Philosophy In Life
Paul M. Aijian, Ph.D. Prof, of Apologetics, Talbot Theological Seminary
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W hen the search for the secret of life turned from a consideration of the world outside man to an interest in the nature of man and his affairs, philosophers of the Western world hoped to establish a universal principle by which man’s ethical life could be understood and rationally systematized. In the context of this discussion as followed in this column from month to month, this was a way of moving from the question “Where do we come from?” to the one which asks “What are we supposed to do while we are here?” However, it be came increasingly clear that no sig nificant answers in the ethical realm would be forthcoming if the discus sions kept the two questions complete ly isolated. In a way this was recog nizing what the Hebrew-Christian religious tradition had made a fun damental item of their doctrinal sys tem; namely, that the demands of the good life are rooted in the essential character of that which is most real. In a sense, what we do is determined by where we came from. It would not be fair to the philoso pher to say that he did not realize the interdependent nature of'the two questions. However, one or another of the emphases controlled his think ing and helped to fashion his system. Nevertheless, there was a school of thought which attacked this prob lem in a somewhat radical manner. Neo-Platonism, for by such a title is this school known in the history of philosophy, endeavored to bridge the gap between nature and man. The Neo-Platonist began with a concept of the universe which bound all things together in such a fashion that the character of a thing reflected in a very precise manner the closeness of that bond. He came to this Neo- Platonic position under the .pressure of a religious movèment which phi losophy did not escape, and which made necessary some way of escape from the sense of human sin and in-
sufficiency. Oriental mystical notions were making their impact upon the life of the West with an emphasis upon the personal moral struggle as re flecting the dual nature of the uni verse. This is to say that the good and bad a man knows in himself is an expression of a more fundamental good and bad in the universal scheme of things. Leaning heavily upon this mystical tradition the Neo-Platonist identified the bad with all things bodily and the good with an absorp tion into a distinctionless Absolute. By means of becoming one with the most real (Absolute), all taint of the body and the bad is removed. The device of making good an Ab solute or Good suffices to bridge the gap between man’s moral struggle and the nature of the universe, hut only at the expense of ignoring all of the obvious differences of good and bad with which humanity is famil iar. Neo-Platonism, therefore, posited a theory by which all things real, simply because they are existing, are in some measure the reflection of the Absolute Good. The degree to which particular aspects of reality approximate the Good is determined by their distance from their source •in this Good; and this distance is measured on a “scale of reality”. That reality lying at the extreme end of the scale away from the Good would fade out into non-existence. It is only this highly nebulous level of non-existence which constitutes a real or positive evil. All other “evils” are simply appearances measuring the degree of participation in the Good which a particular phenomenon en joys. Salvation in this system is the vi sion of and absorption into the life and nature of the Absolute. The Neo- Platonist writes that “the soul . . . must be prepared . . . through the contemplation of beautiful objects . . . for the final vision.” END.
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