Searching for the Good with Fr Thomas Plant: Dionysius, Shin Buddhism, and C.S. Lewis

In this episode, Fr Thomas Plant—Anglican priest, theologian, and author specialising in Christian Platonism and the thought of Dionysius the Areopagite—joins Tuppy Morrissey for a wide-ranging conversation. Together they explore Dionysius, Shin Buddhism, and the theological imagination of C.S. Lewis, reflecting on transcendence, the nature of the good, apophatic theology, myth, and desire, and how these traditions can deepen Christian thought in a secular age.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Father Thomas, so who was Dionysius the Areopagite and where does he stand within Christian tradition?

SPEAKER_00 0:08

The first question is harder to answer than the second, because the simple answer is that nobody knows. Hence Martin Luther called him that Dionysius, whoever he was. We can say clearly that he was not the convert whom Saint Paul brought to the faith at the Areopagus in Acts. He wrote some h several hundred years later than that. We know that because he quotes Proclus, the Neoplatonist, pretty much word for word at certain points of his corpus. So we're talking around a fifth to sixth century. Some have posited that he's a Syrian monk, some have said that he's from the Athenian school. But what we know for sure is that he is both a Christian and one very much inhabiting Neoplatonic tradition. Where he stands in the life of the church is somewhat easier to answer, highly influential both in the Eastern and the Western churches, in the East, particularly through Maximus the Confessor and the later Gregory Palamis, and the Apiphatic tradition more generally, and in the West through John Scottus Ereugena, not to be confused confused with the later John Dunscotus, and particularly St. Thomas Aquinas, who cites him very frequently indeed, only just after the philosopher Aristotle himself, partly because Aquinas thought that he really was sort of just sub-apostolic at first, but then started to have doubts about that himself, and to have a better idea about where Dionysius really came from, who he really perhaps was.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Thank you. Well, I'm joined today by Father Thomas Plant, whose work focuses particularly on Christian Platonism and especially the thought of Dionysius the Areopagite with insights as well from Shin Buddhism. Father Thomas is an Anglican priest, theologian, and author whose work spans moral theology, philosophical theology, and interreligious dialogue. I recently really enjoyed his book, The Lost Way to the Good, which offers a potential path away from secularism and back to the good. Away from his writing, Father Thomas is rector of St. Margaret of Antioch, Iberheath. And I believe you're also a second and black belt in Aikido.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

That's right. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

That's right. Very cool. Maybe we could do another episode on that one day. But for now, some some theology. So in this episode, we're going to be reflecting on Dionysian Platonism, Shin Buddhism, and the theological imagination of C.S. Lewis, if we have time, asking what these diverse sources reveal about the Christian faith. I'm your host, Tuppy Morrissey. I'll be leading our conversation today. And Father Thomas, it's a real pleasure to have you with us. So let's let's dive in. So, Father Thomas, for listeners who may not be familiar with your work, how did you get into the study of both Dionysian Platonism and Shin Buddhism?

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Shin Buddhism partly because well, no, primarily because I came out to Japan some twenty-five or plus years ago now. And and from atheism became attracted to both Buddhism and Shintoism out here, cutting a long story short, it was it was through through through Aikido and then through investigations into Buddhism that I ultimately became a Christian. Why Shinran in particular, I'll come to that perhaps after I talk about Dionysius, but Dionysius was of particular interest because of an address that Pope Benedict gave in I think it was 2005 or 6, where he proclaimed Dionysius as a potential mediator for the theology of the West and the thoughts of the Buddhist Confucian East. So I I thought there and then that it would be interesting to put these, to put him in dialogue with another thinker. Shinran came along partly because I was reading Henri de Lubak, and Onri de Lubak wrote two books on Buddhism, one of which focuses exclusively on pure land Buddhism. Shinran is the founder of the true pure land Buddhist school of Japan. He's a contemporary of Forgen who founded Zen, Nichiren, who founded the Nichiren school, and it's now probably more famous and numerous, Sokagakai Offshoot, which is a kind of evangelical Buddhism that's spread throughout the world. So he's one of these big names of the 13th century. And actually, his kind of Buddhism, true Pure Land Buddhism, accounts for some 60% of the Buddhism in Japan. Despite then being much more famous, it's actually far less numerous. Maybe that's enough just for now, but I could say more of why Shingan.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

That's very helpful. Yeah, we'll we'll get on to Shinran more, I think, later in our conversation, but let's focus on Dionysius for now. So when we speak of Dionysian Platonism, how does that differ from classical Platonism that many of our listeners might be more familiar with?

