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{"id":16743,"date":"2014-10-23T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-23T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=1580"},"modified":"2014-10-23T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-10-23T00:00:00","slug":"reconciling-with-plato","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2014\/10\/reconciling-with-plato\/","title":{"rendered":"Reconciling with Plato"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n<\/head>

One of the interesting findings of Patrick Fletcher\u2019s\u00a0Resurrection Realism<\/a>, a study of Ratzinger\u2019s Augustinian views on the resurrection, has to do with Ratzinger\u2019s changing views of Platonism.<\/p>\n

Early on, Ratzinger saw Platonism as an enemy of Christian faith. He attempted to construct a \u201cde-Platonized\u201d eschatology that did not rely, as much traditional eschatology did, on the Greek notion of the immortal soul. It\u2019s not as if the soul is immortal; Christian faith affirms resurrection not the power of soul-substance (74-5).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Greek thought, he argued, taught an illegitimate dualism: \u201cViewing man as a being composed of body and soul,\u201d Ratzinger wrote, \u201cand believing in an ongoing survival of the soul between the death of the body and its resurrection . . . would be a fall from the biblical idea of creation into Greek dualism, which splits the world into spirit and matter\u201d (quoted, 77).<\/p>\n

In his 1977 Eschatologie<\/em>, by contrast, Ratzinger argues, in Fletcher\u2019s summary, that \u201cPlato\u2019s own teachings were often different from the dualistic doctrines popularly attributed to him. . . . while Plato made use of the Orphic tradition, he \u2018philosophically refashioned this religious tradition and related it to his fundamental theme, justice\u2019\u201d (77-8). He added, \u201cThe true target of Plato\u2019s thought is completely misunderstood when he is classified as an individualistic, dualistic thinker who negates the earthly and counsels a flight into the hereafter. The particular point upon which his thought is built is in reality the rejuvenation of the polis<\/em>, establishing politics anew. His philosopher, which revolves around justice, develops in political crisis and out of the awareness that the polis<\/em> cannot endure if justice is not reality and truth\u201d (quoted, 78). He came to see that the uses of terms \u201cbody\u201d and \u201csoul,\u201d and the notion of an intermediate state were not Hellenistic but \u201cwas a thoroughly proper development of the guidelines of biblical anthropology\u201d (quoted, 80).<\/p>\n

There is some shift in the substance of Ratzinger\u2019s eschatology here, but perhaps the more important shift is in his understanding of Plato. Plato is not an enemy of Christian faith, he concludes, because Plato doesn\u2019t denigrate the body or teach a dualism that treats matter as an evil to be escaped. Whether he\u2019s right about Plato is debatable and debated; but throughout the development, Ratzinger remains (rightly) hostile to dualism and hostility to God\u2019s good matter.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"