Brief Notes on Various Topics -- 32

Brief Notes on Various Topics -- 32

24 June 2024

1.  A repeated item of interest found in many editions of The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius is the nature of, or the significance of, the absence of any Christian references.  Consolation does not mention any distinctively Christian doctrines or any specific Christian persons, including Jesus.  The Consolation does mention God, but does so in a manner that is compatible with the way Platonists, and perhaps other traditions such as Stoicism, use the word ‘God.’ 

This absence is puzzling to people because Boethius wrote works of Catholic theology during his life, including a work on the trinity.  Yet at the end of his life, when facing execution on trumped up charges, it is not to any Christian figure that he turns to for solace; rather, it is to Philosophy personified as a Goddess. 

I think the discussion on this issue centers on the salvific nature of Philosophy as found in the Consolation.  The conflict is that Christianity views itself as salvific, but regards Philosophy as unable to serve a salvific purpose.  Yet the Consolation shows Philosophy as a salvific tradition.  And so the question arises as to how Boethius understood salvation.

My own view is that I suspect that Boethius didn’t feel a need to choose between the two traditions.  This likely strikes people as implausible because we are inheritors of a perspective that requires that we make this kind of either/or choice.  It would strike us as very odd, for example, if someone attended both a Catholic Church and a Presbyterian Church and claimed to be a member in good standing of both.  And it would be more difficult if someone said they were both Christian and Pagan.

To put this in perspective, it does not strike us as odd if someone plays bridge and poker, or someone plays keyboard and guitar.  But when it comes to matters of spirituality there is a strong sense that we should adhere to a single expression of it.

I want to suggest that Boethius didn’t feel that way.  When he turned to Philosophy at the end of his life I don’t think he struggled over that choice.  I don’t think he went through some kind of inner convulsion and left Christianity behind or rejected it.  I think it was easy for Boethius to turn to Philosophy because he had always had a sense of the salvific nature of the tradition of Philosophy and didn’t find that in opposition to what Christianity teaches.  In other words, Boethius wasn’t a Christian Platonist; he was a Platonist who also happened to be a Christian.

2.  I have posted before that in modernity the past is thought of as having no value; instead, the past is considered in almost exclusively negative terms and is thought of as something to overcome.  I don’t normally write about current events, but the recent assault on Stonehenge by activists was such a striking example of this aspect of modernity that I think it is worth highlighting. 

3.  Utopian political thought is unsuccessful because it does not understand the nature of the levels of reality (or hypostases) in general, or the nature of the third and lowest level, that of the material world, in which we live.  Utopian political thought thinks that by rearranging the material factors of this world that we can build a society that eternally embodies justice and other ideas such as equality and so forth. 

But the material world is inherently unstable and is inherently a realm of division and strife.  It is only in the noetic realm that stability is found as well as a derivative eternity.  And it is only with the One that the source of stability, unity, and that which is eternal, is known.  It is only by transcending the material realm that the longed for stability can be attained.

4.  I think it is necessary for the Platonist practitioner to cultivate spiritual indifference, or ‘apatheia’.  Spiritual indifference is not the same as the kind of indifference sometimes found in our, for example, relationship to distant events either positive or negative.  It is more closely related to equanimity.  It is nourished by understanding that we have almost no control over events in the world and that our judgements about how people behave is not going to impact others in any significant way.  Even if you have a social media presence your influence will be very small compared to the number of people on earth and, in addition, your views will be very quickly forgotten.

Spiritual indifference helps the Platonist practitioner to withdraw from the world of strife in which we are embedded.  Spiritual indifference helps us to turn inward, to the world of forms, to the world of silence, as we gradually ascend to the realm of true peace.

5.  In the West’s relationship to Buddhism there is a concern among some scholars and practitioners regarding ‘Original Buddhism’ and what it was like, what it taught, and what its practices were.  There is a feeling, sometimes explicitly stated, that we in the West should return to Original Buddhism.

In current Platonist scholarship there is a similar concern, though I haven’t run across the phrase ‘Original Platonism.’  What I am referring to is the way scholars will configure what Plato was trying to do and from that analysis there follows an evaluation of subsequent Platonist history.  For example, some modernists consider Plato to be a rationalist and a proto-analytic philosopher and therefore they find a basic continuity between Plato and modern analytic philosophy.  Those who take such an approach sideline the mystical elements of Plato, regarding them as backward and in some sense deficient.

Others, like myself, regard Plato as a spiritual teacher whose teaching closely matches the structure of Indian Dharmic traditions.  From this perspective the mystical elements of Plato’s philosophy are the point and the ultimate goal of his tradition and practice.

The modernist interpretation leads to endless subdivisions of the Platonic tradition.  The mystical, or Dharmic, interpretation leads to a sense of unity and transcendence that unites Platonist Philosophers and practitioners across the centuries.