As Plato sayeth
whithersoever the wind, as it were, of the logos blows, there lies our course1
IN the best conversations, people collaborate to offer their attention, knowledge, and articulation in service of the conversation. One person will stand in for another when he falters or goes searching his pockets for the right word but comes up empty-handed. This contrasts to typical discourse, in which no one listens to anyone else or troubles himself with the attempt to understand the basis for another’s view, and the aforementioned faculties—attention, knowledge, and articulation—are enlisted to no other end than to prove a foregone point.
Dialogue, then, properly so-called, is more than just talking together, and can only adequately be grasped when it is conceived as a spiritual ascent (i.e. invoking images from Plato’s Republic and Symposium). True conversation is always a conversion, a “turning,”2 or metanoia (μετάνοια, meta– “beyond,” “above” + nous “mind”), of a certain kind. In other words, there should be something extraordinary about ordinary conversations with the caveat that “ordinary” is not the same as “common” just as “normal” is not the same thing as “average.” “Ordinary” implies that something is ordinal, which is to say, ordered toward some higher end, and “normal” implies that something is normative according to some standard and not merely according to what happens to be the statistical mean, median, or most popular form of a given thing.
I might begin to describe one element for such normal convers(at)ion by suggesting that to enact it demands the mutual willingness of both parties to sacrifice personal standpoint for the sake of understanding. This establishes the conversation under a shared standard—or philia—through the orientation of both parties away from a defense of their personal standpoints and towards the wish to attain to understanding, knowledge, and wisdom, or Sophia. This “turning” or “conversion” itself constitutes the matrix in which participation in the λογος, or Logos, is most eminently possible.3 Put another way, it establishes the altar on which our “super-essential bread”4 is placed, for dialogue, or diálogos (διάλογος) is a form of communion. It may seem improbable to compare an action, orientation, or gesture to an altar because one is essential dynamic while the function of the other depends on the opposite of this. But to speak of the “structure of music” and to consider that, as a rule, the melody of a song floats upon and is sustained by a foundation in bass and rhythm already nullifies the objection. Our physiology relative to our volitional acts reveals the same relationship. Hence, it can be understood that a certain activity can be seen to provide the foundation for another.
On a side note, most readers will be familiar with the petition from the Lord’s Prayer in which we ask the Father to
give us this day our daily bread.5
Readers will forgive me if it is common knowledge that “daily bread” was, for reasons that are impossible to ascertain, elected as the English word by which to render the original Greek ἐπιούσιον ἄρτον (epiousion arton). Epiousion is a word formed through combining the prefix epi- (“upon,” “on,” “over,” “near,” “at,” “before,” “by,” “after”) with ousia (“being,” “essence,” “substance”). It most definitely does not mean “daily” except perhaps when the latter in grasped with poetic conceit, which perhaps ought to characterize the basic intentionality by which we regard these texts. In any case, it patently hearkens to Christ’s response at the beginning of the Matthew Gospel when he is first tempted by Satan to “command these stones be made bread”6 to which the LORD responds:
It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by/on every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.7
“Bread,” here, is also arton. Interestingly, the preposition above rendered as “by/on” is literally epi in the original Greek.
Returning to the image introduced above, I imagined the mutual conversion as the creation of a sort of altar or temple—a sacred space that can host the body of the Logos just as Mary received the Word of God in Bethlehem and “pondered it in her heart.”8 This is a new Communion because we are partaking in the mystical body of the Logos, which is Christ. Indeed, “wherever two or more are gathered in my name,” as Jesus said, “there am I in the midst of them.”9
It seems that this is the only resolution to the “post-truth” phenomenon and the only deliverance from the fugue of the meaning crisis. Namely, to relinquish the theories of truth as coherence or correspondence and so on and to see truth rather as a verb and an activity—like “balance” or “life.” We don’t imagine these things can be nailed down to the wooden form of discreet propositions. Instead, truth is a state we can enter and take part in; as we can be “in love,” so we can attempt to dwell “in truth,” which is to dwell in Christ. To express certain spiritual truths seems to be impossible without recourse to religious language and for this reason, it is a pity that it often seems necessary to attempt to forgo it in many contexts. I bore personal antipathy towards Christianity until I was 27 or so and so I understand the aversion that many people feel, but I also know from experience that it is possible to overcome it.
Republic 394d
Cf. John 20:
14And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. 15Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away. 16Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.
Plato, Republic, 518c:
…our argument shows that the power and capacity of learning exists in the soul already; and that just as the eye was unable to turn from darkness to light without the whole body, so too the instrument of knowledge can only by the movement of the whole soul be turned from the world of becoming into that of Being, and learn by degrees to endure the sight of Being, and of the brightest and best of Being, or in other words, of the Good.
and Plato, Republic, 521c:
turning the soul from day that is a kind of night, to true Day—the ascent to what is, which is to say, true Philosophy.6
It was an astonishing synchronicity to observe John Vervaeke in dialogue with Jordan Peterson pursue precisely this issue, only a few days after I first composed this short reflection. As some may know, Dr. Vervaeke was the external committee member (i.e. outside of my institution, CIIS) for my dissertation committee.
Most readers will be familiar with the petition from the Lord’s Prayer in which we ask the Father to
give us this day our daily bread
found in Matthew 6:11. Readers will forgive me if it is common knowledge that “daily bread” was, for reasons that are impossible to ascertain, elected as the English word by which to render the original Greek ἐπιούσιον ἄρτον (epiousion arton). Epiousion is a word formed through combining the prefix epi- (“upon,” “on,” “over,” “near,” “at,” “before,” “after”) with ousia (“being,” “essence,” “substance”). It most definitely does not mean “daily” except perhaps when the latter in grasped with poetic conceit, which perhaps ought to characterize the basic intentionality by which we regard these texts. In any case, it patently hearkens to Christ’s response at the beginning of the Matthew Gospel when he is first tempted by Satan to “command these stones be made bread” (Matt. 4:3) to which the LORD responds:
It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by/on every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. (Matt. 4:4)
“Bread,” here, is also arton. Interestingly, the preposition above rendered as “by/on” is literally epi in the original Greek.
Matthew 6:11
Matthew 4:3
Matthew 4:4
Luke 2:19
Matthew 18:20
Wonderful! This pairs nicely with my thoughts in a post I recently shared, although your thinking is much more coherent and unpacked. Seems like something is in the air!
Another thing I was thinking is that bread in the Lord’s Prayer is really translated as something super-substantial. Like we live on meaning. And the day we ***Live*** in is really the Day of the Resurrection which is the archetype of our everyday day. Like the kairos day of the Day. The Day of Days, sustained by the Bread of breads. Anyways….
and I never would have guessed that you ever had antipathy for Christianity.