‘de-Mythifying’ the Logos. Anaximander’s Apeiron and the Possibility of a Post-Metaphysical...

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'De-Mything' the Logos:

Anaximander's Apeiron and the

Possibility of a Post-

Metaphysical Understanding of

the Incarnation

Author: Edward Moore

Quodlibet Journal: Volume 4

Number 1, Winter 2002

ISSN: 1526-6575

Introduction [1]

When Martin Heidegger introduced

his unique brand of Existentialism

to the world, with the publication in

1927 of his vast tome

entitled Being and Time, many

philosophers recognized what they

felt to be the need to move "beyond

metaphysics." Even in the realm of

theology, this demand was felt, and

met, for example, by Rudolph

Bultmann and his program of

"demythologization." [2] What

Bultmann's program amounted to

was nothing less than the removal,

from the kerygma, of any remnant

of divine transcendence. His

resultant reinterpretation of the

Christian message in terms of

Existentialism served to place the

radical demand of Jesus Christ at

the very center of human

existence, and was therefore a

positive contribution to theology


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and ethics. Bultmann's argument

that the truth of the Christian

kerygma lies in the doctrine of

God's immanence, and that the

transcendent or "cosmic" language

of the New Testament is but the

necessary consequence of the

mode of expression of a "pre-

scientific age," [3] also succeeded

in opening the way for a "post-

metaphysical" understanding of

God.

The succeeding generation of

"Death of God" theologians fixated

upon the post-structural critique of

language, and the abandonment of

what Jacques Derrida has termed

"logocentrism" [4]; for the concernto go "beyond metaphysics" was

really a critical concern with the

way philosophy conceives of truth.

When Nietzsche stated that "we

are not rid of God because we still

have faith in grammar" [5] he was

referring to the prevalent belief that

language is capable of expressing

ultimate truth. This idea is based

upon a belief, going back to Plato,

[6] that spoken language proceeds

from the logos, or rational faculty of

the mind, and therefore owes its

referential power to an eternal

principle of veracity, if you will - a


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guarantor of truth. If language all

too often fails to convey truth, this

is the fault of the one who wields

the tool of language, not of the tool

itself. Nietzsche, of course,

believed none of this, and most

subsequent philosophy has

followed suit.

Many radical theologians have

seen in the post-modern critique of

"logocentrism" a way ofreinterpreting the "Death of God" in

the sense of an "emptying out,"

or kenosis, of the logos into and

within language, which, in the

absence of any metaphysical

fundament, has become the sole

subject of philosophy. Language,then, and the philosophy and

theology that is concerned with it,

has come to be seen as a

manipulation of the very logos upon

which language - understood as

the tool for the construction of

meaning - was formerly thought to

be dependent. In the realm of

theology, this can lead to a manner

of discourse that no longer has

anything positive to say concerning

the revelation of God. In an essay

entitled "The Deconstruction of

God," Carl A. Raschke writes:


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If theology, instead of examining

the nature and attributes of God, or

even exploring the meaning and

discursive function of the holy

name, becomes preoccupied in

contrast with pondering the

purpose for which it is "done," then

it must come to understand

itself strictu sensu as a meditation

within discourse upon discourse.

The divine word, the sacra verba, is

truly made flesh; it reaches its

kenotic consummation, its radical

otherness, in a theology which is

nought but a writing about

theology. [7]

It is important to note here that the

problem that Raschke is isolating,

and which he feels signals the "end

of theology," [8] is only a problem

because he is remaining tied to the

metaphysical language or mode of

speaking that Bultmann earlier tried

to do away with. To speak of "the

nature and attributes of God," or

even of "the meaning and

discursive function of the holy

name" is, in my view, to carry over,

into post-modern discourse, a now

outmoded "mythological" sense of

the divinity in order to make

seemingly profound claims about

the kenosis of the logos in writing,or to "demythologize" the


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Incarnation by making it into an

event of language. This selective

use of metaphysical terminology is

even more suspect when we

realize that the kenotic event that

Raschke speaks of would only

have meaning if the logos has lost

or relinquished a power it formerly

held. If this is actually the case,

then to speak of this passage of the

logos from a position as

"transcendental signified" to an

immanent dwelling amidst human

beings in language as a

"transformation of word as logos

('representation') to word

as rhema ('flow')" [9] is to

subordinate this dispersed or

disseminated logos to the human

act of utilizing or gathering the

various logoi spermatikoi for the

purpose of effecting a strictly

human meaning. In other words,

the logos has become secularized.

This is indeed the ultimate kenosis,

the final ptôsis or "downfall" of the

formerly divine "transcendental

signified."

Post-modernism, and

"deconstruction" in particular,

admits to working within the

general structure of Western

metaphysical discourse, eventhough the work being done is


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often highly subversive of the

original intention of this structure.