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Well, I mean Platonism is a it's a slippery term. You know, Plato is himself a kind of Platonist, not by virtue of founding this thing called Platonism, but being within a stream of previous, I suppose, realist and anti-nominalist thoughts that that that he of of which he is a particularly good and and and indeed the greatest exemplar, you might say. It's debatable to the extent to which one wants to call Aristotle a Platonist as well. And then all those downstream of him whom we call neo-platonists didn't consider themselves neo-anything. They thought they were Platonists through and through. So what one means by Platonist, you know, is not to be limited to the thought of Plato himself. That's certainly not how Platonists through the ages have seen it. So how do we define it? I I mean I would say that Lloyd Gerson, who is a prominent contemporary Platonist and probably has the best idea when he defines it largely by negatives. This it's it's anti-nominalist, so it's in some way broadly realist, saying that there is a reality to categories, universals, the platonic forms or ideas, of course, metaphysical, extra mental, sorry, extra yeah, ec well, mental realities that are not dependent upon an individual human mind, shall we say. They exist. Anti-skepticism as well would be part of that, though there was a strong sceptical strain of Platonism at one point. Antimaterialism. There are non-physical realities, which are indeed more real than the physical. So these there are there's this whole set of antes by which Gerson defines Platonism. Now Dionysius is is certainly in that realist, anti-nominalist, anti-materialist, anti-skeptical line, in that he posits there is a reality, God, the good, the one. However, he's in a particular stream of Platonism, which is not always appreciated. Platonism, you might say somewhat simplistically, divided later on into a broadly eastern and a broadly western school. The Western pagan Platonism, characterized by Platinus and Porphyry, particularly, the kind of Platonism that Saint Augustine was acquainted with. Very intellectualist kind of Platonism, Platonism for the for the academic elites, which posits quite a dualism between the body and the soul, which seems that sees the mental and spiritual realities not just as superior to the material world, but actually as the purpose of one's life really, to escape from the physical into a different spiritual realm. You pursue the the the good, long for the good, yearn for the good, to escape from the body which is generally and the world which are generally negatively perceived. Dionysius is rather part of what we might call theurgic or Eastern Platonism, characterized by Iamblicus and later Proclus. And this theurgic stream is less obviously dualistic, in that it uses ritual liturgy, as we would say it in Christian times, and ritual artifacts to channel the powers of the gods, which still talking about pagans here, in sympathetically, as it were. So you might use something like a stone which which has sun-like qualities to channel the energies or the power of the sun god, right? This this sort of this sort of thing. You use material things and symbols in the world as vehicles of divine agency. Now, that means that the natural world and the things within it are not purely negative. I mean, it's too much to say Plotin Plotinus saw them as purely negative, but he has a pretty negative view of them. But comparatively, you know, Iamblicus, Proclus, and later in that stream, Dionysius ascribed very positive value to material things, including the body, as precisely as things not to be escaped from, but as vehicles of the deeper spiritual reality. And this plays into Dionysius's sacramental theology, where he takes these theurgic platonic insights and baptizes them. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Yes. That reminds me of something you wrote in your book. I'll read this section. You said, I'm in fact not averse to describing sacraments as a kind of magic. A specifically chosen and inducted individual wears special clothes to speak inherited words over sacred objects in order to effect an objective change. That sounds a lot like magic to me. I think you then go on to say that someone like you, you know, an Anglican priest, is not a magician. But it seems to me that that ties into what you're saying about this theurgic strand of Platonism within which Dionysius was working.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Yeah, very much so. And actually I had in mind when I wrote that. I mean, I obviously it's a it's a bit it's if if the book were were online it would be click a rather click-baity thing to say. You know, yeah, you know, sacraments are magic, priests are wizards, you know. But I was r I was trying to I was conscious of of Lewis's idea of the deep magic. That for all the the natural laws of the universe, these are grounded in metaphysical laws which are which run deeper and which transcend, do not delete or in any way di defy, but but transcend, even as they undergird, the laws by which the universe is governed. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

And I think we should speak a bit about Dionysius' understanding of God, because I believe that he in his writings suggests that God is beyond words and perhaps beyond our understanding. What does that actually mean?

