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The good within hearing
Plato believed that our inability to nominate the unequivocal and universal good beyond the variable contingencies of human existence is precisely what sustains an ideal of goodness. Plato’s vision of the good is a perennial desire for a universal and reasoned ideal of the just and true—that is, righteousness. This ideal is as present today as it was in the fifth century BC. Biblical testimony provides a different perspective of the good that is particular as personal and vocative as “the good within hearing.” v In Plato’s cave allegory, our limited perspective on life is likened to people in a subterranean cave within which they can only see fire-light shadows cast on the cave wall; they assume these shadows are real. One person is apprehended and taken into the light—of the definitive good beyond time and change. Yet this new vision is not communicable to others who are fixated on the mesmerising shadows, generating many opinions in this theatre of opinion. Plato’s cave allegory depicts the universal good or righteousness (dikaiosyne), which is central to the Republic. The good is not to be confused with shadows of human life amid change. The sun is a figure of the ideal good illumining all virtue, beyond opinions over shadows in the dissembling cave of existence; beyond sight and objects, the sun produces visibility as true knowledge of the good. Having been wrested from the cave theatre and taken into the light so as to gain a true vision of the good, the enlightened sojourner is now equipped with an ability to discern and to interpret conflicting opinions in the shadows of existence. Yet in the cave allegory, Plato demonstrates that even if someone is able to leave the cave of opinion and come into the world of light and transparency of knowledge, its announcement to others on return to the cave remains beyond the powers of explanation. The descent from sunlit clarity to semi-darkness among others is disorientating, with the potential for ridicule and rejection. On return to the cave, it is not a matter of informing a passive audience about a vision of light—“the good beyond being.” Instead, in the cave, each continues to vie with the others in guessing the next event in the shadow drama. The returning sojourner has not only to compete with the existing opinions in a popular forum, but must do so with the disadvantage of appearing to be blind and mistaken or even a deceiver. Some interpret Plato’s image of a good beyond contingency and opinion as representing an impasse in the quest for the good underpinning dikaiosyne (righteousness). If it exists, we cannot know it as it is. It is beyond the realm of phenomena and change in which human life is immersed. In this view, Plato suggests that while the truth of the purely just life may exist, it cannot be known as it is in itself. The good beyond existence cannot be assimilated into a philosophical doctrine or a political ideology. For others, the cave allegory illustrates our desire for a universal ideal of the good, which is known by an enlightened few who can articulate and therefore supposedly secure the just and true within human life. In these two views, Plato’s vision of the good is either resistant to ideology as the good beyond change and opinion or it promotes a philosophically reasoned but elite idealism of the just and true. The latter was a post-Enlightenment quest that is still present today. Biblical testimony articulates a perspective of the good that is particular, resisting abstract, elitist and potentially tyrannical ideologies of the just and true. The reign of God is not the same as Plato’s ideal good beyond the contingencies of human life. In biblical testimony, goodness is vocative as the good within hearing. v In binary logic, opposite terms such as “good” and “evil” define opposing views of reality. This presents the task of defining the essential nature of one term, such as the definitive good and its opposite, in order to interpret every lesser instance of either as nearer or further from the assumed definition of good or evil. Whoever nominates what is good is able to define lesser expressions of the deputed good. Whoever nominates what is good is also an issue of power, even tyranny, either through marshalling correct opinion or by imposing legislation concerning the good. In biblical testimony, God alone defines what is good. Goodness or righteousness exists by the vocative word of God and our tangible response. The good is called into being, after God’s creativity to call to be what is not by a word. The vocative word distinguishes what is good in the face of nothingness or chaos; this is eventful in our response. This distinction is volitional and vocational as our tangible response. The good is distinguished through the word of God and our hearing response by contrast to sin as refusal and rejection. The good is not beyond our existence as an ideal but present as relational by response to another. As tangible, righteousness is summoned by a word and made tangible in our responsibilities. The vocative word calls forth distinctions by virtue of calling to decisions and actions that distinguish. Distinction is therefore volitional and vocational. We are changed by our decisions in each movement from pre-decision to post-decision. Our existence in time as relational and ethical is punctuated with decisions in response to the vocative word that summons in love. The good is tangible as eventful in response to the word of God that summons its reality. Biblical narrative is loaded with scenes of eventful encounter and response. Meaning is personal but not ephemeral. The vocative word also speaks as we eavesdrop on the stories of others in their experiences of encounter and response. Imaginative empathy is invoked as listening, we identify with the experience of characters in Scripture who also eavesdrop on previous testimony. We are required to lean closer and to listen intently with receptive intelligent hearts, rather than draw back to gain a presumed panoramic perspective that is easily lent to imperious adjudications. Hearing places a premium on face to face accountability before another. God addresses us personally, summoning, not our opinions about the content of our texts but a relationship through their pervasive vocative sense. The relationship between vocative word, response and responsible relationships is paramount. A word otherwise permeates New Testament testimony, calling forth our response from beyond the resources of human reason, surveillance and adjudication. It is also the word that calls forth our existence as the tangible locale of righteousness to which we give testimony. Testimony is a perennial means of distinguishing between competing possibilities. Testimony relies on faith in hearing that gives credit to the word by tangible response. v The enduring good is neither located somewhere within changing phenomena, which Plato contests, nor beyond being, which Plato affirmed. It is neither anchored in conventions nor abstract as elitist ideals but exists in a vocative and trusting relationship, registered in the biblical relay of call and response, which has its definitive expression in the paradox of God with us in Christ. God is otherwise than us and our opinions about life yet disclosed in clarity by Christ the vocative Word of life. In Christian testimony, ultimate reality as righteous is also personal as vocative in summoning our response within a context of profound intimacy and responsibility before God among others as the good within hearing.
Sources: Levinas Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority; Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence; Plato The Republic Bk. VII. |
