As many of you know, I’ve been “ just a bit” obsessed with Plato
lately. (I’m working on a massive book project that will be
called The Myth of the Blueprint, and this is part of my
research). It’s been great fun and very enlightening. I can’t
believe the extent to which this single philosopher set the
direction and tone of western philosophy and theology – for the
better and, at times, for the worse. I want to share with you
one example of how he influenced later thought. The Timaeus is a
work that Plato wrote that expresses key platonic ideas in a
mythic form. Toward the beginning of this story Plato states the
basic question this work is going to address. “What is that
which always is and has no becoming, and what is that which
becomes but never is: (Tim. 28a)? This question contains one of
the most influential – and, in my opinion, one of the most
disastrous – philosophical ideas of all time.! Notice this:
Plato’s question presupposes that “that which always is” must be
devoid of any “becoming” -- which m