SPEAKER_00 11:38

Yeah, I mean, nonetheless, we need those words and we need those symptoms. So, you know, Dionysus is often presented, and this was Pope Benedict's um point, um, which I think I mean I I'm a great admirer of Pope Benedict. Um but on this particular point, I think he he he got it um he got what he said right, but there is more that could have been said. He was giving an address from the Vatican, he wasn't giving a great theological speech. But Dionysus is often associated purely with what we call apophaticism, this idea that one has to deny everything. Every positive statement about God needs to be denied, because we cannot contain God in rational categories, in words. And so Pope Benedict saw this as the potential bridge between Christian theology and the radical uh well, the shunyata, the emptiness of Buddhism, let's say, the idea that all things, all dharmas are fundamentally empty. Well, this is something that Dionysian apophatic language could help to build a bridge between. Um however, Dionysius, as well as being apophatic, is also highly cataphatic, which means to say that he also simultaneously says that the positive statements that God makes about himself and reveals to us through symbols, the Bible is absolutely full of them, do have meaning and are indeed essential. So what he's not saying is that the words, the phrases, the symbols in Scripture, the symbols of the entire created order, which all, as Psalm 19 puts it, you know, speak of God, sing of God. He's not saying we don't need them. He's not saying, as some Buddhists might, these are just skillful means that we can throw away ultimately. On the contrary, these are, as they were, steps on a ladder to God, but as we go up, we almost have to kick away the steps from the ladder. They're essential to get to where we need to get. We need it's not that we can know nothing about God, but there is always that recognition that whatever we know is going to be insufficient, and ultimately we end in a kind of silence. But even that silence is not just a bare emptiness, it's more like the the the the pregnant emptiness of the Blessed Virgin Mary's womb is a way I sometimes look at it look at it, or the emptiness of the tomb at Easter. An emptiness which, paradoxically, gives the fullness, the fullness of the aphatic, yielding the cataphatic, and the cataphatic being the only route to the silence in which we can know God beyond words, beyond reason.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

Okay. And why do you think for Christians listening today, this understanding of unknowing, of silence is important to grasp? Because I don't think it's something I've heard spoken about in probably any service that I've personally been to.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

I think there's a dual danger. One is just saying, ah, well, we don't need words, we don't need, you know, we don't need the scriptures. We could just sit in silence meditating, and that's the that's the real way to come to know God. This is not what Dionysius is saying. He his his works are dripping with scripture. His his worldview is a scrim-a symbolic scriptural worldview. But the equal and opposite danger is that we get so trapped in verbosity and uh may I call it, but we we we that that that we we think that you know our latest hot take is definitive on everything. The Christian faith is really about arguments and trying to own one another, right, online, whatever it may be. I think we need a humility about language, a a reliance upon the symbolic language of Scripture, certainly. But a humility about ability to grasp that. And you might see it as some a big bit more like reading poetry than reading prose. You need to look between the lines, you need to hear what's in between the words, you need to really chew on the symbols, taste and see that the Lord is good. And that takes that takes time. And it takes some quiet and some reflection, introspection.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

I think for now we'll we'll leave Dionysius to one side and think a bit about Shin Buddhism, because I imagine for many of our listeners this might be a completely new topic. So for those unfamiliar with Shinran and true Pure Land Buddhism, could you outline its core theological or philosophical vision?

