Christmas and the Cave-Dwellers

Other than their names and a few random facts about their lives and ideas, the ancient Greek philosophers are largely unfamiliar to me. That said, my ignorance isn't total. Socrates was a controversial philosopher in his day and was often ridiculed in the works of contemporary playwrights. He was also sentenced to death by poisoning by a court of his peers for multiple crimes including impiety (I have no idea what he was impious about). Socrates was also Plato's teacher and mentor and while Socrates never wrote anything down, we know a lot about him from the writings of Plato and a soldier/historian by the name of Xenophon. Plato, in turn, was the long time teacher of Aristotle. These two complimented each another with Plato being the abstract thinker (hence the evolved term "platonic") while Aristotle was more practical and scientific. Aristotle's most famous student was a 13-year old boy who would later become known as Alexander the Great. I've always liked "small world" stories. Of the "Big Three", Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, Plato was the most religious. More than 800 years later Augustine was influenced by Plato's The Republic for his classic work City of God. 

While Christmas shopping recently, I came across Plato's The Republic and would normally have passed it by except for the book's attractive cover. I was further interested by a note on the back cover regarding the author that read, "He invents the allegory of the cave to illustrate his notion that ordinary men are like prisoners in a cave, observing only the shadows of things, while philosophers are those who venture outside the cave and see things as they really are, and whose task it is to return to the cave and tell the truth about what they have seen. This dynamic metaphor expresses at once the eternal conflict between the world of the senses (the cave) and the world of ideas (the world outside the cave) and the philosopher's role as mediator between the two." This prompted me to buy the book.

This illustration immediately reminded me of the citizens of Underland in C.S. Lewis's book The Silver Chair. The Underlanders never see Overworld, or the sunlit land, and are ruled by the Queen of the Deep Realm. This not-so-good Queen denies the existence of Overworld and moves quickly against any Overworlders who enter her lower realm. The problem with the Underlanders is their unquestioning devotion to their despotic Queen, and there's no telling them anything. They can't possibly imagine a life above because all they know is the life below. Most have long since contented themselves with the life they know and reject all notions of a different life. Such is the hopelessness they have settled for.

More than a few parallels of these illustrations can be made with the world we live in. Enter Christmas. It is a season like no other. Aside from the fun, food, foliage and fellowship, the main reason we celebrate Christmas is to commemorate the visit of the Good King into our shadowland. His entrance into this realm is the real-life instance of an Overworlder - the Overworlder - coming into our underworld of the sensory, to declare to us the real life beyond the cave. Herein lies our hope. The choruses we sing every year, "Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, Hail the incarnate Deity," and "A thrill of hope, the weary soul/world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn" are not just seasonal ditties but pointers to genuine truth and life.

The true King has made Himself known to us and our true happiness is found in re-aligning our loyalties to Him for the truth is, we were made for Him. May His grace open our hearts and minds this Christmas and in the years to come.