However, for a philosophical

mindset that still seeks positive

statements about existence, there

is very little satisfaction (to say the

least) to be found in a mode of

discourse that merely subverts the

quest for truth, or, even worse,

advocates a fluid relativism devoid

of positive assertions. While any

attempt to return to a former

metaphysical mode of thinking is

admittedly untenable, I do not

believe that one must abandon the

hope of ever again speaking

meaningfully of transcendence - or

of speaking of meaning in a

transcendental manner. It may

even be possible, if one is willing to

go the intellectual distance, to

again speak meaningfully of the

Incarnation.

I will now examine what has been

called the earliest surviving

fragment of Western philosophical

thinking - a few lines from

Anaximander - with the purpose of

re-establishing a more dynamic

conception of the Deity: one that is

not bound to static metaphysical

principles. Utilizing this non-

metaphysical conception of the


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Divinity, I will proceed to interpret

the doctrine of the Incarnation in a

manner that will, I hope, preserve

the transcendent power of this all-

important part of the kerygma,

while at the same time making it

tenable for the post-modern and,

more precisely, post-metaphysical

mind.

Anaximander's Apeiron

From out of that which things arise,

there also does their destruction [or

dissolution] occur, according to

necessity; for they render justice

and recompense to one another for

their injustice, according to the

orderly arrangement of time. [10]

"It is considered the oldest

fragment of Western thinking" -

thus writes Heidegger in his

famous essay on the even more

famous sentence of the ancient

Milesian philosopher Anaximander

(ca. 610-540 BCE). [11] The

"fragment" in question, of course, is

preserved by the Neo-Platonic

scholar Simplicius, who flourished

in the early to mid-sixth century CE.

Without pausing to consider what

meaning, if any, we may find in the

phrase "fragment of Western

thinking" - as if "thinking" couldproduce or be held fast in a


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fragmentary manner - or even to

ask how one is justified in

assigning an age - "the oldest" - to

a passage that occurs, as a quote,

in the midst of a treatise produced

by a writer working at the very end

of a long and noble tradition, [12] I

will simply say that we fail to render

the proper tribute to this statement

of Anaximander if we only refer to it

as a preserved piece of thinking.

For thinking , as Heidegger himself

has taught us, is a tending toward

existence and all its questions; a

tending that causes questions to

grow, and calls ever more urgently

for bolder and more profound acts

of thought. [13]

A careful look at Anaximander's

statement will show us that his was

not a call for thinking, nor even a

step toward thinking; rather, it was

an interpretative attempt to answer

the boldest and most profound

question that has ever been asked:

'What is the nature and origin

of that which is?' The fact that, for

Anaximander, this abstract Being,

"that which is," was conceived,

even before questioning, as the

Divinity, the ex ôn, the from-out-of-

which all things emerge, shows us

that Being, for this earlyphilosopher, was already thought in


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terms of dependence upon an

origin. But this is not the end of the

story. If Anaximander had simply

thought Being as the primordial

ground upon which all existing

beings show themselves forth, or

even as the hidden, indeterminate

source whence all determinate

entities flow, he would not be far

from Heidegger's own concept-

world. [14] The fact that

Anaximander is not uncovering or

disclosing an experience, but rather

interpreting an understanding of

reality that was based on a tradition

extending back into the prehistoric

mists of Greek memory, should

serve as evidence that he was

concerned not with the primordiality

of theapeiron as indeterminate

source, but rather as unlimited

possibility. [15] The unlimited

possibility of/that is the apeiron,

then, is carried over by all existents

into the course of a life lived, and

utilized as the fecund basis of all

self-expression or personal

becoming. Therefore, Anaximander

was, as Cornford has explained,

struggling with the traditional ideas

of divinity and the nature informed

by it, in order to explain how "that

which is" (Being) arose from thatwhich is not - the arkhê. [16]


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The genius of Anaximander is

displayed in his 'explanation,' in

which he states that genesis, the

principle of 'emergence' or birth, is

constantly usurping the power

of phthora - dissolution,

destruction, passing-away, etc. -

and vice-versa. Anaximander never

states that these two productive

principles ever attempt to usurp

the apeiron itself. This is supremely

logical, from an experiential

standpoint, for we know that no

existing thing can come to be

without the foundational support of

that which has gone before. When

we posit the apeiron, or the primal

possibility, as an actual, existing

source, whence all is derived, then

we are broaching a metaphysical

thought-mode, and foisting it upon

an expression that was made

before metaphysics was even

possible. Anaximander did not do

this. What he did was describe

the apeiron, in dynamic language,

as that which lies at the base of all

existence, making expression and

individuality possible. "From out of

that which ..." (ex ôn de ê genesis)

- this is Anaximander's apeiron, his

'principle' of unlimited power or

fecundity which makes the dualprinciples of Becoming -


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genesis and phthora - possible.