SPEAKER_00 16:37

Yeah, sure. I think you know one quite vivid way of looking at it is to realize that when the when the Jesuits arrived on the shores of Japan for the first time, and they started talking to these Shin Buddhists. Shinran's form of Buddhism is called true Pure Land Buddhism, or Jordor Shinshu, the Shin means true. So sometimes it's called Shin Buddhism. So they encountered these Shin Buddhists who were talking about very strangely, something they'd thought they'd heard before. They were saying that one can be saved by the Buddha by faith alone. And the Jesuits thought, good grief, I think the Lutherans have prejudiced two. Now they hadn't. This was an entirely native internal development within Mahayana Buddhism, the kind of Buddhism that is more typical of East Asia. And what it what it comes down to is that in the thirteenth century, Kyoto and they had faced earthquakes, fires, uh there were sort of revolution, re spirit of revolution was in the air, paralleling that in in in the in in the Christian West, really, where there was a sense that the monks were corrupt and wealthy, fattening themselves while the poor were were plagued and dying. So and and and Shinon was born in that that milieu. And the way not just he, but his master Hornen and Dorgen, who I mentioned, the founder of Zen and Nichiren, they they they framed, they they understood what was going on in different ways. But one thing they had on common in common was this idea that the the current Dharma age was showing signs of ending, and that something was going wrong with the practice of Buddhists that had led to all and allowed all these calamities to happen. So Dorgen's idea with Zen, he went off to China and he sought the pristine teachings of the historic Buddha, Shakemuni Gautama, from from India, and he thought that his meditation methods that he discovered in Chinese Chan Buddhism were that pristine teaching. Nichiren found it in the Lotus Sutra, the recitation of that sutra. Honen and Shinran, in the Pure Land tradition, looked elsewhere. They said, actually, no, there is a new Buddha age coming in which our meditative efforts that we've been doing for so long, all our works, and they did use this term, I'm not just throwing out Christian terms. All we can do is have now faith might be misleading, we all we can do is have Shinji, deep entrusting in the the the the Buddha called Amitaba or Amida in Japanese, the Buddha of of of infinite wisdom and light. We have to have complete trust, not in our own abilities at all, but only in him, and all we can do is say his name meditatively such that it is no longer we who speak, but he who speaks the name through us. So what's going on here? Well, first of all, this leads to a much greater lay devotion, because your lay Buddhists can't devote all their times to spending hours every day sitting in Zase and meditating. That's an elite practice. They had been taught that their role, the laity, is just to fund the monks so that the monks can the monks can accrue merit, come back and then ultimately, you know, several several reincarnations later, that the lay woman may be reborn as a man and the man may be reborn as a monk, and you know, and all be and then you gradually progress through your reincarnations to Buddhahood. What Shinnan was saying was no. Simply by trusting solely in the Buddha's power and having him speak through you and live through you in this this this this you know expression of trust, of deep trusting faith in him, you can be, he used the word saved, taskerara, you can be saved now in this life, non-retrogression. You're saved now, and then when you die, you will be reincarnated into Amida Buddha's pure land. Older forms of Buddhism had had also acknowledged this pure land, it's not something he made up, but they saw it as a stage where you would learn from Amida Buddha and then be reborn again and again and again to higher rebirths. Shinran said, no, that stage, that rebirth in the pure land is Satori. It is enlightenment. It is the cessation of the cycle of rebirth. Once you've got that, it's over. Job's done. And as a result of this, you end he ended up getting accused by Buddhists who are big on non dualism of being a dualist. Because you've got the impure land when compared with the pure land. You've got this personal aspect to. To a soteriological Buddha, you know, sort of saviour Buddha, Amida Buddha, who seems to be almost, you know, yeah, we we have to put our faith in him. Well, that that suggests a duality between him and us. Yes. And and this led to further refinements of doctrine over the next several hundred years.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Yeah, because I I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, that within most Buddhist schools of thought, there is an emphasis upon the role of the individual in achieving satory, as you said, that, or you know, yeah, becoming enlightened, that your efforts will hopefully get you there. Whereas this seems to change that somewhat, and there's someone external that will guide you to enlightenment. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_00 22:52

Yeah. The key distinction there is between jiriki, self-power, and tadiki, other power. Typically, Zen Buddhists, if you ask them, will say, we depend on jiriki, self-power, our method of power. Shin Lan and all Shin Buddhists would say no, jiriki is useless. We can only depend on the Tariki, the other power of Amida Buddha. Therein lies the big difference. However, there are, especially nowadays, those who would like to collapse that distinction of jiriki and tariki and say that's too simplistic a divide.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

Okay. Okay. And let's think about this in terms of uh the Christian faith. There seems to be so many uh potential parallels. I want to think about the the work of the spirit, perhaps. Is the the function, if I can use that word, of Amitabha Buddha and his name similar to the role of the Holy Spirit within the life of a Christian.

SPEAKER_00 23:54

I I would I'd be wary of making that particular parallel unless we were very careful in in how we define what we mean by the working of the Holy Spirit. If we're talking about the work of the Spirit in uncreated grace or divine energies more in a sort of Eastern understanding, then perhaps if we're talking about the Holy Spirit as an active person into with with whom one rel enters into relationship, probably not. I'm thinking off the top of my head here. If we're talking about the power of the Spirit working through sacraments or through a sacramental view of the cosmos, then I think there is a little more scope for overlap there. What's tended to happen is I think partly because, you know, outside the Far East, the place where most Japanese Buddhists, especially Shin Buddhists, have settled is the United States of America. Um Christian Shin Buddhist dialogue has tended to be mostly done by American Americans and Japanese. And with a I think uh generally okay, there are Catholics who've looked at this certainly, but there's generally a a kind of liberal Protestant set of assumptions behind what's going on in the dialogue. So the tendency has has largely been to look at Shinman as a kind of proto-Luther. Yeah. Yeah. Why does he not do that? Clearly there are parallels, right? You can see that from what I've said already. What interests me is more the underlying sort of metaphysical structures and and particularly this notion of a dualism and non-dualism, the interaction of God and creation, or in Buddhist I mean, and and the extent to which this is at all comparable with the relationship between Hamida Buddha and sentient beings. And they are not simply equivalents, obviously. But I'd suggest that we might find some conceptual overlap there.

