Approaching

I always felt that Theology, as a discipline, was very ungrounded. Turns out I just did not know what the ground was. To give us a ground for it, our History of Theology and Philosophy course is approaching the entire topic from an epistemological angle. “How can we know ourselves?”, and “How can we know God?” are the two primary questions through which we will look at the history of Christian theology.

One such starting place is Plotinus, the major influence behind Augustine. Understanding Plotinus’ neo-Platonism is the first task of the day. I have honestly heard the term of Ideal-Form before this class, though I could in know way describe it nor percieve its referent.

Already with just the most basic of sketches I have Tetris blocks falling into place within what I have read and misunderstood in Theology thus far. I actually find Plotinus’ Ideal-Form of the first order logos contemplating in action thus creating a second order logos to be a natural thought (though his language is not read naturally at all). Researchers into linguistics know that without the idea behind a word that word cannot exist in the language. Without the Form the Matter, or expression in linguistic terms, cannot exist. And so it is with the mind or intellect. Without the essence of a thing known its matter will go entirely unrecognized.

I think this is why Design, of all sorts, interests me so much. It is the search for the essence of a thing manifested in its matter. We often confuse the matter of a thing with its essence. It requires a trained designer to break free of the conventional material form given to a thing. They can break free, find the true Form and re-design matter around the Form – thus changing our own perceptions based on the old material form.

This is why I find the very idea of Ideal-Form understandably natural. However, once we come to defining the actual existence (metaphysical, ontological, woohoo) of such Forms, and their active Contemplation (even among inanimate objects) I feel I will be back in the mire.