God and Plato

[Ingemar]

Lately, I've had huge doubts about Scripture and God in general. If you want a list of things I once believed that I no longer believe, PM me.

I've always come from a premise that Scripture is 100% true and completely God-breathed. Unfortunately, when you stack this up against reality, therein lies problems. We are told that God "inspired" all Scripture, but then again, men, not God *actually* wrote the Scripture.

Then again, there were many who said they were "spoken to" by God whose texts never made it into the Biblical canon. THEN AGAIN, the Council of Jamnia, and later the Church decided to close the canon. Revelation of John, perhaps? Maybe these people who decided what to canonize had an extra dose of spiritual goodness and were spoken to by God and had all the wisdom and guidance to know what should and shouldn't be called Scripture!

THEN AGAIN (I'll say that a lot), look at all the people today who say they "heard God's voice." They're ususally a bunch of whacko extremists who have only worldly goals in mind. Their deeds usually discredit them as to following a gracious and loving God. Or, the other extreme of people who "heard God's voice" are people overcome with emotion, guilt, and so forth at looking at kindness, poverty, generosity, what have you. So if people today who "hear God's voice" are extremists/people ruled by emotion, who is to say that people 2000 years ago weren't? And often, we see that the will of God often closely corresponds with the will of others.

Even if you're a hard-core atheist, you know that people aren't perfect. If the Bible was written by men, who we know aren't perfect, how can we trust it as "the inspired word of God?" When making a critical analysis of the Bible, we see that there are apparent contradictions in it and differences of treatment of persons/people (some books in the Bible give greater respect to Aaron over Moses, vice versa, etc.) (for the sake of argument, let's exclude exegesis).

Where does Plato fit into this? Plato's philosophy (in a nutshell) was that "ideas" and "forms" were the ultimate reality. These "ideas" and "forms" existed in a realm outside time and space, and were not accesible through the five senses. "Ideas" and "forms" were perfect, indestructible, and unchanging, and uniform. The things of the material world were not "as real" as the forms and ideas Plato envisioned, but at best, led to an understanding of the forms and ideas. And all material versions of the "forms," though they may differ from each other, ultimately derive their similarities from the "form" or "idea" of a the material thing. Take a table, for example. No two tables look alike (especially on a molecular level). Some may be big, some may be small, others white, brown, etc. Yet, they all have unifying characteristics that exhibit "tableness." They all, in some way, shape or form, mimic the "idea" of table that exists in a pefect world outside of time and space. As I said, the "ideas" cannot be accessed through the senses. They can only be accessed through use of the intellect. The "idea" cannot be defined by its components, but only the other way around. To define something an "idea" based on what we see is ultimately misleading. As for this "ultimate table," we cannot go to one table and define "tableness" based on the characteristics of this one table--because, what would that make all other tables? Chairs? Pieces of cloth? No, we must contemplate the idea of "tableness" and see if all other material objects fit the idea.

Plato's philosophy tackles the abstract more than the concrete, yet I feel the need to make an analogy.

I finally came to a conclusion about God. If God is perfect, indestructible, and unchanging, then God must be a "form" as Plato sees it. Everything written and said about Him is material, and therefore misleading. Men are imperfect. My conclusion was that the Bible was inherently misleading, if not incorrect, and could only give us a thought as to who or what God is. Scripture is only a "really bad ballpark estimate of God" since Man is imperfect (and as I have learned, there are many difficulties when comparing the Bible to reality). Thus, the only way to know what God really is through constant thought and meditation.

It's really late, I'm really tired, really confused, and not sure if my point is logical. I'm sure I must have left something out about Platonic epistomology. But deep in my heart of hearts, I wish everything I learned about God and the Bible were 100% true. That would at least end my confusion.

[Stephen]

When God used those men to write the Bible, do you think God would have allowed them to "mess things up", knowing that Christians would all use the Bible?

[skynes]

When you typed that post, who inputted it into the computer? You or the keyboard? When you write something - who wrote it? You or the pen?

Technicially speaking it was the keyboard and the pen. All you did was direct it.

Similar thing with God's Word. Men wrote it, but God directed the writing. Ultimately He was behind what was written, not the man.
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I don't know much of church history and canonization and stuff but I'll say this:

If God wanted more books in the Bible - He would have added them one way or another. If He wanted books removed - He would have removed them.

Saying that the Bible is all written by men and changed by men and canonized by men takes God out of the equation totally! God is more than capable of looking after his own Word, He is powerful enough. If He left it totally corrupted and nonsensical people won't be following the Truth but a lie.
Can you see where I'm going with this?

God wants us to know the Truth. To know Him. His Word is one way of doing that, if the Word was wrong andm essed up then we wouldn't know the Truth.
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Yes there ARE a lot of people who say they 'Heard God' and they're nuts/ demon worshippers / false preachers. "Satan masquerades as an angel of light" springs to mind right now...