SPEAKER_01 26:08

Aaron Ross Powell Yeah, and that seems reading your book to be one of your main goals is to recognize this common understanding of the good, even if you know within Dionysian thought it's this is God, and in Shin Buddhist thought it's it's something different, it's not a personal god, perhaps. And why do you think that message is so important today, that which is expressed by both traditions?

SPEAKER_00 26:38

Well, at least there is a real and objective metaphysical good. Yeah. Defined in terms of love, compassion, self-gift, th self-sacrifice to some extent for the sake of others. You see that in the bodhisattva ideal of Buddhist practitioners yielding their own satory for the sake of remaining present to bring others, to to lift others up with them, as it were. A bit like St. Paul saying, you know, I'd gladly be with with Christ, but I want to remain here, you know. But at a cosmic scale, if you want, the metaphysical scale. So yeah, you know, we're we're in a a time now where people are encouraged to believe that there is no common good whatsoever, that the good is whatever the hell I think it is. Whatever I want is good. And and and and and and the best thing is to get what I want and with the minimum of other people getting in my way. Yes. That at least is how it's framed. What actually comes comes comes about as a result of that is that certain things are then posited as goods which one isn't even entitled to debate or contest. Yes, sure, that's true. A great irony, yeah. But which which somehow have no metaphysical or objective reality. Yeah. So you can believe whatever you want like as long as you believe what I say.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

Yeah.

unknown 28:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:13

Which seems quite problematic. Um Yeah, so in terms of you know we've we've established that there is this shared belief in the good, but where do the two traditions part company in terms of their understanding of ultimate reality?

SPEAKER_00 28:32

Yeah, sure. There's no cre there's no creator god um in in in the in the Buddhist idea. There is no well, there's no comparable holy trinity. There's there's no singular manifestation in the person of Jesus Christ. There's no historical act of salvation. You know, I mean Amida Buddha is supposed to be the but he does have a kind of avatar or is the one as the yeah the the the Buddha of a possibly historical figure, Dharmakaya, but but actually it doesn't really matter to Shin Buddhists whether Dharmakaya existed or not. Whereas I think it does matter considerably to Christians whether Jesus Christ existed and whether he said whether he is who who and what he said that he is. There are considerable differences there. That said, I think when we get beyond the notion that God is a supreme version of us, a supreme being, a being among others, and see with Dionysius God rather as I want to be careful because you know we're talking about him whom words who him who who exceeds words, but as an utter self gift and not to be mistaken in any way for a being, then there is potential for fruitful conversation with Buddhists, particularly Shin Buddhists, I think. A father of light, the Buddha of supreme light, compassion and wisdom, from whom all of these things flow, and yet who exceeds all description ultimately. You know, at this point we're we're we you know I'm not saying these are paths, different paths up one mountain, I'm not saying the same thing. But what I am saying is that that that reluctance even to refer to God or the Buddha as a thing, a being, is quite important.

SPEAKER_01 30:57

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's also helpful distinctions there. Um and yeah, I think it's fascinating. Um there can be a reticence amongst Christians, perhaps, to engage with another uh religious tradition, particularly to the extent to which you're doing so. This is maybe more personal, but does studying Shin Buddhism have a great impact upon your Christian faith in terms of deepening it or challenging it? Or is it more of a um well no, I don't think it would be, but it does it just have more of an academic focus?

SPEAKER_00 31:36

I think that it has probably formed my my mind and therefore my soul in ways that I I'm not yet fully aware of. I think it's it's perhaps shifted my focus, my theological focus as a Christian, onto self-gift, gratitude, and the more yes, the the the the desire for God in in ways well and also particularly this notion of, you know, it's not I who who live but Christ who lives in me, right? These emphases, I think it's it's helped to bring them to the fore in my thoughts that perhaps if I'd studied Dionysius alone uh wouldn't wouldn't have been. I don't know because I can't press rewind and see what I would have been like if I'd never studied Shinnan. But certainly when I'm in when I've been serving in when I was serving in Japan and and you know and and that may well be the case in the future as well, where Christians are a tiny minority, you know we we have to work with one another across denominational divides or or perish. And actually I think we should be working with the majority religionists here in the face of nihilism, despair, you know, mass huge figures of suicide. And a general, you know, disaffection with the just the the humdrum mechanical way of living, which is, you know, get born and slave away at school for jobs that may not exist because you know AAI is going to do most of them. And and you know, pack yourself into the commuter train until you you know until you break down and break down, throw yourself in front of one of the trains or or you know, hopefully retire without too much mental damage. I mean yeah. Yeah, it really is.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

It's a bit bleak.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

Yeah. We need to, you know. We have the Buddhists have something. They sadly they've they've become reduced to little more than a funeral service, but they have much more than that to offer the people. There are Buddhist clergy who know that. And and the Christian, you know, there's such a need for Christian witness here.

