Here’s to Living or Not

If I may, I shall immerse myself within discourse on Plato’s cave allegory as so many others before me. Simply put, Plato wishes for us to reach within ourselves to find the strength to ascend from the fragmented shadows of a hollow reality. In so doing, when we muster the strength to unchain the shackles and choose to explore enlightenment, Plato warns of no return—not physically, but of consciousness. To descend back within the cave would be burdensome on the enlightened mind, and to share this new knowledge with others would risk retribution of a potentially fatal degree.

I hope that brief summary shall suffice; now I will affect ingress into my opinions. Firstly, I desire so much to claim that the enlightenment of which Plato speaks is nigh unattainable to all but a few men. Most of us, in my opinion, may chance upon the strength to be freed of our chains, but fear the final ascent to true enlightenment, satiated by more defined shadows and dull rocks lying close to escape: If I may be so bold as to draw upon scripture, in Mark 10 Jesus encounters a young rich guy, and politely informs the man to abandon all his riches then return to follow Jesus as a disciple in order to achieve treasures in heaven. The man leaves, devastated. He did not want to relinquish his accumulated wealth. The wealth and possessions were a shade of the treasures of heaven, of which Jesus was trying to help the guy acquire. In the cave, the prisoners sit, enthralled with the shades upon the wall. Their disillusionment remains a reality until they muster the strength to be free. Where does this strength arise from?  Within Christianity, Jesus explains in Matthew 7:7 that we may ask and receive, seek and find, etc. I interpret this, in terms of The Cave, to be an invitation to cry out to a divinity for the strength to be free. Plato, though, would argue that the strength is inborn. At first it appears there may be some contention between the two camps of thought, but allow me to build some bridges. In scripture, the early scripture (Genesis), God created man in his image. Now, I reject this to mean a physical image, but rather one of progressive thought. What this means to me, is that God imparted humanity with the ability for creative thought. For Christians, the “body is a temple for the Holy Spirit,” the trinity spirit of God that aids his followers (1 Corinthians 6:19). So, if we are made in God’s image and filled with His Spirit, then we need only look within ourselves to have the strength ascend, right? Thus we have the discipline of solitude.

Now that relation has been drawn between The Cave and Christianity, at least in my own mind, I will, in conclusion, throw Romans 3:23 (“all have sinned and fallen short…”) out to justify the inability of man to attain the true enlightenment of which Plato writes. Then again, the scripture may be referring to an event rather than a condition. A conversation for another time perhaps.