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Terry_Baxter
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Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 187

Posted 4/27/2003 6:24 PM (GMT -6)

“God is love.” We hear that saying a lot in Christian cirlces.

In the Symposium (and elsewhere), Plato seems to expand this idea to create the equation: love = beauty = truth = the God. Most Plato primers will help enumerate the reasons behind this formula, but they primarily hinge on the idea that Truth is something our souls desire/love (or should desire, if we weren’t enamored with the ‘images on the cave wall’). The True is symmetrical, pleasant, (etc.) and therefore beautiful. And, of course, contemplation of Truth is the way we get closer to God.

So what is Plato going to do with this kind of philosophy during a dinner party where guests are invited to each give a speech (encomium) in praise of love? After listening to various speakers praise “love” (although it sounds to most ears like they are praising physical desire or lust for beautiful lovers), Socrates more or less refuses to play along. To his disappointment, the dinner party guests demand a speech, not Socratic questions and answers.

At some length, after some prompting, he offers a speech that he “learned” from someone else, a priestess named Diotima. Socrates argues against the common notions of love/eros/desire. The finale of the speech gives a good summary of his view of love (210e – 212a)

http://plato.evansville.edu/texts/jowett/symposium11.htm

The most striking thing to me is the notion of unassailable (almost stoic?) contemplation as a Socratic version of 'being in Love'.

I think there’s a lot here for us to react to:

--Agree/disagree: We understand all things, including God and love better by knowing True propsitions about them.

--Where the other symposiasts describe love with reference to visceral feelings, Socrates’ depiction is of love that is “pure and clear and unalloyed, not clogged with the pollutions of mortality and all the colours and vanities of human life”. So, is this a Christian principle? That God may love us in all our ‘vanity of humanity’ but if we want to love and undestand God we have to put aside emotion (for a start) and all things unstable and contingent?

--What does it mean that this isn’t “really” Socrates, but a speech he “learned” from Diotima, a woman and priestess? (may require more background reading, if you want to speculate)

--Agree/disagree: All beauty partakes in the One Beauty. (sort of like, all Truth is God’s truth). If you agree, doesn’t this mean we should, for instance, build beautiful cathedrals to have church in, so that our ‘house of god’ represents and encourages us to contemplate the beauty of god?

--Finally, is this a fair Christian theology: “[the True Love is] beauty absolute, separate, simple, and everlasting, which without diminution and without increase, or any change, [and] is imparted to the ever-growing and perishing beauties of all other things”?

rossfadeinout
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Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 428

Posted 4/29/2003 3:36 AM (GMT -6)

Terry, just saw this new topic, I'll try to look over it when I get some time and reply. Kind of running short on time here lately

Hope there are others who are going to jump in...

Ross

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. - C.S. Lewis

rossfadeinout
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Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 428

Posted 4/29/2003 10:58 AM (GMT -6)

I'm reading through Symposium 8-11... I have a basic question- what Greek word is being used for love in this passage? I read C S Lewis book "the Four Loves" and it has always stuck with me how he stresses the differences between God's love (which is not in need) with human love (which always has need-being that we are contingent-built to "run on God") It seems that the discussion that Socrates has with Agathon is referring to the same type of love that C S Lewis discusses under "eros".

This distinction between the different types of love would have an effect on how the dialogue on love would interact with a Christian understanding of God's love (agape)...

Ross

Let us remember how common the folly is of going from one faulty extreme into the opposite. -Thomas Reid

GregBoyd
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818

Posted 5/1/2003 7:39 AM (GMT -6)

Cool topic. Let me put in two cents.

--Agree/disagree: We understand all things, including God and love better by knowing True propsitions about them.

Doc: Yes and No. Yes, its impossible to love One about which you know no true propositions. Yes, we understand more by knowing more truth. But No, knowing true propositions doesn't itself equate to love. You can know all the truth about my wife and not love her the way I do (in fact, you shouldnt love her the way I do). Also, the more truth you know about an evil being, the more you would not love them.

--Where the other symposiasts describe love with reference to visceral feelings, Socrates’ depiction is of love that is “pure and clear and unalloyed, not clogged with the pollutions of mortality and all the colours and vanities of human life”. So, is this a Christian principle? That God may love us in all our ‘vanity of humanity’ but if we want to love and undestand God we have to put aside emotion (for a start) and all things unstable and contingent?

Doc: Plato (aka: Socrates) saw REASON as superior to emotions, hence saw INTELLECTUAL love as greater than EMOTIONAL love. (Rossfadeinout, in this respect Socrates is NOT advocating "eros"). I see no reason to accept this. It defies reason and minimizes (if not villanizes) emotion.

--What does it mean that this isn’t “really” Socrates, but a speech he “learned” from Diotima, a woman and priestess? (may require more background reading, if you want to speculate)

Doc: May be true, or typical Socratic humility.

