http://www.gutenberg.org/files/64037/64037-h/64037-h.htm#s150Man being once mature enough to receive as his religion the truth that God is man, and man of a divine race; it necessarily follows, since religion is the form in which the truth presents itself to the popular mind, that this truth must appear, in a guise intelligible to all, as a fact obvious to the senses: in other words, there must appear a human individual who is recognised as the visible God. This God-man uniting in a single being the divine essence and the human personality, it may be said of him that he had the Divine Spirit for a father and a woman for his mother. His personality reflecting itself not in himself, but in the absolute substance, having the will to exist only for God, and not at all for itself, he is sinless and perfect. As a man of Divine essence, he is the power that subdues nature, a worker of miracles; but as God in a human manifestation, he is dependent on nature, subject to its necessities and sufferings—is in a state of abasement. Must he even pay the last tribute to nature? does not the fact that the human nature is subject to death preclude the idea that that nature is one with the divine? No: the God-man dies, and thus proves that the incarnation of God is real, that the infinite spirit does not scorn to descend into the lowest depths of the finite, because he knows how to find a way of return into himself, because in the most entire alienation of himself, he can retain his identity. Further, the God-man, in so far as he is a spirit reflected in his infinity, stands contrasted with men, in so far as they are limited to their finiteness: hence opposition and contest result, and the death of the God-Man becomes a violent one, inflicted by the hands of sinners; so that to physical degradation is added the moral degradation of ignominy and accusation of crime. If God then finds a passage from heaven to the grave, so must a way be discoverable for man from the grave to heaven: the death of the prince of life is the life of mortals. By his entrance into the world as God-man, God showed himself reconciled to man; by his dying, in which act he cast off the limitations of mortality, he showed moreover the way in which he perpetually effects that reconciliation: namely, by remaining, throughout his manifestation of himself under the limitations of a natural existence, and his suppression of that existence, identical with himself. Inasmuch as the death of the God-man is merely the cessation of his state of alienation from the infinite, it is in fact an exaltation and return to God, and thus the death is necessarily followed by the resurrection and ascension.
The God-man, who during his life stood before his cotemporaries as an individual distinct from themselves, and perceptible by the senses, is by death taken out of their sight; he enters into their imagination and memory: the unity of the divine and human in him, becomes a part of the general consciousness; and the church must repeat spiritually, in the souls of its members, those events of his life which he experienced externally. The believer, finding himself environed with the conditions of nature, must, like Christ, die to nature—but only inwardly, as Christ did outwardly,—must spiritually crucify himself and be buried with Christ, that by the virtual suppression of his own sensible existence, he may become, in so far as he is a spirit, identical with himself, and participate in the bliss and glory of Christ. — Strauss
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/64037/64037-h/64037-h.htm#s150Though I may conceive that the divine spirit in a state of renunciation and abasement becomes the human, and that the human nature in its return into and above itself becomes the divine; this does not help me to conceive more easily, how the divine and human natures can have constituted the distinct and yet united portions of an historical person. Though I may see the human mind in its unity with the divine, in the course of the world’s history, more and more completely establish itself as the power which subdues nature; this is quite another thing, than to conceive a single man endowed with such power, for individual, voluntary acts. Lastly, from the truth, that the suppression of the natural existence is the resurrection of the spirit, can never be deduced the bodily resurrection of an individual.
We should thus have fallen back again to Kant’s point of view, which we have ourselves found unsatisfactory: for if the idea have no corresponding reality, it is an empty obligation and ideal. But do we then deprive the idea of all reality? By no means: we reject only that which does not follow from the premises. If reality is ascribed to the idea of the unity of the divine and human natures, is this equivalent to the admission that this unity must actually have been once manifested, as it never had been, and never more will be, in one individual? This is indeed not the mode in which Idea realizes itself; it is not wont to lavish all its fulness on one exemplar, and be niggardly towards all others—to express itself perfectly in that one individual, and imperfectly in all the rest: it rather loves to distribute its riches among a multiplicity of exemplars which reciprocally complete each other—in the alternate appearance and suppression of a series of individuals. And is this no true realization of the idea? is not the idea of the unity of the divine and human natures a real one in a far higher sense, when I regard the whole race of mankind as its realization, than when I single out one man as such a realization? is not an incarnation of God from eternity, a truer one than an incarnation limited to a particular point of time.
