Greek Cosmology/Ontology

Jeff asked about the Demiurge. From Wikipedia, just to get started. I know Wiki isn’t reliable, but it’s quick and easy and gets the discussion moving.

My questions are: (1) What REALLY is the heart and soul of Neo-Platonism, and (2) What’s compatible/uncompatible in this with the biblical view?

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Plato has the speaker Timaeus refer to the demiurge frequently in the Socratic dialogue Timaeus circa 360 BCE. The title character refers to the demiurge as the entity who “fashioned and shaped” the material world. Timaeus describes the Demiurge as unreservedly benevolent and hence desirous of a world as good as possible. The world remains allegedly imperfect, however, because the demiurge had to work on pre-existing chaotic matter.

Plato's Timaeus is a fleshing out of Hesiod's cosmology, from Hesiod's work Theogeny reconcilling Hesiod to Homer, in a dialectical discourse between Timaeus and the other guests at a gathering, in the dialog of Timaeus (see also Plato's Symposium). The concept of artist or creator and even the Platonist conflict between the poet as cultural historian and philosopher (see Plato's The Republic) has a link in Plato's expression of the demiurge in his works.

For Neoplatonists like Plotinus, however, the demiurge represents a second cause (see Dyad) which is a critical component of the ontological construct of human consciousness as contained within Substance theory. The first and highest aspect of God is the One, the source or the Monad (Plato describes this concept as the Good above the demiurge). The Monad emanated the Nous (consciousness) from it's "indeterminate" vitality due to the monad being so abundant that it overflowed back onto itself causing self reflection. This self reflection of the indeterminate vitality Plotinus referred to as the demiurge or creator, the principle of organization in reflection to the nonsentient force or dunamis, which is the one or the Monad. The dyad is energy emanated by the force that is then by the motion or force organized into the material world. Plotinus also elucidates the equation of matter with nothing or non-being in his Enneads which is to express the concept of idealism or that nothing exists outside of the "mind". This Platonic idealism is in connection with the nous or contemplative faculty within man which orders the force (dunamis) and energy (energeia) it perceives into conscious reality. In this he claimed to reveal Plato's true meaning, a doctrine he learned from Platonic tradition that did not appear outside the academy or in Plato's text. This tradition of creator God as nous (the manifestation of consciousness), can be validated in the works of pre-Plotinus philosophers such as Numenius. As well as a connection between Hebrew cosmology and the Hellenic Platoistic one (see also Philo).

The Demiurge of Neoplatonism is the Nous (mind of God), and is one of the three ordering principles:

arche (Gr. "beginning") - the source of all things,

logos (Gr. "word") - the underlying order that is hidden beneath appearances,

harmonia (Gr. "harmony") - numerical ratios in mathematics.

Before Numenius of Apamea and Plotinus' Enneads, no Platonic works ontologically clarified the Demiurge from the allegory in Plato's Timaeus. The idea of Demiurge was, however, addressed before Plotinus in the works of Christian writer Justin Martyr who built his understanding of the demiurge on the works of Numenius. Later Neoplatonist Iamblichus changed the role of the one which by proxy then changed the role of the demiurge as second case or dyad, this is one of the reasons that Iamblichus and his teacher Porphryr were in conflict with one another.

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I wanna say something here. Neoplantonism isn’t biblical faith, but dude, they got fracking close. I mean come on. When it comes to, How close can human reason get?, I’d say it gets pretty darn close. They knew there had to be a singularity (One) that ultimately stood behind the world. They keep running into an irreducible trinity (Three) of related principles that can’t be divorced from the One. They posit the necessary sentient/rational and benevolent nature of the One. Dude, come on. Early Greek speaking Christians were steeped in this stuff and LOVED it. It fit SO well (in spite of having to tweak it here and there). It’s not stretch to say that Christianity is the fulfillment and revelation of what these guys naturally intuited. And why should that be so surprising after all?

An interesting question would be, Why did the philosophers in Acts 17 reject Paul’s gospel? If it fits so well, and they were such astute and objective thinkers, what was it about the gospel that they saw as so incompatible with their own philosophy? Interesting.

T