--Agree/disagree: All beauty partakes in the One Beauty. (sort of like, all Truth is God’s truth). If you agree, doesn’t this mean we should, for instance, build beautiful cathedrals to have church in, so that our ‘house of god’ represents and encourages us to contemplate the beauty of god?

Doc: This is Plato's aesthetic argument for God's existence (viz. the experience of beauty points beyond itself to a maximal standard of beauty). I think there's value in it. Beauty DOES glorify God -- though the extent to which one should sacrifice finite resources to express this in religious buildings is up for debate.

--Finally, is this a fair Christian theology: “[the True Love is] beauty absolute, separate, simple, and everlasting, which without diminution and without increase, or any change, [and] is imparted to the ever-growing and perishing beauties of all other things”?

Doc: Ahhh... HERE (in my opinion) is exactly where things went screwy with the Hellenistic philosophical agenda. It was THIS (and similar) line of reasoning that led to the classical view of God as simple, timeless, changeless, etc... They saw all change, all becoming, as a defect. BUT WHY THINK THAT??? Seems to me that MOVEMENT and CHANGE can be just as beautiful as STABILITY and SAMENESS. It all depends on WHAT KIND of movement and change and stability and sameness we're talking about.

Great probing questions Terry. You'd make a good teacher

.

Greg

"The responsibility is with the chooser -- God is blameless." Plato, Republic, 10.

Terry_Baxter
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Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 187

Posted 5/1/2003 8:44 AM (GMT -6)

BLEARGH! I read this great response from Greg, just as I have to leave for the airport.

BLEARGH, I say!

I'll respond soon.

Oh, and the Greek term is "eros" (not agape or phileo, etc.). This is definitely 'affectionate' if not romantic love.

Kind of makes me think of the Song of Songs where God is depicted as a lover...

Let's get some more replies here! Do I have start assigning deadlines? Quizzes?

rossfadeinout
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Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 428

Posted 5/1/2003 9:03 AM (GMT -6)

Terry,
I PROMISE that I have read, its just tough getting enough time to post. I should have some time to reply this weekend... So if I could just have an extension on the assignment due date

.

Ross

Let us remember how common the folly is of going from one faulty extreme into the opposite. -Thomas Reid

Terry_Baxter
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Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 187

Posted 5/6/2003 12:42 PM (GMT -6)

Doc said: Doc: Yes and No. Yes, its impossible to love One about which you know no true propositions.

Terry replies: I think I disagree with this. I can love you based purely on my experience with you. All my love may be based on untrue propositions (not that I find True Propositions a very relevant category when referring to human affairs). Do you mean in the very general sense that, "my beloved exists, her name is X" etc? Or do you mean I must truly Know that, e.g., "my beloved's favorite ice cream is Rocky Road"?

Or... are you banking on a 'defintion' of love as "true love", a higher kind of love that necessarily (circularly?) is based on truth?

Doc: [no reason to buy the idea of emotionless love]

Terry: I agree with you. But isn't this what the word/faith movement (among others? do I see some of this in the revivalists, John?) teaches? You stand on what you know about God because Satan plays on your emotions and creates Fear? Standing on the promises of God--in spite of what feelings and emotions tell us--is a common trope in Christian literature, isn't it? Isn't it therefore a way of 'loving' or at least respecting and obeying God?

Doc astutely remarks: I think there's value in it [beauty]. Beauty DOES glorify God[...]

Terry adds: Yes! If we wouldn't allow untruths in our church services, bulletins, posters, etc. (because all truth = God's truth), why would we allow "un-beauty" in our churches? Isn't the Temple a model for us?

Why does I Peter say, "Your adornment must not be merely external--braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses; but let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God."

In other words, he doesn't say, "no external adornment". Rather, he assumes women (at least) will adorn themselves to make themselves beautiful. Doesn't this hint at the idea that beauty--beautiful songs, beautiful flowers, posters, etc., are to be cherished in church? Nurtured?

If you deny that this is so, answer this question: how often does your church seek out bad singers to give solos or the offeratory? If they don't, why not?

Enough for now....

Terry
"Be God's"

ReasonableDoubt
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 655

Posted 5/6/2003 5:12 PM (GMT -6)

Greg,
How does it defy reason to state that reason is greater than emotion? You haven't offered any proof of this. In fact, you're using reason to make your argument. By saying it is unreasonable to think reason is greater than emotion, you are appealing to reason!
Change, or becoming, as defect: this of course is not necessarily true, if the change leads to something better or more perfect. But the problem is, if God is changing, or becoming, he is now better than he once was. There was something wrong, obviously, or why would he be changing? Can you explain this?

"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears this is true."
- James Branch Cabell

Terry_Baxter
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Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 187

Posted 5/11/2003 5:36 PM (GMT -6)

Ross,

I think Greg meant to write "deifies" where he wrote "defies." That's the way I made sense of the line of thinking.