This is the key to the whole of Christology, that, as subject of the predicate which the church assigns to Christ, we place, instead of an individual, an idea; but an idea which has an existence in reality, not in the mind only, like that of Kant. In an individual, a God-man, the properties and functions which the church ascribes to Christ contradict themselves; in the idea of the race, they perfectly agree. Humanity is the union of the two natures—God become man, the infinite manifesting itself in the finite, and the finite spirit remembering its infinitude; it is the child of the visible Mother and the invisible Father, Nature and Spirit; it is the worker of miracles, in so far as in the course of human history the spirit more and more completely subjugates nature, both within and around man, until it lies before him as the inert matter on which he exercises his active power; it is the sinless existence, for the course of its development is a blameless one, pollution cleaves to the individual only, and does not touch the race or its history. It is Humanity that dies, rises, and ascends to heaven, for from the negation of its phenomenal life there ever proceeds a higher spiritual life; from the suppression of its mortality as a personal, national, and terrestrial spirit, arises its union with the infinite spirit of the heavens. By faith in this Christ, especially in his death and resurrection, man is justified before God; that is, by the kindling within him of the idea of Humanity, the individual man participates in the divinely human life of the species. Now the main element of that idea is, that the negation of the merely natural and sensual life, which is itself the negation of the spirit (the negation of negation, therefore), is the sole way to true spiritual life.
This alone is the absolute sense of Christology: that it is annexed to the person and history of one individual, is a necessary result of the historical form which Christology has taken. Schleiermacher was quite right when he foreboded, that the speculative view would not leave much more of the historical person of the Saviour than was retained by the Ebionites. The phenomenal history of the individual, says Hegel, is only a starting point for the mind. Faith, in her early stages, is governed by the senses, and therefore contemplates a temporal history; what she holds to be true is the external, ordinary event, the evidence for which is of the historical, forensic kind—a fact to be proved by the testimony of the senses, and the moral confidence inspired by the witnesses. But mind having once taken occasion by this external fact, to bring under its consciousness the idea of humanity as one with God, sees in the history only the presentation of that idea; the object of faith is completely changed; instead of a sensible, empirical fact, it has become a spiritual and divine idea, which has its confirmation no longer in history but in philosophy. When the mind has thus gone beyond the sensible history, and entered into the domain of the absolute, the former ceases to be essential; it takes a subordinate place, above which the spiritual truths suggested by the history stand self-supported; it becomes as the faint image of a dream which belongs only to the past, and does not, like the idea, share the permanence of the spirit which is absolutely present to itself. Even Luther subordinated the physical miracles to the spiritual, as the truly great miracles. And shall we interest ourselves more in the cure of some sick people in Galilee, than in the miracles of intellectual and moral life belonging to the history of the world—in the increasing, the almost incredible dominion of man over nature—in the irresistible force of ideas, to which no unintelligent matter, whatever its magnitude, can oppose any enduring resistance? Shall isolated incidents, in themselves trivial, be more to us than the universal order of events, simply because in the latter we presuppose, if we do not perceive, a natural cause, in the former the contrary? This would be a direct contravention of the more enlightened sentiments of our own day, justly and conclusively expressed by Schleiermacher. The interests of pity, says this theologian, can no longer require us so to conceive a fact, that by its dependence on God it is divested of the conditions which would belong to it as a link in the chain of nature; for we have outgrown the notion, that the divine omnipotence is more completely manifested in the interruption of the order of nature, than in its preservation. Thus if we know the incarnation, death and resurrection, the duplex negatio affirmat, as the eternal circulation, the infinitely repeated pulsation of the divine life; what special importance can attach to a single fact, which is but a mere sensible image of this unending process?
— Strauss
it is clear that the argument employed here was of an Ad Hominem fallacy. — god must be atheist
This is not a fallacy, but a huge and fatal omission of defeating the opponent's view. Socrates acts as if he won the argument, but he never did. — god must be atheist
If the person came back and insisted on the type of fact that the sum of a thing is greater than sum of its components — god must be atheist
The Forms are not sums, they do not have components. They are each one, singular and unique. — Fooloso4
On this we disagree. The argument obviously refers to the man but I do not see it as a fallacy. — Fooloso4
Plato did not write dialogues to show Socrates winning an argument. What would be the point of that? — Fooloso4
Plato (and originally Socrates) had no argument to defeat the counter argument, that there are no unique qualities, but combination of qualities. — god must be atheist
This argument by Socrates is a school-case example of the clearest, most obvious case of Ad Hominem. — god must be atheist
"If that is your opinion, you are a sea-urchin, not a human. And since that is your opinion, you are a sea-urchin." — god must be atheist
But what about those qualities that they are combinations of? Are they just combinations of qualities too? — Fooloso4
There are kernel qualities. Qualities that have no component parts. — god must be atheist
Socrates claim seems to suggest that there are no combined qualities — god must be atheist
You just replaced one Ad Hominem argument with another. I don't think your claim is included or even insinuated in the quote, but since you argue that it is, it is easier to show that it's a sideways-shift of Ad Hominem, and not an eradication of it.The analogy to a sea urchin certainly is not flattering, but a life of intemperate pleasure does not make a pretty picture. — Fooloso4
Socrates argument is not simply against this person but all those who would choose a life of unbridled pleasure. — Fooloso4
He was not against pleasure but against a life of unchecked pleasure. — Fooloso4
Socrates claim seems to suggest that there are no combined qualities
— god must be atheist
They are found in combination in the world we live in, the world of our experience. — Fooloso4
There are kernel qualities. Qualities that have no component parts.
