2008年8月19日星期二

Two ways of human being's spiritual realm

Two ways of human being's spiritual realm.
" Civilization and piety are two very different things." Leo Strauss, Jerusalem and Athens
↓ ↓
Greek Philosophy Biblical faith
↓ ↓
Reason Faith(revelation)
↓ ↓
Wonder (doubt) Fear(obedience)
↓ ↓
Athens Jerusalem
↓ ↓
Enlightment → ← Prohibition
↓ (to support each other) ↓
Wisdom of Human being Wisdom of God
↓ ↓
Moderns(after 17th century,or even 15th century) Ancients
↓ ↓
HUMAN GOD

Human has taken place of God, has become God, believing that he himself has power to deal with his own affairs, he can control himself, like he can take charge of everything in the world. Now human falls into a dangerous situation which from the beginning needs him to abandon the above ideas. Human has not omnipotence to cope well with everything, there are much more things beyond human's reach. Human needs God all the time like he needs himself forever.

"Plato and the prophets are the two most important sources of modern culture."----Herman Cohen.

Cohen's view may be this: the truth is the synthesis of the teachings of Plato and the prophets.

"Plato presupposes that there is an unchangeable human nature and, as a consequence, a fundamental structure of the good human society which is unchangeable. This leads him to assert or assume that there will be wars as long as there will be human beings, that there ought to be higher in rank and honor than the class of producers and exchangers. These defects in Plato's system are remedied by the prophets precisely because they lack the idea of science and hence the idea of nature, and therefore they can believe that men's counduct toward one another can undergo a change much more radical than any change ever dreamded of by Plato." restatement of Cohen's views by Leo Strauss who believes that the opposition between Plato and prophets, reason and revelation, is an eternal problem more than a settled solution for us.

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