For the second point, I think the argument might go something like this:

Ross: Socrates, I would like to understand why you say the God cannot change.

Socrates: Let us reason together, friend Ross. Would you agree that for any statement X, only X or not-X could be True? They cannot both be true?

Ross: You wily fox! You would tempt me to accept an untenable position at the beginning of our dialogue.

Soc: You wound me, friend Ross. My desire is for the Truth only. That is my love and I have no desires that involve trapping you in some uncomfortable position. I was merely trying to offer you a beginning point for our conversation. Please, explain your concern!

Ross: Let us take, for instance, the statement "I am indoors." While it is true now, if I make the statement while walking home, it is untrue. Therefore, we have both X and not-X being true at different times.

Soc: Now I understand your fertile mind and will attempt to lead where you follow. Let us apply this very example to the God, therefore. Is it true that at some times the God is indoors and at other times out of doors?

Ross: You still seek to make the fool of me Socrates! The poets may talk of the comings and goings of the gods, but of course the True God cannot be said to have one position or another.

Soc: Well then, perhaps you might say that the God is good one moment, then evil the next? Beautiful one day then ugly like the fabled medusa the next?

Ross: Of course not. If the God is to be the True God, and not some poet’s musing about Zeus and Athena, then we must conclude Goodness and Beauty are eternal qualities, never to be missing. So also with Truthfulness, if such a thing can be said of the God.

Soc: So it is only of us non-eternal people that it can said propositions are True one moment then not True the next, depending on where me move, for instance?

[wait for it….]

Ross: Yes, it would seem so Socrates!

Soc: So we would say that all the qualities that the God possesses, and all the Truths that can be said about its eternal nature, must be for all time true?

Ross: I can see no way around it, friend Socrates. I admit it.

Soc: Let us be like the wise seamstress who, after finding a beautiful and useful pattern, continues to apply it to other cloth. That is, let us apply the principle we just learned to the area of emotions.

Ross: Very well Socrates. I suppose you will tell me that the God always has certain emotions. Love, I would say, is one eternal quality of the God and hatred must never be part of his eternal makeup.

Soc: With your “love” Ross, you would put a roof over the head of the very God!

Ross: I cannot fathom what you mean Socrates.

Soc: Why would we not say that the God moves here or there, going to one house then another?

Ross: Well surely this is absurd Socrates. If the God is eternal and all knowing (and all here agree he is) then he cannot have a local habitation and time.

Soc: Well said. So it is a quality of earth-bound and temporal animals that we experience place and time?

Ross: Yes, Socrates, we are in agreement.

Soc: And why do earth bound and temporal animals feel emotions, such as love or anger? Is it like being indoors, something that is temporary, or like the beauty of God, something eternal?

Ross: Clearly, emotions are temporary. I feel anger only for a short time.

Soc: Then it passes? When the experience that caused you to be angry has faded in time?

Ross: Exactly.

Soc: But can either thing be said of the eternal God? That it experiences events, and is surprised by them, so that anger is aroused? Or, that as time passes for the God, it forgets the event and therefore becomes less angry?

Ross: The logic is undeniable Socrates. Whatever else may be said of the God, surely having new experiences over time cannot be Truths predicated of him.

Soc: So if the God knows all there is to know, across all time, there can be no emotions in it. For emotions only come from the temporary experience of something temporary. My lover walks in to the room and I am aroused. We would never say such blasphemy of the God! And, as we already learned, true propositions about the God must be eternally true.

Ross: It is decidedly so.

Socrates: So then, how can anyone say of the God that it ever undergoes change? To do so, it must be time and space bound, or experience time with surprise, learning and seeing new things, and then forgetting them with the fading of the seasons. Surely, that is a god not even poets could honor.

Ross: Now I understand and agree fully with you in all things Socrates.

There ya go Ross, straight from Socrates to you! I don't know if it's identical in all its details to socratic thought--I just wrote it off the top of my head because it was fun.

Terry

(P.S. see if you can't get a few of your friends to take the course. We may have to consider cancelling it soon for lack of attendance.)

rossfadeinout
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 428

Posted 5/12/2003 3:08 AM (GMT -6)

Terry,

That was too cool! I enjoyed our Socratic dialogue very much. I have read over the pasage in the Symposium several times in the last week or so, and I was very taken back with the clarity of Socrates thought. I think that he makes a very convincing case that God does not have a "need based" love, and I believe that this is a very orthodox position. God created freely, not out of need. But I think that that the love of this discouse is only a narrow type of love- the whole "eros" thing.

I'll try to bring some of the notes that I took while I was reading to work tomorrow so that I can make a more clear response. I really hope that others will jump in here soon....

Ross

"Let us remember how common the folly is of going from one faulty extreme into the opposite." -Thomas Reid

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