Posted                       

quote:

---

Originally posted by mr cheesy:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Martin60:
It's a complicated, nuanced, multifactorial narrative:

Is Extreme Racism a Mental Illness?

... Extremism Or Insanity?

---

Well yes, but this begs the question of whether they've extended the definition of mental illness to include the person who has an unusual political/religious belief which is so strongly held that it can't be dislodged by psychiatrists (or anyone else). If that's true then every second person is mentally ill, surely.

---

quote:

---

Is it just saying "Oh, that Brevik must be mentally ill, otherwise how can you explain someone going to an island and murdering tens of people..?"

I'm not really convinced.

---

quote:

---

What is quite possibly true is that fascism in particular is particularly sticky with respect to certain character types, that like a parasite it infects the minds of people who are susceptible to it - which I'm sure includes (but are not exclusively) people with some kinds of mental disorder.

---

quote:

---

But then if that's true we're still in dangerous territory. If the fascist is mentally ill, is the violent political extremism an manifestation of the mental illness or has the extremism triggered it? Does he have a personality disorder because he is a fascist who wants to overthrow the democratic order (which is clearly a sign of a pretty extreme personality whichever way you look at it), or has a pre-existing personality disorder turned an ordinary person into Hitler?

---

quote:

---

As you might be able to tell, I'm just not convinced this is a helpful way to frame the question.

---

quote:

---

I'm convinced that the heads of many corporations are either psychopaths of sociopaths. They might well be able to be changed back into helpful members of society with sufficient therapy.

---

quote:

---

Does that make them mentally ill? Nope.

---

quote:

---

that needs a strong benevolent approach.

One offs like Mair, Brevik, Mateen are one thing, whole ethne are another.

---

quote:

---

I'm curious what this part means, can you expand?

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I was in the Quaker meeting this morning and I had an interesting thought. I was seeing a reflection of windows behind me in a glass door ahead of me.

It took me a little while to work out why I could see some strange shapes, why I could see what I could. It was all about the way the windows behind me were being reflected. I was seeing one window reflected twice in the doors ahead of me. And one corner was cut off by a curtain.

I was reminded of Plato's cave and his idea of forms - the concept (simplistically put) that what we see are shadows of the true forms of things. Irrespective of whether you accept his idea, it struck me that this was something of how we see God.

The image I see of God is rather like the reflections I am seeing. It is very much based on where I am sitting, how I am looking, it is my interpretation of what I see. In truth, I cannot turn around and see the original, I can only interpret what I see. The best I can do is acknowledge what I can see is only a reflection, and try to interpret what I can see.

And accept that what I see is different from what other people see. What I see is not God, it is a representation of God within what I can understand and interpret. And that is all anyone can see.

So please, tell me that I am heretical....

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stetson:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:

So please, tell me that I am heretical....

---

Okay, you are heretical. At least according to the doctrines of Plato himself, who thought that it IS possible, at least for some people, to see, not just the shadows, but the objects(ie. the true forms) making the shadows.

---

quote:

---

1Cor. 13:12: Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

1Cor. 13:12: Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:

Plato, IIRC, was not that positive about the existence of God anyway, so it is not about being un-platonic, it is about whether this is a heretical Christian idea.

You see, it can also be argued, on this basis, that the three parts of the trinity are different shadows, different reflection in different surfaces. One God, three presentations. And that it is possible for others to see God in different surfaces but call him something else, so see a different - and, IMO, a lesser - God.

---

Posted                       

quote:

---

Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I assumed that this idea would be a clear heresy, and was interested in someone telling me why and what heresy it expressed. I don't mind being a heretic, but I like to know why I am being heretical.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:

You see, it can also be argued, on this basis, that the three parts of the trinity are different shadows, different reflection in different surfaces. One God, three presentations.

---

Now this might or might not be heretical (depending basically on whether you mentally insert the word "mere" before "presentations", which would make it modal monarchianism--and also on the strength with which you assert and teach it, as opposed to merely wondering). Does that satisfy the itch to be heretical?

quote:

---

Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:

And that it is possible for others to see God in different surfaces but call him something else, so see a different - and, IMO, a lesser - God.

---

quote:

---

"Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son" (Hebrews 1)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
God in different surfaces but call him something else, so see a different - and, IMO, a lesser - God."

---

Posted                          

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stetson:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:

So please, tell me that I am heretical....

---

Okay, you are heretical. At least according to the doctrines of Plato himself, who thought that it IS possible, at least for some people, to see, not just the shadows, but the objects(ie. the true forms) making the shadows.

---

Well, but Christian orthodoxy is not defined by Plato. Indeed, some of us even think Hellenistic influences are part of the problem with "classic" Western theology.