But there's a lot who have heard God's Word and ARE true believers.

I've heard God speak on a couple of occasions. Wasn't to do with worldliness, or glory or whatever. It was an encouraging prophetic word when I needed it... (es the word DID come true about a year and a half later.)

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I know nothing about Plato so I'm not even going to touch it. I onlyk now that matter and form are something God created "In the Beginning God created the heavens and the earth".
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But deep in my heart of hearts, I wish everything I learned about God and the Bible were 100% true.

I think your heart is telling that to you because it IS 100% true. You know it is but you're bogged down by logic and mind.

"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind"

[CDLviking]

Two things I recommend that you read are Plato's Timeaus (sp?) and a lot of St. Augustine's writings. In the Timeaus Plato deals with the creation of the world by one god. This can help to clear up your confusion about God as one of the Forms. It is unclear whether he believes that the creator was on the same level or above the Forms, but he fashions the world according to the Forms, he himself is not a Form.

St. Augustine went through a similar search for truth that led him through heresy and philosophy, including neo-platonism, eventually returning to Christianity. Reading some of his works may help you to work these things out as well.

As for trusting the canon of scripture, I wouldn't trust the canon of Jamna to begin with because it was devoid of authority after the coming of Christ and the institution of his Church. The Christian canon can be trusted because of Christ's promise to send the Holy Spirit who will "teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind." If you have trust in the Holy Spirit then you can trust the canon set forth at the Councils of Hippo and I think two other councils were involved in setting and closing the canon.

[Ingemar]

CDLviking:

I'm reading St. Augustine's Confessions this quarter. Does that count?

Also, in keeping with St. A's journey through heresey to Christianity, didn't he say, "Lord, grant me chastity and temperance... but not yet." And is the St. A you're talking about St. Augustine of Hippo?

I'm only a novice when it comes to Plato.

[CDLviking]

Yes, he did say that. He had a long way to conversion. Yes, it was St. Augustine of Hippo.

Confessions is probably the best place to start, but if it still leaves you with questions he was very prolific with his writing, so there's plenty of stuff out there.

[cbwing0]

Let me rewind a bit...

THEN AGAIN (I'll say that a lot), look at all the people today who say they "heard God's voice." They're ususally a bunch of whacko extremists who have only worldly goals in mind. Their deeds usually discredit them as to following a gracious and loving God. Or, the other extreme of people who "heard God's voice" are people overcome with emotion, guilt, and so forth at looking at kindness, poverty, generosity, what have you. So if people today who "hear God's voice" are extremists/people ruled by emotion, who is to say that people 2000 years ago weren't?

The difference being that the biblical writers actually had their work confirmed by miracles, fulfilled prophecy, etc. More importantly, the writings of the biblical writers don't exactly match those of people governed entirely by worldly concerns and/or emotion. Don't forget that all but one of the apostoles were martyred, and that is not the kind of courage produced through emotion or worldly concerns.

Unfortunately, when you stack this up against reality, therein lies problems.

Presumably you have some specific examples in mind with this statement. Could you provide them?

If God is perfect, indestructible, and unchanging, then God must be a "form" as Plato sees it. Everything written and said about Him is material, and therefore misleading. Men are imperfect. My conclusion was that the Bible was inherently misleading, if not incorrect, and could only give us a thought as to who or what God is. Scripture is only a "really bad ballpark estimate of God" since Man is imperfect (and as I have learned, there are many difficulties when comparing the Bible to reality). Thus, the only way to know what God really is through constant thought and meditation.

There are a few problems with this. First, pure human reason is rather limited (don't forget that Plato also believed a lot of false things through his reason) as a means of seeking God. Due to the fall, our cognitive equipment may or may not be reliable, requiring the Holy Spirit to repair the damage in order to have a true understanding of God.

Second, if you want to claim that the bible is unreliable, even a "really bad ballpark estimate," how far does it go? If you throw out the historical, what's to stop you from throwing out the moral and theological? You simply can't pick and choose.

As I understand Plato, the forms are not so much actual things as abstract ideas/ideals. There is also a rather glaring problem with the form thesis: the only way you know what might be part of the the form of a particular thing comes through sense perception, which according to Plato is imperfect. This leads to a radical uncertainty about the content of the forms. Forms are abstract entities that do not really act upon the physical world. If God is one of these, what makes him worthy of worship? He couldn't have created the world, or acted upon it in any way. Such a being wouldn't even be worthy of being an object of thought and reasoning.

But deep in my heart of hearts, I wish everything I learned about God and the Bible were 100% true. That would at least end my confusion.

I don't know exactly what you have learned about God and the Bible, but I can say with confidence that I believe in the God of the Bible, and in his son Jesus Christ. Such a position of not only intellectualy tenable, but rational and reasonable.