{"id":85,"date":"2011-11-13T23:51:00","date_gmt":"2011-11-13T13:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pbw.id.au\/blog\/uncategorized\/socrates-daemon\/"},"modified":"2018-05-22T21:54:05","modified_gmt":"2018-05-22T11:54:05","slug":"socrates-daemon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2011\/11\/socrates-daemon\/","title":{"rendered":"Socrates’ Daemon"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you start to read Xenephon’s\u00a0The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates<\/a> on your Kindle, or Kindle reader on PC or Mac, you will encounter in Book 1, Chapter 1, the following passage:<\/p>\n

What, in my opinion, gave his accusers a specious pretext for alleging against him that he introduced new deities was this\u2013that he had frequently declared in public he had received counsel from a divine voice<\/i>, which he called his Daemon.\u00a0 But this was no proof at all in the matter.\u00a0 All that Socrates advanced about his daemon was no more than what is daily advanced by those who believe in and practice divination; and if Socrates, because he said he received intelligence from his genius, must be accused of introducing new divinities, so also must they; for is it not certain that those who believe in divination, and practice that belief, do observe the flight of birds, consult the entrails of victims, and remark even unexpected words and accidental occurrences?\u00a0 But they do not, therefore, believe that either the birds whose flight they observe or the persons they meet accidentally know either their good or ill fortune\u2013neither did Socrates\u2013they only believe that the gods make use of these things to presage the future; and such, too, was the belief of Socrates. The vulgar, indeed, imagine it to be the very birds and things which present themselves to them that excite them to what is good for them, or make them avoid what may hurt them; but, as for Socrates, he freely owned that a daemon was his monitor; and he frequently told his friends beforehand what they should do, or not do, according to the instructions he had received from his daemon; and they who believed him, and followed his advice, always found advantage by it; as, on the contrary, they who neglected his admonitions, never failed to repent their incredulity.\u00a0 Now, it cannot be denied but that he ought to have taken care not to pass with his friends either for a liar or a visionary; and yet how could he avoid incurring that censure if the events had not justified the truth of the things he pretended were revealed to him?\u00a0 It is, therefore, manifest that he would not have spoken of things to come if he had not believed he said true; but how could he believe he said true, unless he believed that the gods, who alone ought to be trusted for the knowledge of things to come, gave him notice of them?\u00a0 And, if he believed they did so, how can it be said that he acknowledged no gods?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This passage\u00a0jolted me. Here, suddenly, at the fountainhead of Western sceptical rationalism, was an utterly unexpected entity.\u00a0To Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, we must add a spiritual adviser, on the evidence of Socrates himself. In Plato’s account, the daemon acts only to inhibit Socrates. For example, when Socrates attempts to prepare for his trail, he finds that he is prevented by his daemon. In Xenephon’s account, as we see above, the daemon is not so restricted.<\/p>\n

It brought to mind a passage from Acts that I quoted in my previous post.<\/p>\n

As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her\u00a0owners much gain by soothsaying. She followed Paul and us, crying, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who\u00a0proclaim to you the way of salvation.” And this she did for many days. But Paul was annoyed, and turned and said to the\u00a0spirit, “I charge you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour. But when her\u00a0owners saw that their hope of gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the market place before\u00a0the rulers… [Acts 16; 16-19]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Divination, except for the gift of prophecy, is forbidden in Judaism and by extension, in Christianity. It is the forbidden fruit of commerce with an invisible world of spirits; a world populated by some very unsavoury characters indeed; a world with which human beings have always had commerce; a world well known to the Greeks, as to the Romans, as to Islam; a world which has seemingly been lost to the West.<\/p>\n

Socrates’ daemon creates an obvious problem for Christian (and Jewish) admirers of Socrates. In 1872 the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster,\u00a0Henry Edward Manning, presented a paper to The Royal Institution. It’s title was\u00a0The Daemon of Socrates<\/a>.\u00a0Manning surveys the references to the daemon in Plato and Xenephon, and a number of attempts by Christian authors to rehabilitate the daemon, before concluding that the “daemon” was nothing more than the universal voice of conscience. I’m not convinced. At any rate, the daemon has quietly disappeared from discussions of Socrates.<\/p>\n

I think that the main reason for that is not that the near-universal admiration for Socrates remains problematical for Christians and Jews, but that the very notion of a spirit world has become problematical for generations of academic theologians and the priests and ministers they have trained. In essence, the academy has succumbed to an intellectual mono-culture of materialism. For those who inhabit this milieu, intellectual respectability trumps religious orthodoxy. The inherent incompatibility of \u00a0such a position for Christians and Jews is a small price to pay for acceptance at the Staff Club and a career-enhancing flow of publications in various journals of “religion.” This contradiction should surprise no-one: a huge percentage of Humanities-educated Westerners are wedded to the completely unsupportable belief that human beings are solely material entities; and this belief has the unassailable character of fervent religious conviction.<\/p>\n