So I see your Plato and I raise you Paul:

quote:

---

1Cor. 13:12: Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

---

---

quote:

---

In the Cathedral of the World there are windows beyond number, some long forgotten, covered with many patinas of dust, others revered by millions, the most sacred of shrines. Each in its own way is beautiful. Some are abstract, others representational; some dark and meditative, others bright and dazzling. Each tells a story about the creation of the world, the meaning of history, the purpose of life, the nature of humankind, the mystery of death. The windows of the cathedral are where the light shines through. ... We shall never see the Light directly, only as refracted through the windows of the Cathedral. Prompting humility, life’s mystery lies hidden, beyond knowledge’s most ample ken. The Light (God, Truth) is veiled. Yet, that we can encompass with our minds the universe that encompasses us is a cause for great wonder.

---

Posted                          

quote:

---

Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I'm not sure Plato was really thinking in quite these terms with the Allegory of the Cave. Socrates says that the allegory is about education and human nature.

I think he is saying that there exists a whole unknown complexity of the world, but we only see a ghostly reflection of those things - which in our ignorance we give names and associate with noises. The person who escapes the cave and sees things as they really are is so overwhelmed by the attack on their senses that they might even retreat back into the comfort of the shadows rather than try to come to terms with the reality.

Which intertwines with Plato's apparent belief in perfect Forms existing somewhere out there in the ether, of which we only experience the shadows.

Aristotle apparently manages to puncture this argument by asking how having perfection in another realm has any impact on this realm.

Anyway, it seems quite a mistake to me to associate Plato's concepts of the Forms with the Christian deity unless you believe in a deity which is entirely unknowable, who stands aloof from the world and who simply acts as a standard by which all material things are measured.

To me that's much too abstract. A deity who is somehow just the perfect Form of things - and who we only ever get a shadowy image of - is not something we can relate to on a personal level. He isn't someone who can relate to us on a personal level. He isn't someone who can share our pain, who can cry with the weak, who can comfort the grieving.

Indeed, I'd argue that the person of the incarnation shows the true image of God - not someone who is aloof and existing perfectly in another realm we can barely conceive, but the servant who cooks food for his friends.

There are many things we don't and can't know about God. But if we are claiming to have something to do with the incarnation, the one thing we can't say is that God is aloof and uninvolved, a shadow on the cave wall which we're all persuading ourselves are something but are actually nothing like the reality.

---

Posted                          

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Good points from mr cheesy. As I see it, as an ex-Christian, one of the great plus points in Christianity is that God, who can seem aloof and above it all, is embodied in the too too solid flesh of Christ. Hence, God becomes approachable, 'one of us'.

This is also a negative point though, since we have to imagine this figure most of the time, and he is not here in the too too solid flesh. Of course, there are theological addenda to this, if you argue, for example, that you and I are the Christ, and we are pretty solid and present. Well, some of the time.

---

Posted                       

quote:

---

Originally posted by fausto:
Well, of course Christianity is not Platonism, and vice versa. But I would argue that the idea of a transcendent, perfect, ideally pure God who needs mediation through a quasi-human, quasi-divine agent in order to be apprehended by and accessible to humanity, is an essentially Platonic concept. The Jewish God as portrayed in the Old Testament was far more directly involved with his people than the Father of the Trinity is.

---

Posted                          

quote:

---

Originally posted by mr cheesy:

quote:

---

Originally posted by fausto:
Well, of course Christianity is not Platonism, and vice versa. But I would argue that the idea of a transcendent, perfect, ideally pure God who needs mediation through a quasi-human, quasi-divine agent in order to be apprehended by and accessible to humanity, is an essentially Platonic concept. The Jewish God as portrayed in the Old Testament was far more directly involved with his people than the Father of the Trinity is.

---

FWIW, those of us who believe in the Trinity don't believe in a "quasi-human, quasi-divine agent", the Christ of the incarnation is fully man and fully God. Not an agent of some distant Platonic deity, the real deal. You see him, you see God.

---

Posted                       

quote:

---

Originally posted by fausto:
But the reason we are able to see him is because we share his humanity. Without his humanity he would be as invisible and transcendent as the Father. "No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known." (John 1:18) "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus." (I Timothy 2:5) "The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation." (Colossians 1:15) In that sense, the Trinitarian concept of the Son bears similarity to Plato's shadows rather than ideal form.

I did not intend any sarcasm or mockery.

---

Posted                          

quote:

---

Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I just don't accept your characterisation of the theology of the Trinity being Platonic. It seems to be the exact opposite to me, namely that the real and perfect Form of the deity exists in the realms of men.

---

Posted                       

quote:

---

Originally posted by Martin60:
We see Him inclusive, kind, angry and non-violent at abuse of power, generous, empowering, empathic, of and transcendent of His time, bursting out of the ties that bind - religion, classless, courageous, patient, forgiving, moved, merciful, wise, clever, subversive of ALL privilege: He NEVER abused His.

