Plato Seems Timeless

I have been working on The Dialogues of Plato for the past week and a half. I thought that I was a fairly well educated fellow. Now I know that I am not, but I am getting closer as I consume what this man had to say almost 2400 years ago. Much of what is taken as twenty first century dogma in western culture can be traced back to the thoughts and writings of this most brilliant person. I will look up some web sights for you and link them to this entry as soon as I figure out how to do it. If you are interested in pursuing more information about him and his times this may help. All this because I saw "300".

Plato's most famous dialogue is his Republic. In this work he develops a discussion between Socrates and some other Athenian citizens. The subject of much of the effort is the determination as to whether justice or injustice is the strongest of the two opposites. Plato works to define what the terms mean, what opposites represent, who is just and unjust, and how does philosophy factor into determining which is best. In the writing Plato develops a theoretical, perfect State. By doing so he brings his readers along in the process of answering the questions mentioned. The general perspective during Plato's life on government was that the strong are the ones entitled to rule and the injustice that they used was "good" in the sense that it accomplished the goals of the strong. The strong then benefited to a great degree, much greater than the just. In fact the just were stepped on and suffered and even mocked as being unjust. Society simply accepted this point of view. It was almost "Darwinian" in outlook, survival and dignity to the fittest, the strongest, the unjust. By creating a perfect republic on a "societal level" Plato was able to show that a state that operated on just principles was better than one that operated unjustly. By proving that justice worked on a large scale he argues that it follows that justice would work best individually as well. The reading is just amazing. It is a fun exercise for the mind. In it you find some phrases that the Apostle Paul used also in his letters. This interested me.

As a result I read again Paul's writings. He was sent by the Lord to witness the good news to the gentiles. The gentiles were the Romans and the Greeks as those cultures dominated the known western world. He tried to meet them where they were philosophically, at many levels. Much of the systematic thought process Paul used was perhaps "Platonic" at its root as he wanted to be listened to. An interesting thought came to me as I read Paul and compared him to Plato. Though Plato dazzled my mind...the book of "Romans" written by Paul demonstrated to me that Paul wasn't out to dazzle me. It became obvious to me that Paul loved me. He wanted me to embrace not him, but Jesus. He wanted desperately for me to live forever at the feet of Jesus. I'll take Paul any day. But, Plato helped me too. He made me appreciate Paul all the more.