Further, since the 'twin' principles

of "birth" and "dissolution" are

equally dependent upon

the apeiron, and also equally

necessary for the productive flow of

existence, how are we to

understand the meaning of

Anaximander's statement that

these principles do each other

"injustice," for which they must

make "recompense"? The answer

lies, I believe, in an understanding

of the apeiron not as a primordial,

metaphysical principle or source,

but as a power that is present

within and amongst all beings.

In his masterful study of the Pre-Socratics, Cornford went to great

lengths to explain the extent to

which the ideas of Anaximander

were based upon a very ancient,

pre-Olympian, cosmogony. [17]

This early cosmogony utilized a

non-anthropomorphic notion of a

primal ordering, moira, upon which

all existence is dependent.

However, this moira was believed

to be, itself, the result of an even

more primordial activity or process

of 'nature,' phusis. Nature itself was

understood as the ever-flowing

principle of life, of eternal


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becoming, while moira, the

structure into which nature divided

itself, or came to be divided, was

understood as fixed, static,

immutable. This inviolable moira,

then, was that against which one

would commit injustice, if one

sought to step beyond the bounds

set by it - that is, if one sought, in

the manner of a tragic hero, to defy

the destiny set by the gods. Indeed,

with the rise of the Olympian

pantheon, the primal moira came to

be expressed or understood by

way of the decrees and laws of the

gods. As we know from Homer,

even the Olympians were subject

to the higher power of moira, but

that idea gradually came to be

supplanted by the belief that the

Olympian gods were themselves

the stewards and dispensers of an

eternal Justice which they were

believed to embody. By this time,

relatively late in the Classical era,

the origin of Justice, Goodness,

existence, etc., came to be

identified with an eternal and

immutable arkhê, an inviolable

principle of distribution or

"allotment" (moira). This

development coincided with the

critique of the traditionalunderstanding of the gods carried


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out by Xenophanes and, later, by

Plato himself, and provided the

impetus for Stoic allegory. This new

idea was responsible for, or

perhaps grew out of, the belief that

the cosmos is eternal, and that

each human being is a part of the

divine whole, and required to play

his or her part appropriately. In

other words, this development - of

the belief in moiraas the fixed and

immutable arkhê, over against a

notion that the arkhê itself is in

motion, flowing, constantly

producing - was the very birth of

metaphysical thinking.

The birth of metaphysical thinking,

then, was also the loss of thatdynamic notion of nature ( phusis)

as the living and ever-flowing origin

of all existence. This dynamic

conception of nature was the very

conception that Anaximander had

in mind when he made his famous

statement about the apeiron, the

unlimited origin of all things. It was

also the idea behind Thales' belief

that "everything is full of gods." [18]

When we recall that the earlier or

Homeric use of the

term theô indicated a "running" or

flowing, the meaning of this latter

statement appears to be that


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everything contains a productive

force or power capable of being

expressed in a variety of ways, i.e.,

as theos. [19] If this is the case,

then how are we to make sense of

Anaximander's statement about

injustice and recompense? In other

words, if the very nature of

the apeiron is to produce

multiplicity through its ceaseless

flowing, why is guilt incurred by the

existents that are part of the

process? This question can only be

answered by thinking the apeiron in

a non-metaphysical manner.

When the twin principles of birth

and decay come to commit their

injustices, they are not said, by Anaximander, to be held

accountable by their source for

whatever crimes they have

committed. There is no need for

these principles to answer to or

give an account of themselves

before the "dread judgment seat" of

the Unlimited, if you will. Instead,

they pay "recompense to one

another for their injustice." If we

think carefully about the problem

presented to us by this "fragment,"

it will, I believe, become clear that

the "injustice" spoken of by

Anaximander has nothing to do


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with the transgression of a fixed,

primordial law, but rather with the

manner in which the immanent

power of the apeiron is utilized by

all those existents that have come

to be through it. And since

the apeironis precisely that which is

ever flowing and boundless, only

that which strives for fixity, or

reposeful, static Being, can

possibly find offense in the

utilization of a given possibility for

the purpose, not of ek-sistence or

persistence in externality, but of

eternal and

autonomous establishment . This

point is made explicit by the very

first line of Anaximander's

statement, where he tells us that

both the birth and destruction of all

things occur in and through the

apeiron, the "from out of which ...".

