Again, the heart of the Christian faith is a rejection of Plato’s view of the world. The heart of our faith is Jesus. Jesus is the universal divine “form”—in fullness—taking on flesh, and matter, and humanity—in fullness. Jesus is what Universal Truth and Divinity look like in a particular body, culture, time, and space. Incarnation is the orthodox root of our faith, and any belief which lessens this combination of full deity and full humanity is named as heresy.
We don’t look “beyond” Jesus to some true divinity that is perfect. The reality of the movement of God is radically, beautifully, gritty! The Universal Divine can, and is, expressed in and connected to this physical world—and it is in a particular way. Particulars can’t be discounted in favor of the universal.
From a Christian perspective, from a biblical perspective, the Divine Universal constantly, creatively incarnates throughout creation. This incarnation is ongoing, throughout billions of human beings, in fresh and particular ways. Truth is not abstracted from reality, or separate from data, or detached from the different perspectives humanity and creation bring. Rather, universal truth comes to life in all those particular expressions, and we need those particular expressions to understand the fullness of the universal and the Divine. Nor can we throw out the particular expressions that don’t seem to fit our view.
Especially not if Jesus of Nazareth is our Lord.
Thanks Gregg! Not sure I’d call Christian faith a “rejection” of Plato’s worldview, especially if one of the points of this series is that Christians can’t reject out of hand “particular expressions that don’t seem to fit our view.” I think Christian neoplatonism (hugely influential on the history of Christianity; hard to imagine Christian mysticism without it) takes Plato’s insights and makes them better by softening his hard dualism, based on insight into Christ’s mediation between God and humanity through the incarnation. So in a way the first chapter of John both affirms and revises Plato.
That said, I think Platonic dualism can be helpful for maintaining an awareness that God transcends creation, even as God–as you describe well–constantly sustains creation. So creation is contingent on God’s existence, but God is not contingent on creation’s existence, even if God does condescend (in the older sense of the word) to enter creation in an act of kenotic love, i.e. Phil. 2:6-8. I suppose that attending to God’s transcendence can underscore the power of God’s love by reminding us that this love is gratuitous, given by reason of God’s excessiveness and not out of necessity. A good thought for Advent/Christmas.
Just quibbles really. Good series!
Jay, yes! Thank you. Very helpful thoughts.
My writing was a bit sloppy, accentuated by being split over two entries. In my mind, I meant Christianity rejects Plato’s specific view that matter distorts form, matter approaches form, but perfect form can never be found in matter. The incarnation destroys that.
You’re very right to bring up Neo-Platonic influence on Christianity, and I love the idea of gracious love versus necessary love you bring up.
I’m bringing up Plato here to highlight the roots of how, today, I see people discounting evidence and data and facts right in front of their eyes in favor of their ideas/belief structures which they hold too tightly. Thanks for reading and for commenting!