SPEAKER_01 33:59

It seems quite freeing within both um Christian thought and the true Pure Lam Buddhist thought that there's, as we've said, there's less of an onus upon the individual and that it is Christ or Amitabha Buddha working through us. You know, and if if you're facing um a more yeah, if you're facing despair, that seems quite free and that you might not have to liberate yourself, as it were.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

Yes. Yeah, quite. Quite. Yeah. Whereas everything here is is yeah, it's about gambaru work, just put up with it and endure. It's like it's like a test of you know, man of steel to get just uh just to survive the working day. There is something liberating about that. And you know, of course, you know I I would love to see the whole of Japan a Christian nation, but I would much rather see active practicing Shin Buddhists than functional atheists. Yeah. If if if it comes to this choice. And the fact is, you know, the Buddhist the Buddhists are far more numerous, at least nominal Buddhists. So I would hope that our interactions might be of some some use to them. And and of some use to Christians in the mission field, too. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:18

Okay, I think let's jump somewhat, you know, fast forward a few centuries and try to weave in some C. S. Lewis to our discussion, which I think will be m probably more relevant to our discussion of Dionysius. But many people know C. S. Lewis through the Chronicles of Narnia and perhaps some of his apologetics, particularly mere Christianity. Where does Platonism fit into his thinking?

SPEAKER_00 35:44

Pretty fundamental. It was it was Platonism broadly, or really idealism, that was the preparatio evangelica for him to become a Christian. It was that which he freely acknowledges, you know, that that's what opened his mind to the possibility of anything beyond the material realm existing at all. And y it to talk about Narnia, I mean you know, the the character of the professor in the house in which the wardrobe is, I think is something of a I think it's basically C. S. Lewis with a beard, right? The fake beard. And and he he says several times, what what are the children, what do you learn at school? Haven't you read your Plato if you remember that light? And I think that's not just a throwaway. Yeah. Um we also see that in The Great Divorce, you see that the the scale of being, where the heavenly those who are closer to godliness are are more real and more solid. Yeah. And where the those those who are in the more sort of purgatorial realm or in the process of ascent, they're they're more ethereal and vague. It's this idea that the spiritual the closer to God you are, the more real you are. God is the truly real. And what is evil uh is actually a privation, a lack of goodness. This is a typical piece of Neoplatonism, really. Augustine says the same thing. Yes, I can say that you find it in Proclus and very much in the Divine Aids. Okay. So that that yeah, that notion that the spiritual is the truly real pervades Lewis's works. Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:23

And I think you know, reading C. Lewis, you get a real impression of this desire for something greater than ourselves. And I think he writes that desire reflects that well, the strength of the desire suggests that there must be something uh behind the desire. I'm, you know, I'm forgetting exactly how he puts it. Um but is this longing platonic idea, a platon platonic notion, forgive me.

SPEAKER_00 37:52

Yeah, definitely. Yes, I think uh there's a phrase I'm trying to remember from this, it's something like the the scent of a flower you can't quite identify, or something there's this, there's always this God leaves a scent or a taste that you you leaves you wanting more. You get this actually you you get this in the Cappadocians of thingy, is it great? Yeah, Gregory of Nyssa and the Ascent of Moses, this this idea that we're always following God. We only ever see we we we we we're always behind him, he's always leading us on. And and Trahern bring brings that in his centuries that he he you know and C. S. Lewis was a great admirer of Trahearn. He considered Traherne's centuries one of the greatest works uh in the English language. But Traherne says that God gives us an infinite desire for him, infinite but yeah, infinite desires, and yet he infinitely fulfills them. And because that's infinite, it means it's never you're i it's always in motion. It's not it's not it's not like going to heaven is being with John and Yoko in some clouds for forever, you know, thank God. There's not ref yeah, you're not gonna get bored in heaven. Yeah. Because God simultaneously provides and satiates every desire, every yearning you have. Now, yeah, that's all in the symposium as of Plato, in a way, it's uh the Ottoman, right? That God is him for whom we yearn. The difference the difference between uh the the big difference between, I guess, as you put it earlier, classical Platonist view and it and and and and and this is what the Christians do. This is the Christian modification of Platonism, is that it's two-way. For Plato it's one way. God can't want us desiring for us, because to want is to lack something. God lacks nothing.

SPEAKER_01 39:46

And Aristotle has the same notion, doesn't he? Correct.

