Elijah

Like I said Amaleq13, whats the point of having this conversation if you're not grounded in the philosophy of the time to evaluate if what they are referring to is metaphysical or not?

Elijah

That's before Greek thought. The OT god gets associated with Demiurge and God moves to unknowable. The temptation of Jesus could be read as his rejection of the old anthropomorphic mental entity's offer/covenant and establishing one with an unknown god.

Everything is supposed to be naturalistic from a metaphysical point of view but the nature of the eternal ideal/law side of the universe is examined more then the temporal material side. It's a conversation that has carried into modern physics.

I was just illustrating with the mind over matter stuff that you can believe in all kinds of phenomenon without bringing in a supernatural entity.

Amaleq13

Like I said, you have no basis for this assumption about me. Knowledge of platonic philosophy doesn't appear to have any change on Paul's references to supernatural "gifts" from God. That smells like a red herring.

Do you know of scholars (presumably well-grounded in the philosphy of the time) that support your view?

bacht

The NT can be and has been read many ways. The plain literal meaning of the texts seems to be that the early Jewish Christians believed in the God of Moses, not some philosophical postulate.

Toto

I think we can all agree that there were those who were more grounded in rationality, who interpreted the miraculous agents as metaphor. I don't have time to look things up now, but I recall various commentators who thought that the text always had different levels of meaning, the literal, the figurative, and the inspired, and the literal was not important.

But I dispute that this was the mentality of the leadership of the early church. I think that most if not all of the early Christians did believe in angels, devils, etc. I think this because that is how they wrote, and because there are still fairly intelligent, not-retarded, people today who have convinced themselves of the existence of supernatural entities, and many of these people have risen to positions of leadership in our society.

More recently, Protestant Rationalists insisted on reading the Bible as a strictly naturalistic document, which meant finding a rational interpretation for every claimed event there. This was a short lived movement, but still somewhat influential.

But Elijah seems to assume that if he can show some Platonic influence in Paul's writings, and that some Platonists were strict rationalists, that he has shown that Paul was a rationalist. This just doesn't follow.

Elijah

My basis is that we would have moved the conversation into actual metaphysics by now if you were knowledgeable in it.

No, I don't know of any modern scholars talking about Christianity from a Platonic POV but I'm sure there are some out there... hopefully.

Elijah

Yes they believed in angels and devils but are you sure they are speaking supernaturally or metaphysically? Would you be able to tell the difference? How?

Comparing the writing class of today, which includes every wack-job Christian online like myself, to the writing class back then is misleading. Now Peter and whoever else who was trained by fishermen may not of had sophisticated philosophies which is probably why they are illustrated having so many problems with understanding Jesus, but a lot of the texts that remain are from an educated class of religious people.
No Platonist is a strict rationalist like I said its all subject and everyone usually slips up somewhere but the platonic philosophy is supposed to be understood as rational. And the irrational language in the NT that is assumed to be supernatural on this board can be understood under a platonic light. If you choose to.

Amaleq13

Again, you have no foundation upon which to judge my knowledge of metaphysics so I would appreciate it if you stopped making such baseless assertions. This continues to be an irrelevant red herring serving no other purpose than to distract from the lack of support for your position.

That nonsense aside, there is no need to get into a conversation about metaphysics unless and until you have shown it is specifically relevant to what Paul writes about his supernatural beliefs. All you've shown so far is that you choose to read him that way. You have done nothing to show this was how Paul, or any other similarly early Christian, actually thought about his stated supernatural beliefs. You've jumped from "possible evidence of platonic influence" to "all platonic" without doing any of the required work to make that journey. As Toto has pointed out, that thinking is clearly flawed.

That's what I thought. Nothing but your personal anachronistic projection that is contrary to the actual texts. :wave:

Amaleq13

Not by jumping to the conclusion based on possible evidence of Platonic influence elsewhere in the same author's texts.

Do you have any examples of a Platonic author talking about angels and devils so that we can compare?

The question is not whether you can choose to interpret it that way. The question is whether the authors actually did think that way. Do you not understand the difference?

Elijah

All it would take is a few lines demonstrating your understanding of the metaphysical thinking to prove me wrong and I would have no problem being wrong if it would move this conversation forward. It’s not a red herring it’s paramount to you being able to fully have this conversation.

No I’m trying to show that you can choose to read it that way. A metaphysical world view and a supernatural worldview are not compatible in my mind but easily confused for one another.