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