---

Posted                       

quote:

---

Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
Thank you for all these comments. Lamb Chopped - I would never argue for that interpretation being the only possible one, just a way of understanding seeing God appear and behave in three very different ways, while being the same God.

The same would apply to other Gods - others see a reflection that is different. I said lesser, because I think the loving, accepting, sacrificing God I know is totally awesome, and I have never heard of another quite as fantastic.

I think the assumption of heresy is that this seems to me to be a clear and obvious way of seeing God, of understanding why we cannot see him directly, and based in a philosophical concept that has some traction and understanding. If it all seemed to make sense, I was sure there must be some obvious heretical position that I was proclaiming. And I knew exactly where to find out....

I actually don't want to be heretical. Or rather, I don't want to hold a belief or understanding that someone has explained is inconsistent. For me, this approach makes things clear and obvious. But that does not make it right.

---

The "heresy" thing was mostly a tease on my part--after your first response, I knew you weren't actively seeking that particular status. But it's a very vivid way of saying "Can you pick some holes in this?"

I'm not caffeinated yet, so the confusion is probably all mine--but which is the clear and obvious position you refer to, the "through a mirror darkly" experience you've described, or the traditional Christian one? Because IMHO they coalesce at this point.

--------------------
Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by fausto:
The Jewish God as portrayed in the Old Testament was far more directly involved with his people than the Father of the Trinity is.

---

I'm having a hard time seeing that: it is God the Father who sends the Son, and the incarnation is pretty much the epitome of "direct involvement". Can you explain/support this statement?

--------------------
"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by mr cheesy:
To me that's much too abstract. A deity who is somehow just the perfect Form of things - and who we only ever get a shadowy image of - is not something we can relate to on a personal level. He isn't someone who can relate to us on a personal level. He isn't someone who can share our pain, who can cry with the weak, who can comfort the grieving.

Indeed, I'd argue that the person of the incarnation shows the true image of God - not someone who is aloof and existing perfectly in another realm we can barely conceive, but the servant who cooks food for his friends.

There are many things we don't and can't know about God. But if we are claiming to have something to do with the incarnation, the one thing we can't say is that God is aloof and uninvolved, a shadow on the cave wall which we're all persuading ourselves are something but are actually nothing like the reality.

---

[ 20. June 2016, 15:51: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]

--------------------
"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:

---

Originally posted by fausto:
The Jewish God as portrayed in the Old Testament was far more directly involved with his people than the Father of the Trinity is.

---

I'm having a hard time seeing that: it is God the Father who sends the Son, and the incarnation is pretty much the epitome of "direct involvement". Can you explain/support this statement?

---

Posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I'm not caffeinated yet, so the confusion is probably all mine--but which is the clear and obvious position you refer to, the "through a mirror darkly" experience you've described, or the traditional Christian one? Because IMHO they coalesce at this point.

---

Posted                       

quote:

---

Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I think he is saying that there exists a whole unknown complexity of the world, but we only see a ghostly reflection of those things - which in our ignorance we give names and associate with noises. The person who escapes the cave and sees things as they really are is so overwhelmed by the attack on their senses that they might even retreat back into the comfort of the shadows rather than try to come to terms with the reality.

---

quote:

---

Anyway, it seems quite a mistake to me to associate Plato's concepts of the Forms with the Christian deity unless you believe in a deity which is entirely unknowable, who stands aloof from the world and who simply acts as a standard by which all material things are measured.

---

Posted                          

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:

---

Originally posted by fausto:
The Jewish God as portrayed in the Old Testament was far more directly involved with his people than the Father of the Trinity is.

---

I'm having a hard time seeing that: it is God the Father who sends the Son, and the incarnation is pretty much the epitome of "direct involvement". Can you explain/support this statement?

---

Posted                       

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I think he is saying that there exists a whole unknown complexity of the world, but we only see a ghostly reflection of those things - which in our ignorance we give names and associate with noises. The person who escapes the cave and sees things as they really are is so overwhelmed by the attack on their senses that they might even retreat back into the comfort of the shadows rather than try to come to terms with the reality.

---

If I may be a bit of a philosophical pedant, I think you're thinking of a theory more like Kant than Plato.
Plato's argument is if anything that the world is simpler than our senses and passions make it appear to us. If we can use mathematics as an analogy, the world as it really is stands to the world we observe as the real circle defined in mathematics stands to the diagrams scrawled in the sand or on wax by mathematicians.

---

quote:

---

If so, it's a mistake that's been made by almost all serious Catholic and Orthodox theologians up to the twentieth century. God within classical Platonism is the Form of Forms - the Form of Goodness and Truth and Beauty.
And indeed anything less could not be God. As Augustine has it, our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God, and how can that be true of anything other than Beauty and Goodness itself?

