Plato, God and the Afterlife

Threaded through Plato's treatise about the State are many references to God and the Afterlife. It is, after all, natural to assume that in the pre-Modern world practically everyone believed in some sort of God or other. The Greeks had their myths, their polytheistic pantheon of Gods, and Plato assumed that these Gods were associated with the mythos of the Hellenic peoples. Though when Plato refers to God, he does so in the singular. 

In his ideal state, the mythos must be protected. Poets who subvert tales of the Gods, who ascribe evil intent to the actions of the Gods, should be banned (Homer included). Very much in the vein of Putin.

Plato is at his most specific when it comes to setting out his spiritual vision right at the end of The Republic, in the second half of Book X. He tells (through the narrator, Socrates) the Myth of Er. 

A slain warrior who returns to life after 12 days, to recount what he had just witnessed. As Er tells it, when his soul left his body, it "went on a journey with a great company" to a place of judgment, "at which there were two openings in the earth; they were near together, and over against them were two other openings in the heaven above. In the intermediate space there were judges seated, who commanded the just, after they had given judgment on them and had bound their sentences in front of them, to ascend by the heavenly way on the right hand; and in like manner the unjust were bidden by them to descend by the lower way on the left hand". This is familiar to the Christian; God at the Last Judgment, separating the good from the bad, the left and the right, the sheep from the goats.

But what happens next is more in the Eastern traditions of Hinduism or Buddhism: "Mortal souls, behold a new cycle of life and mortality. Your genius will not be allotted to you, but you will choose your genius; and let him who draws the first lot have the first choice, and the life which he chooses shall be his destiny. Virtue is free, and as a man honors or dishonors her he will have more or less of her; the responsibility is with the chooser—God is justified."

The soul chooses for itself a new, different, life. The choice of new life is crucial, for it is part of the continual upward spiral of spiritual improvement, with each successive life being better than the last – if the right choice is made. And this choice, claims Plato, must be framed in moral and ethical terms. "Learn and discern between good and evil, and so to choose always the better life." 

Er speaks of a soul that chose the life of a tyrant, "his mind having been darkened by folly and sensuality; he had not thought out the whole matter before he chose, and did not at first sight perceive that he was fated, among other evils, to devour his own children". Our souls are to be "schooled by trial". Plato's recipe for a happy life on this earth is to dedicate yourself to "sound philosophy". 

Plato and I see the process of reincarnation in the Hindu way; a continual upward spiral of spiritual improvement. And so, to the final sentence of the final part of the most influential book in Western philosophy: "Thus shall we live dear to one another and to the gods, both while remaining here and when, like conquerors in the games who go round to gather gifts, we receive our reward. And it shall be well with us both in this life and in the pilgrimage of a thousand years which we have been describing."

Saṃsāra.

This time last year:
Mornings with My Cat, Mii

This time eight years ago:
Black-necked grebes hatch

This time nine years ago:
To Warka in the sunshine

This time 13 years ago:
The descriptive vs. the prescriptive

This time 14 yeas ago: 
Noc Muzeów – night of pride in being Polish

This time 18 years ago:
Why Poland can no longer afford to keep the grosz
[It's still here. If you find one in your change – keep it.]