— god must be atheist
How do these differ from forms? — Fooloso4
You just replaced one Ad Hominem argument with another. — god must be atheist
you are this near to uttering a Strawman. — god must be atheist
But this still does not prove that a human being who has attained pleasure, gaiety, joy, etc., needs retrospection, wisdom, etc. This is the preference of Socrates. He can't prove, and does not even attempt to prove, that this is actually true for every human — god must be atheist
Socrates
Would you, Protarchus, be willing to live your whole life in the enjoyment of the greatest pleasures?
Protarchus
Of course I should.
Socrates
Would you think you needed anything further, if you were in complete possession of that enjoyment?
Protarchus
Certainly not.
Socrates
But consider whether you would not have some need of wisdom and intelligence and power of calculating your wants and the like.
Protarchus
Why should I? If I have enjoyment, I have everything.
Socrates
Then living thus you would enjoy the greatest pleasures all your life?
Protarchus
Yes; why not?
Socrates
But if you did not possess mind or memory or knowledge or true opinion, in the first place, you would not know whether you were enjoying your pleasures or not. That must be true, since you are utterly devoid of intellect, must it not?
Protarchus
Yes, it must.
And likewise, if you had no memory you could not even remember that you ever did enjoy pleasure, and no recollection whatever of present pleasure could remain with you; if you had no true opinion you could not think you were enjoying pleasure at the time when you were enjoying it, and if you were without power of calculation you would not be able to calculate that you would enjoy it in the future; your life would not be that of a man, but of a mollusc or some other shell-fish like the oyster. Is that true, or can we imagine any other result?
Protarchus
We certainly cannot.
Socrates
And can we choose such a life?
Protarchus
This argument, Socrates, has made me utterly speechless for the present.
Socrates
Well, let us not give in yet. Let us take up the life of mind and scrutinize that in turn.
Yes, yes, yes!! Now you are starting to understand. But Socrates DENIES that. — god must be atheist
Now, take a Form. A chair. — god must be atheist
One can't both be one and not one at the same time. — god must be atheist
Yes, yes, yes!! Now you are starting to understand. But Socrates DENIES that.
— god must be atheist
He does not deny it. Plato makes it quite clear. He says that we find the Forms in the world of our experience unalloyed but mixed together. — Fooloso4
This is of course conjecture, complete conjecture, but not any more of a conjecture than to claim that each displayed quality is a unique kernel quality, like Socrates claimed. Furthermore, Socrates claim seems to suggest that there are no combined qualities -- each displayed quality is the effect of a distinct unit of a quality source. — god must be atheist
The reasoning is not fallacious, it follows from the premise that pleasure without anything else is sufficient for the life of a human being. — Fooloso4
Here's an invalid point, it's not a fallacy, but invalid nevertheless. To feel pleasure you don't need to know you are feeling pleasure. In modern times this is easy to explain, but in the times of Socrates, this may be a bit more difficult.But if you did not possess mind or memory or knowledge or true opinion, in the first place, you would not know whether you were enjoying your pleasures or not. That must be true, since you are utterly devoid of intellect, must it not?
Because Socrates transferred his faulty reasoning about the mind's self-awareness, it was easy then for him to degrade Protarchus, to render him to the level of an ugly and senseless sea animal from the level of a human being, should Protarchus insist on the truth of his claim. This is an Ad Hominem fallacy, because the reasoning failed, so the only convincing power is not logic, but a strong negative-image psychological effect: "If you stuck with your argument, Protarchus, you would not be a man but a mollusc or an oyster." To which Protarchus had no response other than "Oy."your life would not be that of a man,but of a mollusc or some other shell-fish like the oyster.
I have to differ again, sorry. The things in our world are mixed objects that contain Forms. — god must be atheist
So indeed Socrates denies that forms have more than one qualities or essences. — god must be atheist
This is of course conjecture, complete conjecture — god must be atheist
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