When you deny the spiritual reality most immediately present to your understanding\u2013yourself\u2013is it any wonder that the Second Person of the Trinity soon disappears in a puff of rationalisation, and we are left with a purely material Jesus of Nazareth; a purely material, non-resurrected, completely dead, Jesus of Nazareth. But he was a very great teacher, and his “spirit,” if I may use an outdated metaphor, lives on. Now about that Trinity. It’s like a three-legged table without the second leg, isn’t it? It doesn’t stand up. But we do have a universe; self-creating, self-elaborating, self-sustaining. Quite awe-inspiring, really. So many Christians become, by various paths, some open, some carefully obfuscated, pantheists.<\/p>\n

Trembling he obeyed, and raised his humble head; and then, in that utter clearness of the imminent dawn, while Nature, flushed with fulness of incredible colour, seemed to hold her breath for the event, he looked in the very eyes of the Friend and Helper; saw the backward sweep of the curved horns, gleaming in the growing daylight; saw the stern, hooked nose between the kindly eyes that were looking down on them humourously, while the bearded mouth broke into a half-smile at the corners; saw the rippling muscles on the arm that lay across the broad chest, the long supple hand still holding the pan-pipes only just fallen away from the parted lips; saw the splendid curves of the shaggy limbs disposed in majestic ease on the sward… All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

‘Rat!’ he found breath to whisper, shaking. ‘Are you afraid?’
\n‘Afraid?’ murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love. ‘Afraid! Of\u00a0Him<\/i>? O, never, never! And yet\u2014 and yet\u2014 O, Mole, I am afraid!’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Then the two animals, crouching to the earth, bowed their heads and did worship.
\nThe Wind in the Willows<\/i>, Chapter 7, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No, not like that. Pantheists without Pan. But it’s a short enough path to Rat and Mole’s backwater. The desire to worship will find expression somehow, somewhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you start to read Xenephon’s\u00a0The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates on your Kindle, or Kindle reader on PC or Mac, you will encounter in Book 1, Chapter 1, the following passage:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29,18,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-belief","category-faith","category-culture"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8SCfl-1n","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":83,"url":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2012\/01\/pios-daemon-pios-angel\/","url_meta":{"origin":85,"position":0},"title":"Pio’s daemon, Pio’s angel","author":"pbw","date":"Wed 4th Jan '12","format":false,"excerpt":"Thanks to Daniel, I have been reading Patricia Treece's\u00a0Meet Padre Pio. It is a compact summary of Pio's life and vocation, drawn in large part from the documentation that supported the cause of his canonisation. Pio was always a challenge to Catholic Church authority, simply by virtue of the vortex\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Faith"","block_context":{"text":"Faith","link":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/category\/belief\/faith\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":86,"url":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2011\/11\/miracle-or-magic-a-homework-exercise\/","url_meta":{"origin":85,"position":1},"title":"Miracle or Magic? A homework exercise","author":"pbw","date":"Sat 12th Nov '11","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 What's the difference between miracle and magic? Let's first define them. The Macquarie Dictionary defines miracle as\u00a0an effect in the physical world which surpasses all known human or natural powers and is therefore ascribed to supernatural agency.\u00a0Magic is defined as the art of producing effects claimed to be\u00a0beyond the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Belief & knowledge"","block_context":{"text":"Belief & knowledge","link":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/category\/belief\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":76,"url":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2012\/01\/bultmann-the-problem-2-obsolete-mythology\/","url_meta":{"origin":85,"position":2},"title":"Bultmann: The Problem 2. Obsolete Mythology","author":"pbw","date":"Wed 25th Jan '12","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a follow-on from my\u00a0previous post. It looks at the subsection that follows from the summary view of the NT as mythology. I urge you to read this subsection in its entirety in\u00a0Kerygma and Myth. I will summarise it here, but it is such an unreasonable and unreasoning series\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Belief & knowledge"","block_context":{"text":"Belief & knowledge","link":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/category\/belief\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":84,"url":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2011\/12\/belief-knowledge-faith\/","url_meta":{"origin":85,"position":3},"title":"Belief, Knowledge, Faith","author":"pbw","date":"Wed 14th Dec '11","format":false,"excerpt":"Not long after 9\/11, I was talking to an elderly Dominican priest. I was startled to discover that he thought the felling of the towers was an inside job by the CIA, of some such US authority. \u00a0The evidence for this was all over the web. Adherents to this particular\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Belief & knowledge"","block_context":{"text":"Belief & knowledge","link":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/category\/belief\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":71,"url":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2012\/02\/from-pio-to-bultmann-and-back\/","url_meta":{"origin":85,"position":4},"title":"From Pio to Bultmann and back","author":"pbw","date":"Sun 26th Feb '12","format":false,"excerpt":"C. 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