Since all things flow back into

the apeiron, and out of it again, for

all eternity, the injustice spoken of

must itself be something that

passes away, and is therefore not

an injustice against a metaphysical

or cosmological order. The injustice

is rather an injustice committed

against existing beings by existing

beings, and is made possible by

the fact that all beings carry withthem, as their ownmost possibility,


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the unlimited potential of/that is

the apeiron. The injustice is the

very attempt, by these beings, to

utilize this eternally productive

principle for the purpose of

establishing their own existence for

all eternity, and over-against

the apeiron, as Being, the Limited

( peras): the same metaphysically

static 'entity' that later onto-

theology came to equate with God.

Anaximander's understanding of

the primal source, which I feel we

are correct to refer to as the

Divinity, theios, "the ever-flowing,"

is such that he is able to leave

room, in the cosmos, for the

manifest reality of injustice andstrife, while never abandoning a

belief in the eternal power and

fecundity of the Deity. As Werner

Jaeger has pointed out, this

doctrine of Anaximander "is

something more than a mere

explanation of nature: it is the first

philosophical theodicy." [20] It was

only later, with the advent of the

Platonic conception of God as the

eternal and immutable source

or arkhê situated "beyond being"

(epekeina tês ousias), [21] that the

problem of how to account for the

presence of evil in the world


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became a radically difficult

question. This was all the more

marked precisely because the

Platonic conception of God did not

allow any negative predicates -

indeed, it was limited . The Platonic

God could only be the Good, the

Eternal, the Just, etc.

Anaximander's dynamic conception

of the Deity was completely left

behind. The issue becomes even

more complex when we realize that

the metaphysical conception of

God developed in Platonic

philosophy was the concrete

representation of the very injustice

mentioned by Anaximander - that

is, the principle of staticity, of

Being, was given absolute primacy

over the productive force of

Becoming, to the extent that the

visible, sensible - i.e., changeable

and "flowing" - world was degraded

to the status of a mere illusion.

This metaphysical conception of

the Deity, and the philosophy that

came to be based upon it, held

sway throughout the centuries, and

exercised its influence upon the

Hellenistic mind to a profound

degree. By the time of the

emergence of the Christian

kerygma, this Platonic philosophy


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was already firmly entrenched, and

provided the language and

concepts with which theologically

minded individuals conceived of the

Deity. It is therefore no accident

that the New Testament came to

be written, as Jaroslav Pelikan has

remarked, "in the Greek of

Socrates and Plato, or at any rate

in a reasonably accurate facsimile

thereof." [22] However, we must

ask whether the mere use of

philosophical or metaphysical

language, in the New Testament, is

evidence that the conception of the

Deity expressed through that

language is also, itself,

metaphysical.

The 'Myth' of the

Incarnate Logos

Rudolph Bultmann, in his

Existentialist analysis of the Cross

and the Resurrection, has shown

us that the deeper meaning of

these events, as expressed in the

New Testament, although in

mythical language, is not itself

mythical, and can indeed survive

the process of "demythologization."

[23] It must be kept in mind,

however, that the events or

doctrines that Bultmann wasdemythologizing are not strictu


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sensu "metaphysical" events; they

are events of an historical

character, albeit expressed

mythically. By removing the

mythical language from the

explanation, or expression of the

meaning, of these events,

Bultmann was able, all the more

easily, to fall back upon the

Existentialist interpretation that he

was already prepared to employ.

But what of the Incarnation? The

task of "demythologizing" that

supremely metaphysical or 'cosmic'

doctrine is rendered all the more

difficult precisely because

Existentialism does not possess

the language to describe it. That is

to say, this event is not of an

existential nature; it is not historical,

precisely because it exceeds

history, belonging, as it does, to a

process originating and culminating

in the godhead. It is perhaps for

this very reason that Bultmann did

not attempt to demythologize the

Incarnation, but rather left its

mythical meaning intact, by

describing it as an article of faith.

He of course recognized the

mythical character of the doctrine

of the Incarnation, as expressed in

the New Testament, but he alsorecognized, tacitly, that it need not


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be understood mythically. When he

wrote, toward the end of Jesus

Christ and Mythology , that "[w]hen

we speak of God as acting, we do

not speak mythologically in the

objectifying sense," [24] Bultmann

was referring to a manner of

perceiving God's activity in our lives

that is not metaphysical, in the

sense of a transcendent being

acting uponus, but rather personal,

in the sense of a divine power

acting or manifesting

itself within us, in the course of a

life lived, and dependent upon our

own decision to either tend to or

ignore the promise of this divine

presence.

The problem with this interpretation

is that it places the power of the

divine logos at the mercy of the

human being, and, as I said of Carl

Raschke's notion of the "kenotic

consummation of thelogos," leads

to the secularization of the Deity.