SPEAKER_00 39:50

Yeah correct. And it's a very Platonic notion. Yeah. And this is the Christian, this is the great Christ I wouldn't say it's a Christian rivalry or overthrowing of Platonism. Some people do like to put in that sense. Rather, I'd say this is this is a Christian interpretation of Platonism, a very legitimate one. That that the desire is a two-way street. And God wants us. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:15

And with that yearning, I'm reminded of the beginning of Augustine's confessions that that desire for God that won't be satiated until um we meet with him. And Aquinas has a uh similar thought, I think. So clearly, yeah, a lot of great thinkers picking up on this longing notion. Restless. Restlessness, that's the word, yeah. That's what I'm looking for. Until they rested the Yes. Uh you know, far better than I do. So Lewis also famously said that Christianity is myth become fact. So moving on to that topic, because I know he was rather obsessed with mythology and taught a lot about it at the University of Oxford. What does he mean by saying that Christianity is myth become fact?

SPEAKER_00 41:02

Tolkien is uh is a clear influence there. He speaks of the the Christianity as the true myth. Um and you know Tolkien's entire construction of Middle Earth is uh he deliberately avoids having a a religion or any cult or any priests because the entirety and all of characters in their various ways refract different aspects of this true myth, which doesn't deprive the Lord of the Rings or the Eddis or any of the material that Tolkien was drawing on of their truth, but actually gives them truth, fulfills that truth. And and Lewis was influenced by this. He was influenced also by Charles Williams on this front. And you see that influence, especially in the third book of the space trilogy, That Hideous Strength, where you've got Merlin, right, the mythical character of Merlin being brought back to life. Not to say, look at this old pagan nonsense. No, on the contrary, it's it's i it is it's the Christ-like figure of ransom who brings out the the reality, brings Merlin to reality, as it were. So yes, one might see, for example, Odin hanging on Yggdrasil as the Anglo-Saxons clearly saw him as a type of Christ, a foreshadowing of Christ. Yeah. And I what would really interest me, and it's something I want to look into as as I go on, is is quite how that works in really distant mythoi, such as you know, the the the mythos of Shinto, for example. Okay. How you get Jonathan Pasho and and Pete doing this with you know Jack and the Beanstalk or Sneaker Booty and so on, which is great. Cinderella, too. But it'd be interesting to see how that extends out into really alien mythological territory, I think. So I hope you find time for that.

SPEAKER_01 43:13

Yeah. That would be cool. And I know at the moment there's the play Shadowlands about the end of C. S. Lewis's life on in London. And hopefully that can bring people to read a bit more C. S. Lewis. How do you think they'd benefit from reading some Lewis, particularly maybe you know, in terms of recovering a sense of transcendence if they're coming from this secular, perhaps even nihilist viewpoint?

SPEAKER_00 43:43

I don't know Shadowlands, I must admit. There was a film made of it a long time ago, which I watched and long since forgotten. Anthony Hopkins, I think. I haven't seen it. No, sure. Well, I mean I keep coming across people who Read Narnia when they were young or even when they were older, read it to their children, and still came away from it having no idea that Asja Han was a type of Christ, you know, which is strange given that Tolkien accused he didn't really like Narnia very much neither. Lewis was doing a bit too a bit too much of the barrel beating kind of you know, he was pre- he was using his novels to preach. Yeah. Didn't like it. I think the those of us who were not, and I'm one of them who were not brought up in the church have been so alienated from the cultural and symbolic inheritance of our fathers that that even if we have it put right in front of our eyes without some more explicit guidance, we'd we we don't know it. It's like walking to a church, you know, who who's that bloke hanging on the cross, or you know or m maybe more realistically, I mean that's that's that's putting it too high too far. But who who are all these, you know, who are all these statues of people with beards and who's that guy with the sword, who's that guy with the We can't read as people used to unless we are taught. So I think unless people read Lysi's more explicitly Christian works, they're not going to get a handle of the more symbolic ones. Okay. Screw tape, you can get yeah, yeah. You can get quite a lot out of that, I think, without too much grounding.

SPEAKER_01 45:29

I'm a big surprise by joy fan. I loved loved reading that in particular. Read that, need to read that, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:37

Yes. Um okay, so we've covered a lot of different ground, but holding together Dionysus, Shin Buddhism, and the work of Seid Stuas. What message do you think emerges about the good reality, transcendence, any of these big key terms that we've been discussing today? The main thing is that it's it's it's real.

