That which does not want to be comprehended

Kierkegaard states: "Is it such great merit or is it not rather insolence or thoughtlessness to want to comprehend that which does not want to be comprehended?"

(The Sickness Unto Death)

And then: "to believe is indeed to lose the understanding in order to gain God". All of this is not to say that Kierkegaard is an anti-intellectual or nihilist. Kierkegaard, who once admitted that he "gropes for the tragic in every direction" in a perverse and convoluted desire to "see" God, is just as guilty as anyone of this "imposition" upon God. His intention is simply bringing to light the dynamics of our strange tendencies to unearth the tragic and the role of death and fear in propelling our desire to understand God.

Kierkegaard is not judgemental or admonishing in his treatment of these natural human drives towards knowledge; he just wants to enlighten us on why we act the way we do, and what are the inner springs of our creativity and curiosity.

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Idea is not only a concept

Plato's ideas are virtues, properties of the divine being, communicated also to the created existence, as Augustine understood too.

Goodness is not just a 'form' and concept, it is the fact of being good, with goodness elevated to its source and perfection in God. The Holy, holiness, is not just an idea, but a reality in which all saints participate in various degrees. Plato's ideas have their real source in Homer and the (common in Greek life) relationship and communication between God and man.

Download ebooks on http://www.frenchtheory.com/ - See that post with different algorithms in metabole - See the journal French Metablog with today different posts-Enter Hypertextopia-PHONEREADER Library -- Jean-Philippe Pastor

Even Gods must obey

Since little choice is possible, and since there is no escape for the body from the stern law of Necessity, no one loves this goddess and everybody ignores her cult.

Yet her compelling power—with or without cult—remains unsurpassed in all circumstances. And given that she must be obeyed unto the most minute detail, this counsel has been given so that man might be reconciled with his condition:

"If a man endeavours to ... persuade himself to accept of his own accord what needs must befall him, he will have a very reasonable and harmonious life."

[Arrian's discourses of Epictetus, Fragment 8].

A similar thought occurred to rebellious Prometheus 1 when he was chained in Caucasus:

"I must bear my allotted doom as lightly as I can, knowing that the might of Necessity permits no resistance."

[Prometheus 1. Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 104]

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See that post with different algorithms in metabole
See the journal French Metablog with today different posts