For when we demythologize

the logos, by refusing to speak of

the act of God apart from the

human reception or recognition of

that act, we are not only removing

the myth from the logos, but

the logos from the myth! The

question we must ask is whether


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the Incarnation of the Logos, as

expressed in the New Testament,

can be 'de-mythed,' while leaving

the logos intact. To answer this

question, we must first discover the

relation between mythical thought

and metaphysical philosophy.

The development within ancient

Greek philosophy, which led from

Anaximander's dynamic conception

of the deity to the purelymetaphysical conception that we

find in Plato, is as varied and

complex as the thinkers who

contributed to it; however, one

thing is clear: that Plato, more than

any other thinker, is responsible for

the birth of metaphysical thinking,and the theology that came to

depend upon it for so many

centuries. When we reflect upon

the scientific rigor and critical

thought with which Aristotle

approached the doctrines

contained in his own Metaphysics,

it may seem striking that Plato

relied heavily on myth in order to

express his own metaphysical

doctrines. Yet this is only striking if

we fail to recall, or to appreciate the

fact, that Plato was not, himself,

returning to an earlier mode of

mythical thinking that had now


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become outmoded or obsolete in

the face of the 'scientific' approach

of the Pre-Socratic thinkers, but

was rather positing a brand new

way of thinking about the Deity.

That Plato permitted himself

recourse to myths and mythical

conceptions in those parts of

his Dialogues that deal with these

'theological' issues, serves to show,

I believe, that he was utilizing the

language of the earlier mythic

mode of thinking in order to better

explain or elucidate his own entirely

new conception of the Deity.

We have already seen how for

Anaximander the divinity was

conceived in dynamic, productiveterms, and described as being

thoroughly immanent in the realm

of existence. Plato entirely

abandoned this way of thinking,

and presented us with a view of the

Deity (still prevalent today) in which

God is described as changeless,

eternal, static, at rest with Himself -

and hence Limited. The reasons for

Plato's conceiving of God in this

way are complex, and I shall not

discuss them here; however, it will

suffice to say that with Platonism

two important changes occurred in

humankind's thinking about God.


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These changes are: (1.) the spatial

positing of God or the Divine Realm

as outside the cosmos (as opposed

to the immanence of the

Anaximandrean apeiron) and

therefore "beyond being"; and (2.)

the idea that the thoughts in the

mind of God, the Forms, are

essences that precede substance,

and that all reality is comprised of

the images produced or rendered

possible by these eternal,

intellectual 'seeds'. [25]

The result of these conceptions are

two distinct realms, that of the

senses or matter, where human

existence plays itself out, and the

realm of the Deity, which thehuman mind can only grasp or

understand after it has ceased to

be human - that is, when it has

become like that upon which it

gazes. [26] No longer is the Deity

experienced in/as immediacy; in

order to know God, according to

Plato, one must abandon the realm

of the immediate, that is, of the

senses. Whereas the Pre-

Socratics, for the most part, saw in

the immediate manifestations of

productive power a direct

theophany (which is why Thales

could say that all things are full of


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gods, i.e., water, his productive

principle), for Plato, the direct

display of productive or natural

power was of a lower order, since it

involved change - albeit change

following a fixed law, but change

nonetheless, and hence un-divine.

It is important to note that Plato's

ideal was salvation through

knowledge, and all of his myths, in

the Dialogues, are concerned withthe various aspects of this journey

of the soul, or else with the

structure and nature of the cosmos

containing this soul. Therefore, the

mythologizing of Plato is done from

an existential standpoint, and not

from a strictu sensu theologicalone. It is safe to say that, for Plato,

there is no point in directly

discussing God, since He or It is

changeless, and so there is nothing

to talk about! However, with the

rise of Christianity, all the talk was

not only about God, but about the

way He acted in history, and

became wholly human, for the

salvation of all humans. When this

divine event, the Incarnation, is

understood within the limited

confines of the Platonic conception

of the Deity, then it is truly a

'mystery' or, depending upon one's


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attitude, "foolishness," a "stumbling

block." However, when we think the

Incarnation along the lines of

Anaximander's conception of

the apeiron as productive

possibility, we find, in the notion of

the "Logos made flesh" the very

possibility of a return to a manner

of thinking about God as the

immanent possibility of existence,

while preserving the necessity of

the Platonic notion of supreme - if

not absolute - transcendence that

is so necessary for the Christian

kerygma.

