He might have lived almost 2,400 years ago, but this man shaped the way you think today, and maybe in ways you wouldn’t expect. On this program, Shawn Boonstra shares who this man was, how he influenced you, and why he was dead wrong!

<p>He might have lived almost 2,400 years ago, but this man shaped the way you think today, and maybe in ways you wouldn’t expect. On this program, Shawn Boonstra shares who this man was, how he influenced you, and why he was dead wrong!</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Voice Of Prophecy

Shawn Boonstra

How Plato Missed the Mark

He might have lived almost 2, 400 years ago, but I promise you, this is a guy who has shaped the way you think.

I'm your host, Sean Boonstra, and today we're going to take a little visit to the ancient past and talk about the way that Greek philosophers have shaped the way you think.

So, genetically, you might be Scottish, you might be German or African or Asian, but if you live in the Western world, your brain, at least to some extent, is Greek.

And the reason for that, of course, is because Greek philosophers, to a large extent, gave us the intellectual and philosophical foundations for Western civilization.

Their culture, their education, were still front and center for the development of the Roman Empire, so they hung on to Greek philosophy and spread it to all of Europe.

That's what gave birth to our civilization, our way of thinking.

So names like Socrates, Pythagoras, Aristotle, Plato—these are people that everybody's heard of, even if they've never read anything these philosophers wrote or said.

They're household names, and for good reason.

Because to a large extent, these people—these Greek philosophers—have shaped the way you think.

And for a lot of people, the name that's right at the top of the chart is Plato, who was a student of Socrates and he lived some 2, 400 years ago in the city of Athens.

And chances are, if you went to college, you were forced to wade your way through some of Plato's so-called greats, like Phaedo or Credo or The Republic, which was actually required reading for political science majors like me when I went to school.

These are the books that have dramatically affected the way we think in Western civilization.

These are the books that have given shape to the way we do just about everything from government to education.

Of course, over the centuries there have been a lot of other influences.

I mean, there's been a lot of time that's gone by, a lot of water under the bridge.

But there is no denying the impact of Plato, particularly when it comes to his theory of forms.

Now, I know that when you tuned in today, you weren't exactly expecting a course in philosophy, but I hope you'll bear with me because this is really important.

You're going to find out that even Christian thinking has been powerfully influenced by this man.

Just like you, Plato looked around at the world and he realized this is an imperfect place.

Now, Christians explain that reality—the imperfection of our planet—by the fall of man.

We say, the world was perfect until we ruined it with sin.

Christians say we severed our relationship with the Creator, and that had a dreadful, powerful impact on the whole planet.

But Plato looked at that same imperfection, and he explained it a little bit differently.

He noticed that the world was full of imperfections, and so he started to ask the question, why?

He wasn't just asking, why is the world imperfect?

What he was actually asking is, how do I know that this is not perfect?

I mean, Plato is asking, who's to say the world isn't perfect just the way it is?

What makes me think there's room for improvement?

And if something's not perfect, how do you know that?

That's kind of the way that Plato was thinking.

So, think about some object in your house, like your kitchen table, okay?

Unless it's brand spanking new, there's going to be a few issues with your table.

Maybe there are some scratches in the finish.

Maybe 1 of the legs is wobbly, or maybe there's a piece of wood missing from that place where you bashed into the leg with your vacuum cleaner.

No matter how nice your table is, if you look at it carefully, you're going to find some flaws somewhere on that table.

Unless you have some idea of what perfection would look like.

If that illustration doesn't work for you, let's think about the human body.

If you're somewhere past middle age, chances are something doesn't work like it used to.

Maybe your knee hurts, or your back hurts, or your eyesight isn't quite as good as it used to be.

There's going to be something to you that's less than perfect, I mean, if you're anywhere past 18 years of age.

But ask yourself, how do you know it's not perfect?

I mean, you do remember being younger, but apart from that, how do you know that it could be better?

How do you know that it's imperfect, unless you have some concept of what perfection would be.

And that's kind of the way Plato was thinking.

He said that we can sense imperfection because somewhere out there in the universe, there is something perfect you can compare it to.

And that perfect thing exists in the spiritual realm.

Now, Plato said our physical material world is imperfect.

But the spiritual world out there somewhere is perfect.

And the reason we know there's something wrong with our world is because we have some vague idea of the spiritual world.

Now, from a purely logical point of view, Plato kind of makes sense.

He basically breaks the universe into 2 separate compartments—the imperfect material world where you and I live, and the perfect spiritual world, which he said is just out there somewhere.

The spiritual world is full of ideals, or perfect things and ideas.

And our physical world is full of forms—stuff that looks like the ideal from the spiritual world.

It kind of resembles it, but it's imperfect because it's physical.

Now, here's the way that Plato described it.

He said that our existence is like being chained to a rock near the back of the cave, and the only view that you and I have is the back wall of the cave.

But there's a fire behind us that lights up the wall, and every so often something or somebody walks in front of the fire and we see a shadow on the wall.

We get a pretty good representation of reality from the spiritual world, but the shadow's not the real thing.

The real thing, the spiritual world, he said, is behind us somewhere and we can't quite see it.

Now, in later years, there was a movement that made its way into early Christianity that really promoted this kind of thinking.

And it was a group known as the Gnostics.

It wasn't really a coordinated global movement as such.

It was more of a loose collection of groups who adopted Gnostic thinking.

And like Plato, the Gnostics said that our material world is imperfect.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out.

They said that Since the world is imperfect, it must have been made by an imperfect, lesser God.

They claimed the reason Jesus had to come to this world was to enlighten us spiritually and show us the perfect world that exists beyond our physical existence.

In essence, they were pitting Jesus against the Creator.

They said Jehovah is a jealous, petty God who made the material world and got things all wrong, but Jesus is perfection embodied.

Well, they didn't really want to admit Jesus came in a perfect body, but they said Jesus is perfection and he came to show us the higher path.

And the reason we call them Gnostics is because they believe that the path to salvation came through knowledge.

And gnosis was the Greek word for knowledge, so they're Gnostics—knowledge-based.

So obviously, if you're a biblical Christian, you would disagree with this, because you know from passages like John 1 and Colossians 1 and Hebrews 1 that Jesus is not pitted against the Creator.

But still, I think I'm going to demonstrate that Platonic thinking has had considerable influence on you, even if you don't agree with that part.

And when we come back from the break, I'll show you exactly what I mean.

Life and its daily challenges can weigh us down even when we have the best of intentions, leaving us with more questions than answers.

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Are you searching for answers to this and other of life's most challenging questions?

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How Plato Missed the Mark

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