Socrates – Creation and Redemption

2 Commentsby   |  09.06.13  |  Student Posts

As a philosopher, Socrates tries to answer the questions of meaning in being a human and the problems humans face in their lives. This qualifies him as a contributor to Creation.   However, I feel Socrates’ life contributed to Redemption because of the numerous parallels in his perspective and the nature of salvation. From Socrates’ perspective, knowledge is parallel to virtue and morality. So this perspective is related to Redemption because to gain knowledge is parallel to gaining a new life in Christ. He believed immorality to be a product of ignorance, which is also parallel to sin. Sin separated the Israelites from God. So, in a sense, they were “trapped” within their own immorality and the only hope for salvation was Jesus, or knowledge.  A search for knowledge is parallel to a closer walk with Christ. Similar to fact that no human can be perfect, it is also impossible to gain all knowledge. To Socrates, gaining knowledge involved methods of questioning things that were blindly accepted in society that included inductive definition. He even questioned his own wisdom and searched for suitable comparisons. He believed there was a structure to things like beauty and truth and sought to understand that structure. In following his own theory, Socrates’ answer for human purpose in life is, ultimately, to gain knowledge.

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2 Comments

  1. Rebecca McQueen
    8:29 pm, 09.07.13

    I really like the parallels you used in this Denysha! I would agree with you on a lot of it, but I also feel like it doesn’t perfectly translate. I guess my train of thought on that would be that by comparing gaining knowledge to a walk with Christ implies that it is something you can do to achieve redemption. While it is a choice, it is ultimately the grace from Jesus that allows us to walk with him – it is out of our control.

    All of that being said, overall I really like the parallels that you made!!

  2. Caroline Nikolaus
    11:46 pm, 09.09.13

    “To Socrates, gaining knowledge involved methods of questioning things that were blindly accepted in society that included inductive definition.”

    What a great line. How true is it that society blindly accepts things as they are, without even looking into the deeper meaning, or if there is even a meaning behind them. In a way, this makes me think about all the different world views we have (I guess it can parallels the different levels of knowledge we have). I find my worldview very different than others here because I have lived overseas for half of my life and been immersed in cultures different than American. I think for anyone who has traveled or experienced a different culture in this way, it is easy to say that your perspective changes, it becomes wider the more you know about the world. I think Socrates’ philosophy leaves us with a sense to at least dig deeper and really take in what you are experiencing as you go through life.

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