When St. Paul wrote, in his Epistle

to the Philippians, that Christ

"emptied himself" (eauton ekenôse;Phil. 2:7), and in 2 Corinthians 2:9

that He "became poor" or lowly

(eptôkheuse), we are being told

that Christ, the Logos, relinquished

His divinity when He became

human. When these passages are

read with the Platonic conception of

the Deity in mind, we cannot help

thinking, even if only fancifully, that

God emptied Himself of His divine

substance, and that this substance

somehow became scattered

throughout the material realm in the

form of logoi spermatikoi , and that

our salvation consists in our


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rendering back to God these lost

seeds of divinity. This idea is only

farfetched to us, because we have

had the benefit of two thousand

years of largely Platonic-

Aristotelian exegesis of the New

Testament, much of which has

served to soften the bold mythical

attitude of this early utterance of

Christian faith, without ever coming

to question the notion of God that

lurks behind the language. The

early Gnostics, of course, thought

about salvation precisely in this

crude - to us - mythical manner.

Early in the Christian era this

doctrine of the "redeemed

redeemer" was quite popular,

especially within the highly

mythological Manichaean religion.

[27] In fact, it is quite easy to

'blame' Christianity for the gradual

lapse of the Platonic philosophy

into a highly mythical attitude,

replete with ritual magic or

"theurgy," which became the rule

by the time of Iamblichus in the

fourth century. The reason for all of

this is to be found in the supreme

paradox that the language used by

the New Testament writers (almost

without exception) to describe God

is derived from Platonicmetaphysics, [28] and yet the


27/41

underlying message is thoroughly

un-Platonic and indeed 'mythical,'

insofar as it involves a doctrine of a

purely divine force or entity, the

Logos, becoming entangled, as it

were, in history - in that ever-

flowing realm known as Becoming

which, to the Platonists, had always

held the character of, if not an

outright illusion, at least - and

especially among Gnostics - of

something inferior to and ever

separated from the Divine.

The affront to reason,

the skandalon, of the Christian

kerygma, was its key doctrine that

one is not required to ascend to

union with God, but rather toaccept God as He has descended

to humanity - in the form, not only

of a man, but of a servant

(morphên doulou; Philippians 2:7).

The mistake, made by the Gnostics

and others, was to think that the

purpose of this divine descent was

to raise human beings up to the

Deity; it was impossible for these

early exegetes, so steeped in the

Platonic philosophy, to understand

that God Himself chose to incline

towards humanity, giving Himself

as a gift that would restore

humanity to its primeval status as


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the image (eikona; Gen. 1:26 LXX)

of God. This meant, not that human

beings would be transformed into

gods, as the Gnostics believed, but

rather that they would come to be

"sharers in the divine nature"

(theias koinônoi phuseôs; 2 Peter

1:4). The method of salvation

described in the New Testament,

then, does not involve a once-for-

all cosmic act of God, but a

receptivity and decision on the part

of humanity - to dwell with/in God.

As St. Paul wrote: "in Him all the

fullness [ plêrôma] was pleased to

dwell" (Colossians 1:19).

What is being broached here is a

union of humanity with God inwhich the human is not only

preserved, but perfected, and

rendered capable of persisting not

as a self-willed and finite human

being, destined for death, but as a

human being who is an image of

God, and hence destined for an

eternally fecund persistence in

Becoming. The fact that humanity

as a whole is implicated in this

schema, as evidenced by the use

of the term "fullness" (which was a

common Gnostic term for the

totality of spiritual beings, with

which the redeemed human being


29/41

was believed to join), shows that

there is no notion, in this schema,

of a cosmic - i.e., spatio-temporal -

division between the material or

human realm, and the realm of the

divine, as Platonic philosophy

taught, but only of an existential or

'psychological' division between

human and Deity.

According to the Christian

kerygma, this breach both occurredand was healed within history, as

part of a divine process, with the

result that God, the Logos, is now

immanent within His creation as the

possibility of all existence, just as

Anaximander's apeiron was

immanent as the possibility ofgeneration and decay, and the

possibility of Becoming as the

eternal Good, over-against Being,

which is, in itself, the merely static.

The fact that this movement or

return from a static conception of

God as Being, to a dynamic

conception of God as the eternal,

and immanent , possibility of all

Becoming, was made possible by

and through the doctrine of the

Incarnation of the Logos, shows

that, far from being the supremely

mythical idea that it has often been

taken to be, the Incarnation was,


30/41

itself, an attempt to

"demythologize" the Platonically-

derived idea of salvation, which

held that the human being must

rise to God, and, by so doing,

relinquish his or her humanity or

personality in the process. This

latter, Platonic conception of

salvation presents a 'myth' of a

wholly different order - that of the

heroic quest for the homeland.

Indeed, this myth goes back to

Homer's Odysseus. However, by

the Late Hellenistic era, the

"homeland" was no longer Ithaca,

an idyllic island within the world,

but an hypostatized Pleroma held

to exist "beyond being," to which all

souls would rise only after leaving

behind the body and all its

accretions.