---

quote:

---

I think the point is here that it is our images of God - old man with beard, ground of being, unmoving form - that are the shadows on the wall. The Platonic Form is more real, more personal than anything we can know directly without miraculous aid.

---

Posted                       

quote:

---

Originally posted by fausto:
Well, there is another theology of the Incarnation holding that Jesus realizes and exemplifies an immanent divine presence that is inherent in all of humanity. This school of thought can be found in expressions as varied as the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of theosis and the Romantic christology of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by fausto:

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:

---

Originally posted by fausto:
The Jewish God as portrayed in the Old Testament was far more directly involved with his people than the Father of the Trinity is.

---

I'm having a hard time seeing that: it is God the Father who sends the Son, and the incarnation is pretty much the epitome of "direct involvement". Can you explain/support this statement?

---

Did the subsequent discussion answer your question?

God as portrayed in the OT repeatedly interacts directly with his people, both individually (e. g., Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Job) and collectively (granting his people military victories, prospering or punishing them as a nation). In orthodox Trinitarianism, by way of contrast, the Father is revealed and interacts only through the "image" of Jesus rather than directly. It is in the concept of the Son as an accessible image of the otherwise (directly) inaccessible Father that I see parallels with the Platonic concept of ideal forms and their perceived images.

---

Posted                       

quote:

---

Originally posted by mr cheesy:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I think he is saying that there exists a whole unknown complexity of the world, but we only see a ghostly reflection of those things - which in our ignorance we give names and associate with noises.

---

If I may be a bit of a philosophical pedant, I think you're thinking of a theory more like Kant than Plato.
Plato's argument is if anything that the world is simpler than our senses and passions make it appear to us. If we can use mathematics as an analogy, the world as it really is stands to the world we observe as the real circle defined in mathematics stands to the diagrams scrawled in the sand or on wax by mathematicians.

---

I don't think so, I know almost nothing about Kant, so that's very unlikely.

---

quote:

---

quote:

---

If so, it's a mistake that's been made by almost all serious Catholic and Orthodox theologians up to the twentieth century. God within classical Platonism is the Form of Forms - the Form of Goodness and Truth and Beauty.
And indeed anything less could not be God. As Augustine has it, our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God, and how can that be true of anything other than Beauty and Goodness itself?

---

If you say so, I know nothing of the Christian neoplatonists. If they're saying something different to that which Plato sets out, I assume that they're reading Plato through the lens of Aristotle and his criticisms.

---

quote:

---

quote:

---

I think the point is here that it is our images of God - old man with beard, ground of being, unmoving form - that are the shadows on the wall. The Platonic Form is more real, more personal than anything we can know directly without miraculous aid.

---

It doesn't seem like it to me.

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

---

Originally posted by fausto:
Well, there is another theology of the Incarnation holding that Jesus realizes and exemplifies an immanent divine presence that is inherent in all of humanity. This school of thought can be found in expressions as varied as the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of theosis and the Romantic christology of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

---

I think the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of theosis is quite opposite. The doctrine as I understand it is that us becoming divine is not natural to us until Jesus through the incarnation makes it possible.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mr cheesy:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:
If I may be a bit of a philosophical pedant, I think you're thinking of a theory more like Kant than Plato.

---

I don't think so, I know almost nothing about Kant, so that's very unlikely.

---

Posted                          

quote:

---

Originally posted by Martin60:
Surely the Son of Man is the best possible image of God on the cave wall of humanity?

The SECONDARY image of that image in our skull caves is an order of magnitude AGAIN less so.

---

quote:

---

Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of prophets. He saw with open eye the mystery of the soul. Drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with its beauty, he lived in it, and had his being there. Alone in all history, he estimated the greatness of man. One man was true to what is in you and me. He saw that God incarnates himself in man, and evermore goes forth anew to take possession of his world. He said, in this jubilee of sublime emotion, `I am divine. Through me, God acts; through me, speaks. Would you see God, see me; or, see thee, when thou also thinkest as I now think.'

---

quote:

---

The Light of God (or Truth or Being Itself, call it what you will) shines not only upon us, but out from within us as well. Together with the windows, we are part of the Cathedral, not apart from it.

---

quote:

---

As ye did it to the least of these my brothers and sisters, ye did it to me.

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Martin60:
Surely the Son of Man is the best possible image of God on the cave wall of humanity?

---

Posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Martin60:
Surely the Son of Man is the best possible image of God on the cave wall of humanity?

---

Except the Son of Man is not merely an image, but the real thing. Plato's Form of Man has descended into the very cave itself.

---

Posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Martin60:
Surely the Son of Man is the best possible image of God on the cave wall of humanity?

---

Except the Son of Man is not merely an image, but the real thing. Plato's Form of Man has descended into the very cave itself.

---