SPEAKER_00 46:03

Yeah. It's not a product of our imaginations, it's not a collective fiction, it's not a fantasy. That that God is real, and that all of these things which distract us from God and which aim to replace him in an idolatrous fashion are drawing us away from the good. What is evil? Only a lack of goodness, a privation, and it's a lack of reality. And we can feel that in our bones. We know when we are not living authentically. But by authentically, I don't mean in a Foucault sort of sense. I don't mean you know according to our own definitions of authenticity. But when we are not living truly in relationship of love, of God and neighbor, which are intractable, those two those two things. We know we we and you see the psychological fallout of it all around us. You see particularly in the young, and it's devastating. Yeah. We know that we're we're off the path to the good. Now and what I think more and more people are realizing, people say this to me, is that clearly the lapsed Catholic friends and so on have come back to the faith. The the evil has become so obvious and so difficult to resist that they're led to believe there must be a good. Because frankly, if there isn't, then life was hardly worth living anymore. This is a vital question.

SPEAKER_01 47:41

Yeah, yeah. Well, that's a very very important message for sure. And if someone, you know, they're they're noticing this this evil, but they feel that God is distant or hard to grasp, what do you think uh some of our key things today would say? Maybe I'm thinking particularly of Dionysius and his apathatic strain of thought. What do you think someone like him would say?

SPEAKER_00 48:07

Well, in a Dionysian Dionysian terms, I'd say approach the mysteries. Approach the mysteries that is Go to church, seek baptism as the gateway to holy communion. Don't get too hung up on all the definitions, have a humility towards them. Don't worry about the precise nature of the real presence or baptismal regeneration, or whether what is being done is a sacrifice or a memorial before you've actually experienced these things. Now I'm not there trying to reduce it to personal experience, I'm not saying leave your brain outside the church door, but I am saying that beauty itself and the experience of the mysteries, the experience of the liturgy, the beauty of the church, and the love of other people, which, if it is a good church, you will find there, are themselves transformative, themselves anagogical, themselves lift one up to God. I think that's what he has to say to us that beauty calls to bad etymology, good theology.

SPEAKER_01 49:29

Nice. Well, that's a very uplifting message, I hope, for many of our listeners. One final question I had, because I think you might have written a bit about this on your your Substack. What do you think contemporary Christian theology most misunderstands about Platonism?

SPEAKER_00 49:50

That that it's considered to be dualist or even Gnostic. I mean, given that even the great Plato pagan Platonists like Platonists write very ex explicitly against the Gnostics, whoever they might be. This idea that Platonism is all about a radical dualism between the body and the soul, that the body is entirely bad, the soul is the only good. Basically, Platonism, despite its reputation for soul body or soul world dualism, ultimately gives the vehicle by which we can understand the material world, the world of science and symbols, of water, bread and wine, as being vehicles which mediate the spiritual, rather than seeing those two things as radically opposed to one another.

SPEAKER_01 50:41

Great. Yeah, and I think that's helpful as well in terms of some, in my view, misreadings of Paul, you know, this notion of Sarks, the the flesh, and yeah, ascribing to him, I think, a dualism that wasn't really there in his thoughts. I don't know what you think about that whole debate.

SPEAKER_00 51:02

Yeah, I mean, you know, we we have to bear in mind what he says about the spiritual body and the r the resurrection of the body being, again, something transcendent of simple categories or dualism between the physical and the spiritual. What is sown is honor in dishonor is raised in honour. What we will be is different from what we are now. Yes, our body will be resurrected, but it's not identical with the body we inhabit now any more than an oak tree is identical to an acorn.

SPEAKER_02 51:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:35

There the principle of analogy, which is a very neo-blotonic principle, comes into play.

SPEAKER_01 51:42

Yeah. Good. Well, I think as we finish, I'd like to read a short passage from your book, which I really enjoyed and which I think could be helpful to many listeners. You wrote the truly liberating message in both Dionysian Christianity and Shin Buddhism is that we become good and start to do good not by exhausting frenetic acts of will, not by trying to emulate a revolutionary Jesus or an activist Shinran, but by letting the good beyond being work in and through us. I think there's something very freeing in that vision that you expressed there, the idea that our transformation doesn't begin with anxious effort, but with allowing ourselves to be shaped by a goodness greater than we are. So, Father Thomas, thank you so much for helping us to explore that hope. Um, that beyond what we see, what we understand, there may be a greater fullness working within us. Yeah, so thank you. I've really enjoyed our conversation, and I hope you have too. And this podcast is part of the Faithwave app. If you've enjoyed listening, you can support the project by downloading the app where you can sign up for a free trial. FaithWave brings together historic prayers, guided abridgments of classic Christian texts, courses, podcasts, and more. Visit Faithwave.app or search FaithWave on the App Store. Father Thomas, thank you very much for your time. Bless you and thank you. Thank you, and thank you, everyone, for listening and God bless.