The Platonic or metaphysical view

of salvation, then, is not really a

salvation of the human being, but

rather, and paradoxically, a

salvation of the human

being from Humanity! The Christian

idea of salvation, which can only be

comprehended and experienced

through the Incarnation, is truly a

salvation of Humanity, for it brings

all human beings together, as the

"fullness," within God as the image


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of God - but also as a

thoroughly human Humanity.

Conclusion

My purpose here has been twofold:

to show that it is still possible to

speak meaningfully of

transcendence in general, as well

as, more specifically, to speak

meaningfully of the Incarnation. I

felt obliged to accomplish the latter

task by showing in what way the

doctrine of the Incarnation -

understood as the response, on the

part of an early community of

believers to an historical, revelatory

event - served the perhaps

unintended purpose of 'de-mything'

the earlier Platonic notion of a

human ascent to God by turning

the attention of individuals to the

immanent manner in which

God inclines toward us. To

experience this inclination of God

toward humanity is to

actuallyexperience transcendence,

to understand or grasp the

transcendent not as an abstraction,

but as an ontologically or

existentially valid event .

Anaximander's idea of the infinite

yet always immanent possibility for

existence opened up by and with/inthe apeiron serves as a


32/41

philosophical or ahistorical basis

upon which to speak of the

incarnationality of the apeiron itself,

which is brought before human

understanding in the historical

'event' of Jesus Christ. My success

in accomplishing the former task, of

course, is completely dependent

upon my success is carrying out

the latter task.

One unintended consequence ofthis endeavor has been the

opening up to thought of the

possibility that, due to the

immanence of the apeiron and its

incarnationality, there may be

multiple incarnations, or at least

more than one. [29] This is a veryimportant matter for further

thinking, since it threatens not only

to take us beyond the confines of a

strictly Christian philosophical

theology, but to actually undermine

my purpose in this undertaking. In

conclusion, therefore, I will merely

add a few words that will, I hope,

lead us, not to an immediate

answer, but to a larger arena for

thought.

It is my belief that, philosophically,

Anaximander's apeiron represents

an originary moment in thinking - amoment more pluralistic than


33/41

Heidegger's alêtheia, and not as

delimiting - a moment that, once

thought, is not repeated,

but remembered , held close in

thought as the uncanny

immanence of the eternal flow of

Becoming. Was

this apeiron forgotten, then, or lost

in later conceptualization,

like alêtheia, according to

Heidegger, was lost behind the

idea of truth as correctness in

representation? We may only say

that the apeiron was forgotten if its

nature is such that it should be

remembered - i.e., if we think of

remembering as conceptualizing. If

that is the case, then surely any

attempt at conceptualizing

the apeiron would lead to its loss

within Being, which would, of

course, be an injustice, on

Anaximander's terms. However, the

loss of the apeironwithin Being

would also open up the possibility

for another incarnation, for what is

lost and forgotten is always

capable of (re)appearing for the

first time. Let us say, rather, that

the apeiron requires constantly to

be brought to our attention, so that

we may utilize and "partake" of this

immanent and infinitely powerfulsource of existence. In that sense,


34/41

there can only be one presentation

or incarnation of the apeiron, which

must, of necessity, take on an

historical character. Historical

events or persons are never really

forgotten or lost; they simply

require to be brought to attention,

or re-presented, in ever new ways

and contexts. There is only ever a

single presentation, which then

makes possible all subsequent re-

presentations. The Incarnation of

Christ was the unique presentation

of God within history, with the result

that any further re-presentations or

re-incarnations of the unique

Godhead must be understood or

interpreted in light of the initial

presentation - the Incarnation.

End Notes

[1] An earlier version of this essay

was presented at the 53rd Annual

Northwest Conference on

Philosophy , held at Washington

State University, October 12-13,

2001. I would like to thank

Professor Michael W. Myers, of the

Department of Philosophy at

Washington State University, for

his challenging and insightful

commentary on that earlier version,

which has aided me greatly in mysubsequent revision, and has led


35/41

me to new paths of thinking on this

subject.

[2] Bultmann's program of

"demythologization" was introduced

in his 1941 essay entitled "New

Testament and Mythology"

(published in Bartsch, ed. Kerygma

and Myth, New York: Harper and

Row 1961).

[3] Kerygma and Myth, p. 3.

[4] Jacques Derrida, Of

Grammatology , tr. Spivak

(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins

University Press 1974). Cf. esp.

Part 2, "Nature, Culture, Writing."

[5] Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of

the Idols, tr. Kaufmann, in The

Portable Nietzsche (New York:

Viking Penguin 1968), p. 483.

[6] Cf. Plato, Phaedrus 275d-276a

ff.

[7] Carl A. Raschke, "The

Deconstruction of God,"in Deconstruction and

Theology (New York: Crossroad

Publishing Company 1982), p. 14.

