Reality - Wynand De Beer

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In contrast, the human soul is of divine origin—in particular, the rational dimension of the soul, which is also the seat of its immortality.

      Soul and Matter

      In the traditional Indo-European conception, each manifested being is a composite of form and matter (Greek, eidos and hylē), these terms being the equivalent of the Sanskrit nāma and rūpa. Such a composite being could therefore be described as an embodied form, or nāma-rūpa. In addition, since nāma means idea, archetype or form, it is the efficient cause of the individual as nāma-rūpa. In the case of living beings this composition appears as the two levels of formal manifestation, namely the psychic and the corporeal (Greek, psychikos and somatikos), or soul and body respectively. And since Spirit, which is associated with Intellect, can never be individual or corporeal, it is transcendent in relation to the combination of soul and body. Therefore, a human being cannot speak of ‘his’ or ‘her’ Spirit, as can indeed be predicated of the soul and body.129

      Incidentally, this differentiation between Spirit and soul enables one to understand certain biblical passages that would otherwise be problematic. For instance, we read of Christ saying that only someone who hates his own soul (eautou psychēn) can become His disciple (Luke 14:26). This verse is usually translated as ‘hates his own life,’ which literally means the same, but it is evident from the context that the lower soul is meant. We also find a statement by St Paul in his letter to the Hebrews (4:12) that the word of God pierces even to the division of soul and spirit (psychēs kai pneumatos), of which the latter term refers to the higher power of the soul, which is really the Spirit as the ‘royal guest’ of the soul.130

      Plato

      In the Platonic understanding, the World-soul and all individual souls partake of both being and becoming. The reason for this ambivalence is that Soul is like the Forms due to being eternal and of one substance, but unlike the Forms in that it is alive and intelligent.131 Plato writes that “by our bodies and through perception we have dealings with coming-to-be, but we deal with real being by our souls and through reasoning” (Sophist, 248a). We notice in this passage that sense-perception is a function of the body (albeit operating in conjunction with the soul), while reasoning is a function of the soul—to be more precise, the highest level of the soul, the rational (Greek, logikos, or belonging to the reason).132

      Since the World-soul obtains its reality from the Intellect, it is the bearer of the reason (Greek, logos) which works in on the whole cosmos. Due to this indwelling rationality, the cosmos is ordered and lawful. For Plato the World-soul precedes the existence of the corporeal world, just as it is itself preceded by the Demiurge (or Intellect). The World-soul is intermediate between the Forms and matter, and is thus the agency through which matter participates in the Forms.133 Soul is invisible, Plato adds, and is the most excellent of all things begotten by the Demiurge (Tim, 36e–37a).

      In the dialogue Timaeus, Plato introduces a ‘third kind’ (in addition to being and becoming) that pre-exists the cosmos: “The earlier two [kinds] sufficed for our previous account: one was proposed as a model, intelligible and always changeless, a second as an imitation of the model, something that possesses becoming and is visible. Now, however, it appears that our account compels us to attempt to illuminate in words a kind that is difficult and vague. What must we suppose it to do and to be? This above all: it is a receptacle (hypodochē) of all becoming—its wetnurse, as it were” (48e–49a). The three kinds are summarized as follows: “For the moment, we need to keep in mind three types of things: that which comes to be [i.e., sensible objects], that in which it comes to be [i.e., the receptacle], and that after which the thing coming to be is modelled, and which is the source of its coming to be [i.e., the Forms]. It is in fact appropriate to compare the receiving thing to a mother, the source to a father, and the nature between them to their offspring” (50c–d). Plato also describes this third kind as space, which provides a fixed state for all things that come to be (52a–b). It has been commented that since the created world is visible and tangible, Plato is required to postulate a three-dimensional ‘field’ in which the universe may subsist.134 The receptacle of becoming fills this need, for the Greek prefix hypo means ‘under,’ so that the receptacle is that which underlies the world of becoming.

      Plato then proceeds to sketch the nature of the receptacle: “This is why the thing that is to receive in itself all the elemental kinds must be totally devoid of any characteristics. In the same way, then, if the thing that is to receive repeatedly throughout its whole self the likeness of the intelligible objects, the things which always are—if it is to do so successfully, then it ought to be devoid of any inherent characteristics of its own. But if we speak of it as an invisible and characterless sort of thing, one that receives all things and shares in a most perplexing way in what is intelligible, a thing extremely difficult to comprehend, we shall not be misled” (Tim, 50b–51b).

      This description affirms that Plato’s receptacle

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