Why did I call this blog ‘Rejecting Plato’s Apple’?
I found James Thwaites summarised his entire writings from ‘Church Beyond The Congregation’ and ‘Renegotiating the Church Contract’ well:
“The same addiction to the idol as continued down to this day. The serpent’s action in the Garden was no different to what he did via Plato in the fifth century BC. The ideal other was simply upgraded to match the move in Israel (precipitated by the judgement of exile) away from idolatry to a more consistent monotheism; hence the statement; platonic idealism is just a more sophisticated form of idolatry.” - James Thwaites, Renegotiating the Church Contract, pg. 103
To me, if we reject Plato’s philosophy, we’ll be rejecting Satan’s apple. We will be rejecting the idol of the mind and the idol in a form. He goes onto say:
“Plato simply moved our attachment to the instinctual away from the creature and to the conceptual. As such, idols were no longer feathered, furry or of wood and stone. Now they were made of pure, invisible thought. The idol as ideal was no longer earthy, tangible and present; it was now spiritual, abstract and future-oriented. It still, however, retained the quality so necessary to Satan, i.e. the fixed, arrived, absolute and complete feel. Adding strength to this new version of instinctual life was the (apparent) attachment of the ideal to the transcendent realm. We had upgraded from idols and animals to ideals and eternals, but essentially the old operating system had remained very much in place.
Dow through history the best way to house, protect and express the idol or the ideal has been the authority construct. Priests aligned to rulers have generally always spoken for the dumb idol. In the Roman Empire these were joined as one in Caesar. Throughout subsequent history the emperor, king, state or institution has held, on behalf of the people, the right to own and thus speak for the idol or the ideal. The apparent reality that the idol or the ideal contains is used to justify the right of the authority construct to exist and exercise its power. Idealism is a catalyst for institutionalism and the institution is a catalyst for idealism. It has always been a very convenient marriage. One… that produces a powerful offspring named ideology.” “The same addiction to the idol as continued down to this day. The serpent’s action in the Garden was no different to what he did via Plato in the fifth century BC. The ideal other was simply upgraded to match the move in Israel (precipitated by the judgement of exile) away from idolatry to a more consistent monotheism; hence the statement; platonic idealism is just a more sophisticated form of idolatry.
We have come along way from the days when pharoah was declared divine and thus determined the life and fate of so many. Now the most powerful construct on the planet is the corporation and the most powerful form of idealism is consumerism. The church has kept well in step with the journey of the ideal - generally mimicking and, whenever possible, marrying the power brokers as they moved from empire, to state, to institution, to corporation. When future life idealism predominated the church was more necessary to the emperors and monarchs.” - James Thwaites, Renegotiating the Church Contract, pg. 104
You can stop reading here if you want. I’m just going to start talking about me and my experiences leading up to reading James Thwaites materials.
The above is one of my favorite parts of the entire book. This spoke to me so much, because this is what I discovered while going through high school. It was great to have someone else confirm my views and spiritual experiences.
For my major work, I combined Egyptians and images of the divine and pharaoh to the contemporary corporations and governments. I was exploring the power of ideology and how a greater power seemed to determine how man thinks and behaves. My understanding in how the media operates out of immorality rather then truth opened my eyes. In my art started depicting elements of reality of the media and turning the mass media giant into a filthy consumeristic, thousand eyed, whoring, spiritual beast.
The creature that I made next was a giant slug-lizard face that consisted of on eyes just a giant mouth. It’s tongue was an arm and hand, grabbing onto anything that it saw (with a single eye hanging from the back of it’s tonsil), and consuming it. It’s many arms were but tentacled necks with it’s hands being arm-tongue faces too. Whatever it ate, it grew and hoarded. It lived in a giant slime-covered shell. It was the blind, tasteless spirit of the consumer.
I also played with the spirit nemesis/controller (that looked like a bit like Sauron’s eye) to represent our thirst for power and control as people of the west; the Breeder (spirit of conformitism) it’s imagery depicting the Egyptian sun; the Deziak (spirit of lust) it’s appearance depicting sensationalism and sexual excitement (nothing crude); the Excellence (spirit of perfection) it’s appearance of a golden horned star goat, appearing to look very masonic and cult-like but ideal, dripping gold from it’s beard and meditating like the Buddha, offering perfection and wisdom to all that glorified perfection.
The final spirit was the spirit of truth (the Dahktile), which was absent from the city and lived on mountains. (I’ve often associated prophets with the mountains). It looks demonically hideous and foul. Not on it’s own accord, but by the scars we placed upon it’s once beautiful body. It lost it’s beauty the more people twisted truth, corrupted it’s appearance and distorted it’s value in the world.
The dragon-bird blinded-like spirit-beast blesses anyone that seeks it out, regards it and cherishes it. Often people are too afraid to approach it because of it’s sinister appearance.
The reason why I did these things at song a young age was because I was sick of seeing people chase after sex, perfection, power, coolness and material gain. At Oxford Falls Grammar school I scared my Christian teachers and friends when I painted this beast flying out of my hollow eyes into a dark frightening looking sky. This was for a project, ‘Me, Myself and I’. I couldn’t focus on ‘me’. While everyone was painting plastic ‘life is good’ images around their portraits, I had to paint what I wanted people to get offended with: truth. It was absent in everyone elses work. No one was embracing the realities of life, but depicting their wants and desires. I saw this as idolatry (by my Christian friends in a Christian school).
The teacher loved it, but everyone else thought I was suicidal. I remember saying, “If you hide this painting, this painting is condemning you for the truth you prefer to avoid ever confronting”. I said it again to the teacher when she said she needed to hide it for parent teacher night. My painting SCREAMED truth - accepting things that we don’t generally want to confront. If we don’t keep confronting the truth’s of reality, we are stuck with our idols. We don’t grow or mature. We are going backwards if we hold to our ideals and idols.
I didn’t realise the significance of what I stumbled upon in year 9. It was hard and the cost was great. I learnt something that no High School system or Christian Church could teach me. I went through such hard ship as I’ve had to stand up for myself and others and have done things I never thought were possible. I’ve Rejected Plato’s Apple. Have you?