[8] Deconstruction and Theology , p.

14.

[9] Deconstruction and Theology , p.

31.


36/41

[10] ex ôn de ê genesis esti tois

ousi kai tên phthoran eis tauta

ginesthai kata to khreôn. didonai

gar auta dikên kai tisin allêlois tês

adikias kata tên tou khronou taxin.

Anaximander, fragment B 1 (Diels),

my translation. The fragment is

preserved in

Simplicius' Commentary on the

Physics 24.13-25.

[11] Martin Heidegger, "The Anaximander Fragment," in Early

Greek Thinking (New York: Harper

and Row 1984), p. 13.

[12] Simplicius lived to witness the

closing of the Platonic Academy in

Athens, by the Emperor Justinian,

in 529 CE.

[13] Cf. Heidegger, "What Calls for

Thinking?" in Basic Writings, ed.

Krell (New York: HarperCollins

1993).

[14] Although Heidegger is not

often referred to as a philosopherof the 'concept,' I believe that his

notions of 'being-toward-death,'

'Care' (Sorge), and most of all, his

understanding of Being as that

which conceals as it reveals (based

on his analysis of the Greek

term alêtheia) together produce a

'concept-world' that may or not be


37/41


38/41

predicative notion." He goes on to

explain that 'the divine' (theios), as

an adjective, referred to anything

that was felt to exceed the human

being.

"Any power, any force we see at

work in the world, which is not born

with us and will continue after we

are gone could thus be called a

god, and most of them were.

It was not only the adjective divine

(theios) that could be applied to

anything greater and more lasting

than man, but even the

noun theos was constantly used in

such a vague way that it cannot be

translated god without making

nonsense. The Milesian

philosophers, for example,

called theosthe substratum of the

physical world for which they

sought, so that when Thales said

the world was full of gods he may

only have meant that it was full of

water!" (Grube, pp. 150-151).

But even if that were all Thales

meant, he would still have been

referring not to the simple element

of water, but rather to the power or

force inherent in water. For water,

according to Thales (as his thought

has come down to us) was


39/41

a generative principle, not a mere

substratum or foundation - i.e., this

'primal substance' was not

considered to be static.

[20] Jaeger, The Theology of the

Early Greek Philosophers, p. 36.

[21] Plato, Republic 509b.

[22] Jaroslav Pelikan, Christianity

and Classical Culture: The

Metamorphosis of NaturalTheology in the Christian

Encounter with Hellenism (New

Haven: Yale University Press

1993), p. 3.

[23] Bultmann, Kerygma and Myth,

esp. pp. 34-44.

[24] Bultmann, Jesus Christ and

Mythology (New York: Charles

Scribner's Sons 1958), p. 62.

[25] While Plato, in the Dialogues,

never systematically explains or

posits this conception of the Deity,

we know that his immediatesuccessor in the Academy,

Speusippus, taught that Plato

posited a One that is beyond being

and wholly changeless. In fact,

Speusippus went so far as to deny

this One the status of a 'first

principle' (arkhê); rather, he

bestowed this distinction upon the


40/41

Dyad, or the Unlimited Principle,

which is ordered or governed by

the One, the principle of Limit . The

belief that the Forms are "thoughts

in the Mind of God" is first

attributed to Antiochus of Ascalon

(fl. 110 BCE). It is, however,

possible that this notion was so

commonly accepted, that it did not

require any explicit formulation by

the teachers of the Old Academy -

such is my conjecture. For more

information, see John Dillon, The

Middle Platonists (Ithaca: Cornell

University Press 1977).

[26] Cf. Plato, Republic 508c-d, and

518a-d. The idea that the self is

lost in this vision of the Good isproblematical. For an alternative

interpretation, see my essay,

"Salvation and the Human Ideal:

Plato, Plotinus, Origen," in

the Proceedings of the First Annual

Conference of the Ancient

Philosophy Society , Villanova

University 2001.

[27] Cf. my article on "Gnosticism,"

in The Internet Encyclopedia of

Philosophy , esp. the section "Mani

and Manichaeism."

http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/g/

gnostic.htm


41/41

[28] This does not necessarily

mean that there was a self-

conscious usage of Platonic

language on the part of the New

Testament writers. Indeed, the

most striking examples of

Platonism in the New Testament -

e.g. the Gospel of John and the

Epistle to the Hebrews, as well as

numerous sections of the Pauline

Epistles where the spirit-soul-body

distinction is broached - are filtered

through Gnosticism. This serves to

show, however, how prevalent the

Platonic conception of the Deity, in

its various historical forms, had

become by the time of early

Christianity.

[29] This possibility was brought to

my attention by Professor Michael

W. Myers, in his commentary on an

earlier draft of this essay (see note

1).

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