l apprenti de forgeron said:
marek760 said:
I am aware of my ignorance,
but i dont see Cesar as a good man
That someone be "good" or "bad" is a subjective form of appreciating, and you always have to analyze the context, for greater recognition of what is happening. Would be curious if you're valuing Caesar from some remnant of Christian morality, since you would be measuring Caesar opposite a man-god myth wich is probably founded in Caesar himself. This could be an example of how the unreal or fictionalized can make us not to value right the natural lifes and historical acts.
Exactly. One of my heroes is David Ray Griffin. I've read over a dozen of his books, on both 911 and philosophy and theology. He's a Christian, but even that is misleading. In his book "Two Great Truths: A New Synthesis of Scientific Naturalism and Christian Faith", he outlines what he thinks is the core of the Christian Faith, excluding what he calls 'secondary' and 'tertiary' doctrines (false beliefs). As one of his primary doctrines (on the nature of "Jesus") he says this:
We can understand Jesus as one in whom God was incarnate in such a way that it is appropriate for us to apprehend Jesus as a decisive revelation of God's character, purpose, and mode of operation.
This sentence is prefaced by these remarks:
First, God always presents initial aims toward the best possibilities open to the individual, given its past history and present situation. These initial aims constitute, therefore, prevenient grace [i.e., divine grace that precedes human decision making]. Second, the best possibilities for different individuals can differ radically. For example, the best possibilities for a human being differ radically from the best possibilities for electrons or mice; the best possibilities for Christians in Grand Rapids differ greatly from the best possibilities open to Hindus in Bombay; the best possibilities for a person who has responded positively to the divine persuasion all his or her life will differ radically from the best possibilities for someone who has consistently resisted the divine persuasion. The nature of the divine aims and therefore the prevenient grace for different individuals will, therefore, differ radically. Third, the aims for some individuals will reflect the general divine aim more directly than the aims for other individuals. ...
There's some stuff in there that probably won't make much sense without a wider understanding of Griffin and Whitehead's philosophy, but I think the point is clear enough. The way I would say it, some people have a clearer connection to, or reception of, the universe's inherent goals (or telos), which are really the goals of Cosmic Mind, the 'direction' to which the universe is biased, as in example, the evolutionary bias towards complexity of form and consciousness. Depending on their unique situation (i.e., the law of three here), the manifestation of these goals can take very different forms. So if we accept Griffin's 'Christian principle' that Jesus was an exemplar, a decisive embodiment of Cosmic Mind's goals for the cosmos, and if Jesus was Caesar, I think it still works. Caesar worked and exemplified ideals of justice, goodness, and love to the best degree possible given the conditions in which he lived.
I think we have to get over our image of the 'sage' or 'saint'. It's better, IMO, to ask, "What would an exemplar of human-potential-actualized look like if he or she was a general? a politician? a lawyer?" Another question that comes to mind for me is this: "Can such an exemplar really lead a life limited to a small sphere of social interaction, or might such an individual necessarily need to be prominent in the lives of many?" In other words, in order to really exemplify the 'best possibilities' available (and presumably that would include making as big of an influence on the world as possible, thus presenting things like justice and truth as new possibilities to those who previously had been denied them), might that not require a set of conditions resembling those of Caesar? That is, he was born in a Patrician family, yet lived in the slums. He had the potential for advancing to the highest levels of influence and in Roman life, yet had childhood experiences that exposed him to the reality of life for the 'others'. The way was open for him to literally change the world, to introduce things like justice, clemency, beauty, and truth.
If the premises above are true, then by studying a man like Caesar we can learn something of Cosmic Mind's "character, purpose, and mode of operation." How does it operate? By presenting possibilities to those with the ability to recognize them and
act on them, and in turn present them to others who may lack the clarity of mind. And those possibilities have to do with truth and goodness, an ever-expanding sphere of value, justice, maturity of mind, integrity, forward thinking, etc.
