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A Christian's Temptation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2024

Donald Nicholl
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“Christian Platonism”, if we propose to take the expression seriously, is nothing less than a contradiction in terms'… ‘the discrepancies between Platonism and Christianity, when we get down to first principles, are so radical that only by complete misunderstanding or wilful blindness is it possible to profess allegiance to both.’ These unambiguous declarations on page 55 of the late W. H. V. Reade's Christian Challenge to Philosophy (S.P.C.K., 1951, pp. v-xiii, 1-194; 13s. 6d.) presents us with the central thesis of a brilliantly written book, one which breathes the wisdom of a fine intellect inspired by a lifetime's meditation upon the great tradition of European thought. The book will prove of most interest, no doubt, to the philosophers. Many of them will find points for disagreement as they follow the author along the European tradition from Plato to the positivists. Many, indeed, will rightly challenge his own exclusion of Platonists from Christianity; for there are of course good Christians who do understand Plato and yet prefer his ideas as a means of stating the faith.

Type
Research Article
Information
Life of the Spirit , Volume 6 , Issue 64 , October 1951 , pp. 130 - 135
Copyright
Copyright © 1951 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 In his delightful introduction to the book, Mr Cyril Bailey refers to an earlier essay by the author in the Cambridge Modern History; the reference should be to the Cambridge Medieval History

2 Reade, p. 70, ‘And the Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us'.

3 Quoted by Prof. Armstrong, Dominican Studies, Vol. 1, p. 122.

4 Dean Inge behaves in accordance with the principles of his master, Plotinus, when he expresses his disapproval of the all-too-human Magnificat of Mary, the Mother of the Word made flesh. He has many companions amongst contemporary neo-mystics.

5 Fr Rommerskirch, s.j., Documents, 1950, Oct./Nov., p. 1088.

6 Baudouin, Angilisme et Faux dipassements, in . Trouble et Lumiere. Etudes CartniUtaines. Baudouin is constantly pointing out that the person who pretends to be an angel finishes up by being beastly; one would like his opinion of the statement made in a most influential book, that ‘the pure man is specifically spiritual… his nature displays genuine transcendence of matter.’ (Dietrich von Hildebrand, In defence of Purity, p. 49.)

7 cf. Marcel de Corte, Plotin et Aristote, p. 193.

8 St John's Gospel XI, 35.

9 The Creation is described by Paul Valery as ‘only a blemish on the purity of un-being'.

10 e.g., Bruno.

11 St Paul's reception at Athens, when he preached Christ's bodily Resurrection, should put us on our guard against assuming that the immortality of the soul (which his hearers were prepared for) is on the same level as the Resurrection of the Body (which they laughed at). ‘Immortality of the soul, as Platonists would understand it, is not a Christian doctrine.’ (Reade, 89.)

12 Langmead Casserley, The Christian in Philosophy, p. 32.

13 It is only after having considered the ontological dependence of creatures as THINGS in relation to the Creator … that one may consider them as Signs…. ‘Journet, Dark Knowledge of God, p. 22, where he goes on to criticise St Bonaventure for trying to see them first as signs, cf. also, P. Congar, La Vie Spirituelle, Supplement,Nov. 1950, p. 387: ‘Le plus grand danger… est de perdre le respect de la vérité” interne des choses'; Karl Thieme in Gott und die Geschichte, p. 94, n., criticises certain thomists for not being thomist in this matter.

14 S. Th., I q. VIII, a.i.

15 Anyone who has read even a little spirituality will have encountered these misleading notions—often in conjunction with their equal misleading contradictories, e.g., ‘Man is nothing'.

16 One encounters in the Jewish tradition some beautiful illustrations of God's immanent transcendence, e.g., ‘I learned the Torah from all the limbs of my teacher'.

17 Quispel, on Valentinus and Basilides, in Erartos Jahrhuch, XVI

18 De Ver, 12, 5 ad 6. Quoted by Fr Victor White, Dominican Studies, Vol. 1, p. 33.