PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY

Plato’s close connection to Christian thought has always been a self-evident truth of professional philosophy, and the only thing to argue about here is whether Plato had been enlightened prophetically, as the Christians may have wanted to interpret it, or that it was the other way around, namely, that Christian thought was from the very beginning influenced by Plato. (And it would not be much of a leap to surmise that none of the proponents of this latter idea happen to be conventional Christian theologians.)

As a born and raised Russian Orthodox Christian, I treat religion with great reverence, but, philosophically (and theologically) speaking, Christian beliefs are just that: faith, rather than knowledge. In other words, I do not feel compelled to adhere to either the former or the latter assumption, deliberately trivializing their distinction, as long as we agree on the basic fact that a connection between Plato’s and Christian thinking does exist, and proceed from there.

The best place to begin is with Plato’s Theory of Ideas, which boils down to the assumption that behind the material world of “shadows” there is a superior ideal world, which is the only real one, whereas the material world is nothing but an illusion. Needless to say, the parallel Christian reality of the two worlds: the present one, which is transitory (compare to illusory, in Plato), and that ‘other’ world, permanent and eternal, comes so close to the Platonic duality that it can easily become indistinguishable, if a certain theological spin is put into effect.

The sources of Plato’s idea of such a duality of the two worlds are very easy to understand without resorting to any explanations by a mystical revelation. This whole affair boils down to the old Anaximandrian puzzle about the one and the many, which had been most questionably “solved” by Parmenides and Heraclitus, by, respectively, either denying the many for the sake of the one, or denying the one for the sake of the many. Plato successfully kept both the one and the many, but to be able to do so, he divided the world into a world of reality and a world of illusion; and within the ideal world he pointed out the existence of one God, as the Creator of the many ideas, or forms, which in turn each cast quite a few shadows into the caveman’s world of illusions.

Plato’s duality has a curious linguistic parallel in the basic difference between common and proper nouns, the former corresponding to the ideas, and the latter corresponding to the reflections. “Plato” is a proper noun, that is, a name corresponding to the common noun man. This parallel shows a basic flaw in Plato’s theory, as by his own argument, Plato ought to be an illusory reflection of man, but, in reality, this is Plato who is real, whereas man is an abstraction, or rather, a generalization of particular men, and to assume the actual existence of a generic man stretches the boundaries of common sense beyond reasonable limits.

The last paragraph was a brief digression from our current comparison of Platonic and Christian idealism. I shall not get into any further detail on the subject of this comparison, as my readers are advised to study the details of the two idealistic conceptions under the angle just suggested: after all, this book is not a history of philosophy, and what has already been said about it should suffice.

The next intriguing question is Plato’s pure spirit, and the good as such. Loud echoes of Christianity have at once filled the air, but I am specifically interested in looking at it from Nietzsche’s original perspective. Did Plato invent “the pure spirit and the good as such?” Here is what Nietzsche has to say about this (both these quotations are taken from Nietzsche’s Preface to Jenseits):

“The worst, most durable, and most dangerous of all (philosophical) errors so far was a dogmatist’s [sic!] error: Plato’s invention of the pure spirit, and the good as such. It meant standing truth on her head and denying perspective, the basic condition of all life when one spoke of the spirit and the good as Plato did. Indeed, as a physician, one might ask, ‘How could the most beautiful growth of antiquity, Plato, contract such a disease?’”

 

I have no intention of making fun of the above passage. My question is quite serious, and it has important implications, because it is crucial to the ethics and morality of man, and in politics. Is ethics as such only a human invention, even if its inventor be a true great man of genius, namely, Plato, but still, merely a mortal man? (Incidentally, is Nietzsche calling Plato a dogmatist just because he happens to be the first systematic thinker in the history of philosophy, at least among those whose tangible memory has reached us? I suspect that there may also be something else.) It is important to understand that theologically speaking the prophet Moses did not invent ethics, but he was a mere instrument of God, in delivering the ABC of ethics, the Ten Commandments, to the Jews. (There is a tradition that, prior to Moses, a list of basic ethical commandments had been delivered by God to Noah, who of course was not a Jew, like Adam and Eve were not a Jewish couple. These basic commandments, very similar to Mosaic commandments in their general thrust, have been known since the Talmudic times as the Noachian Laws.)

It is perfectly clear that the great Nietzsche is happily in his element here, developing his alternative ethics of Jenseits von Gut und Böse. The traditional ethic of Gut und Böse is, therefore, a competitor of his own, and, rather than make God his competitor, by inference, Nietzsche prefers to seek a fellow philosopher for that role, and naturally chooses Plato. This should explain that, in spite of his polemic invective against his nemesis, Plato continues to be one of Nietzsche’s best friends, as we have already noted elsewhere.

To continue with our next passage ibidem:

But the fight against Plato, or to speak more clearly, the fight against the Christian-ecclesiastical pressure of the millennia (for Christianity is Platonism for the people) has created in Europe a magnificent tension of the spirit, the like of which had never existed on earth: with so tense a bow we can now shoot for most distant goals. To be sure, twice already attempts have been made to unbend the bow--- once, by means of Jesuitism, the second time, by means of the democratic enlightenment. But we, who are neither Jesuits nor democrats, we good Europeans, free, very free spirits, we still feel the need of the spirit and the tension of its bow.

Question number two is whether indeed “Christianity is Platonism for the people.” This one I am obliged to answer on my own. For instance, has Plato’s elite class of rulers, in his Politeia, been taken to represent the Church, in the Christian interpretation? If so, how much else has the Church learned from him? And then of course comes Aristotle who is much different from Plato, yet also so acceptable to the crowd, known for its intolerance of heretical opinions. In turning Aristotle into their hero, haven’t the Christian Fathers been just a bit selective and even somewhat manipulative: “I am taking this cut and this too, wrap it up for me now… no, I do not think so, not this one, I’ll pass on it this time…” etc.? (Question number three, namely about Jesuitism and the democratic enlightenment: “How did these two endeavor to unbend the bow?” unfortunately, has no place here and, as a memo to myself, I must address it in another place and at another time. Nietzsche’s imagery is beautiful, but we must reach well beyond its aesthetics…)

The question whether Christianity is, in fact, Platonism for the people is a trick question, inasmuch as it has assumed a fact not in evidence: that Christianity is posterior to, and an adaptation of, Platonism, which, as I said before, I do not wish to commit myself to, on either side of the argument. Thus, I can only address it if it is taken out of the chronological or causal context, in which case I might say that Christianity is a much larger phenomenon than either a subdivision or an adaptation of Plato’s theories. There is a “Christianity” for the common people, of course, but, by the same measure, there is a “Christianity” for the intellectually refined elite, and for the esoteric philosopher just as well. In this respect, Platonism is a much more limited elitist phenomenon, but what else can anyone expect from a quintessential philosopher, which Plato was, as opposed to a whole way of life for a world from top to bottom, which Christianity has effectively been?

As for the relationship between Platonism and Christianity, yes, it can be studied, and, undoubtedly, many interesting things can be learned from such a study. Yes, their connection is obvious, especially, if it gets a purposeful translation into common terms, but, beyond that, reaching into the area of causality and mutual dependence and cross-pollination (I am referring of course to post-Plato Platonism and Neo-Platonism), no meaningful result can be gained from such mutually exclusive and antagonistic conjectures.