The Un-examined Life

“The unexamined life is not worth living,” said Socrates 400 years before the current era. Socrates is understood by many to be the father of modern day philosophy even though he would likely not recognized what philosophy has become. The beginning of that quote reads, “ It is the greatest good for a man (sic) to discuss virtue every day....”

Socrates' goal was virtue, or, finding the best life possible. But unlike our modern philosophy his dialogue was not about promoting intellectual ascent to ideas nor was the dialogue he engaged in intent on bludgeoning an opponent into intellectual submission. For Socrates dialogue was a spiritual experience of self emptying. The highest knowledge is to reach a point of silence arrived at when a person has exhausted all they know and realizes that they really don't know.

Unlike the modern day talking heads we see on television and Internet who seem maliciously intent on beating us up with what they know for certain, Socratic conversion, or changing of the mind, was to achieve the knowledge that there is more to this than we could ever know for certain.

Fear is often our salvation but fear can also be our greatest nemesis. Fear can save us or destroy us. Fear of the unknown is almost unbearable and yet for Socrates admitting that we don't know was the source of creative imaginations that explored life with no holds barred. on the other hand, once we arrived at certainty we stopped progressing toward that which is the ultimate good (virtuous) life.

A large segment of modern day “Faith” communities seem afraid of not knowing. They are very certain about what is real, true, virtuous and, from my perspective, strive to avoid living by faith. Faith is a contradiction as described in the book called Hebrews as a certainty of what is not known or knowable (my interpretation). In other words when we think we have all the answers and we have God safely surrounded by our intellectual boundaries we have moved beyond faith to certainty.

The beauty of true faith allows us to be open to dialogue no matter what path it takes for in the end we will still not know what we know. Instead of saying that we must live by “certainty”, the Apostle Paul affirmed we must “live by faith”. Faith is knowing that God is beyond our knowing.

Coffee cold? Let me warm yours up.

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