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On Offense
If Lutherans treated Plato with half the disdain we treat Anabaptists, the world would be a better place.
It was Plato.
It is not the Anabaptists who infected our seminaries with neopagan dualism. It was not the Anabaptists who gave us a vision of the soul as a disembodied vapor desperate to escape creation. It was not the Anabaptists who divided spirit and flesh as irreconcilable enemies, nor who made “form” into an idol above the Word.
That ghost walked in with the Academy cloak and called itself “Reason,” that was Plato’s doing—and we’ve genuflected at his altar for too long. We sniff out the Radical Reformer’s rejection of baptismal regeneration, but we ignore the deep heresios of Platonic thinking. We mock the shallow Gnosticism of fringe sects, while quietly preaching it, line upon line and precept upon precept.
The Church’s foundation is not an Idea. It is Jesus.
He is a not a syllogism. He is the Man, crucified in the body, risen in the flesh, ascended with bones and blood into Heaven, reigning by the Spirit of Wisdom now.
The Word incarnates courage. If we scorned Plato as much as we do Müntzer, our preaching would burn brighter, our churches would sing louder, and our men would stop trying to be angels.
Yes, I’m on TikTok…
“And I will walk at liberty,
For I seek Your precepts.” - Psalm 119:45
"If we scorned Plato as much as we do Müntzer, our preaching would burn brighter, our churches would sing louder, and our men would stop trying to be angels." This is brilliant, and begs for questions.
This could use a lot of unpacking. Body Soul dualism is handled differently for sure. What do you have in mind? And how does this fit into western civilization's addiction to Plato and Aristotle along with their children, all the way to Heisenberg, Wittgenstein and Derrida?
Or is this about reading the Formula of Concord while drinking brandy and smoking cigars? Running a Habitat for Humanity construction cell in the county and being a group in the local militia or national guard unit? Is it doing the Amish thing in our own particular way, and what might that look like for us? All? Some? None of these?
If anything, I find that rigid men who lack both courage and humility at the same time find it hard to take from me what I have to teach them. It takes a certain confidence to acknowledge the limits of one's presuppositions. This is why God's word, if necessary, apart from doctrine and tradition, stands as a pillar that does not sink or get knocked over.