big of a part it plays for many intellectual Christians. Wondering if you are following party line with this one? . . .
Nah doesn't change my outlook at all! I never understood why some Christians are so critical of Plato, I think it's because of gnostic reading of the dialogues thats not actually in a lot of Plato's work. Particularly the Republic is insanely Christian, and many of the early church father's lik Augustine, Origen and St Gregory of Nyessa, and even Aquinas through neoplatonists, basically fused platonic metaphysics the Hebrew tradition and incarnation. I think you'd have a hard time justifying Christian metaphysics without Plato to be honest. I follow DC Schindler and consider myself a Catholic Platonist in many ways.
Always remember that your inherent heart-disposition wants and needs Infinite, Absolute, True, Eternal Happiness - now and forever.!
Mindless embodiment.
Consciousness without inwardness.
Thus It becomes Obvious.
Every object is only Light, the Energy of Consciousness.
Even so, there is no mind.
Only this stark feeling embodiment, without inwardness.
First transcend the mind, not the body.
Inwardness is flight from Life and Love.
Only the body is full of consciousness.
Therefore, be the body only, feeling into Life
Surrender the mind into Love, until the body dissolves in Light.
Dare this ecstasy, and never be made thoughtful by birth and experience and death.
If you can breathe, fully and deeply, and if your body is consciously attuned, through feeling, to the tangible and infinite energy of the universe - only then can you love.
If your living body is open, relaxed, fluid with feeling, supple and graceful in its action and expression, and not bound up in a physically visible knot of tension and self-possession - only then can you live a truly effective and moral relational in this human realm.
and - only then are you happy and good company in all relationships.
What is the Truth! We live in God. The Great One is our very Being. We inhere in the Blissful, Forceful Being of the Starry God, the Wonder, the Mystery, the Person of Love. This is our Situation and Destiny.
All of us inhere in the Great One, the Wonderful Lord, the Marvellous Starry Person, the Delight of Being, That is our situation now. This moment is the moment of Self-Radiant-Happiness, as is every future moment, every moment after death, beyond this world, and other worlds too.
It is all the moment of Infinitely Blissful Delight.
Your lectures earlier this year encouraged me to crack open Plato's "The Republic," but this seems like a bigger ask. I've been hoping you'd get back to the philosophical tête-à-têtes with academics I barely understood, and I want to follow (on Podcast Addict and Substack) the artist who wrote that phenomenal play, but religious faith is a bit like that cloud-touching cathedral in Limerick: striking from a distance, interesting up close, but closed to someone like me, I'm afraid, even if I peek inside or hear the hymns when the rain lets up. I don't want to unsubscribe though, even though you promise to be annoying. Hope that's all right.
I appreciate your candor as always Erik and I really enjoy your thoughts on the Substack so glad you won't be unsubscribing! I'm still going to finish the Republic course and have another planned on Aristotle for next year and there's still lots of tete-a-tetes with incomprehensible academics to come, so should still be some stuff of interest!
How does your new outlook change your position on Plato? Do you feel that the philosophy of the dialogues is compatible with your Christian perspective? If not, which part most so?
I am not a big fan of Paul's trashing of the Greek philosophical tradition but I know how big of a part it plays for many intellectual Christians. Wondering if you are following party line with this one? . . .
Nah doesn't change my outlook at all! I never understood why some Christians are so critical of Plato, I think it's because of gnostic reading of the dialogues thats not actually in a lot of Plato's work. Particularly the Republic is insanely Christian, and many of the early church father's lik Augustine, Origen and St Gregory of Nyessa, and even Aquinas through neoplatonists, basically fused platonic metaphysics the Hebrew tradition and incarnation. I think you'd have a hard time justifying Christian metaphysics without Plato to be honest. I follow DC Schindler and consider myself a Catholic Platonist in many ways.
Always remember that your inherent heart-disposition wants and needs Infinite, Absolute, True, Eternal Happiness - now and forever.!
Mindless embodiment.
Consciousness without inwardness.
Thus It becomes Obvious.
Every object is only Light, the Energy of Consciousness.
Even so, there is no mind.
Only this stark feeling embodiment, without inwardness.
First transcend the mind, not the body.
Inwardness is flight from Life and Love.
Only the body is full of consciousness.
Therefore, be the body only, feeling into Life
Surrender the mind into Love, until the body dissolves in Light.
Dare this ecstasy, and never be made thoughtful by birth and experience and death.
If you can breathe, fully and deeply, and if your body is consciously attuned, through feeling, to the tangible and infinite energy of the universe - only then can you love.
If your living body is open, relaxed, fluid with feeling, supple and graceful in its action and expression, and not bound up in a physically visible knot of tension and self-possession - only then can you live a truly effective and moral relational in this human realm.
and - only then are you happy and good company in all relationships.
What is the Truth! We live in God. The Great One is our very Being. We inhere in the Blissful, Forceful Being of the Starry God, the Wonder, the Mystery, the Person of Love. This is our Situation and Destiny.
All of us inhere in the Great One, the Wonderful Lord, the Marvellous Starry Person, the Delight of Being, That is our situation now. This moment is the moment of Self-Radiant-Happiness, as is every future moment, every moment after death, beyond this world, and other worlds too.
It is all the moment of Infinitely Blissful Delight.