Plato's Error

Plato turned from the outside concerns of the pre-Socratics to the inside concerns of traditional religion, and that was a philosophical and theological error. “Know thy world” became “Know thyself.” This error continued the error of the old religions in turning away from the real world of the phenomenal senses toward the spiritual world of ideas. Plato essentially rejected the reality of the real world as surely as Nietzsche rejected the reality of the spiritual world. Saying that the Idea of things is more real than the object it defines was, frankly, ridiculous, but there it took root, in the first university of Europe, and it remains in the universities and seminaries of the world.

Plato should have transformed the inward path rather than essentially rejecting the outward path. And Nietzsche should not have rejected the inward path but transformed it in the outward path. After much ascetic discipline in blocking the desires of the instincts so as to see or experience the God or Father Within---whether called God, Logos or Reason---it remains a symbolic experience of the real Godhood which can be reached through material and supermaterial evolution. This understanding is seen in the Twofold Path of theological materialism, and it can help mend the many antagonism of “duality,” between matter and spirit, science and religion, and so on.