Douglas Hedley
Appearances
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
Dr. Headley. My name is Douglas Headley, and I teach the philosophy of religion at the University of Cambridge. And I have a particular interest in Christian Platonism, and particularly what I might call the Neoplatonic version of that strand of thought.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
And from this perspective of my work in the history of philosophy, I've always been struck by the extent of theology as a crucial, no pun intended, backdrop to Western thought. And yet philosophers are often either oblivious to this or consciously ignore it. Now, the gospel narrative is absolutely central to this Western intellectual tradition.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
And yet this gospel tradition, this gospel narrative is, as a couple of people have already mentioned, both astonishing in its claims and very profoundly familiar, almost too familiar in a sense. You referred to the death of Christianity. I think that's putting it a bit too harshly.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
But nevertheless, it is the case that Christianity has been through a fiery furnace in terms of the Enlightenment critique of its central claims. Now, I think from a philosophical point of view, from a theological point of view, we do have to take those criticisms seriously. and consider the questions of meaning and truth.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
That having been said, there is, I think, a profound hunger for these philosophical and theological questions that we find expressed, I find personally, in an inexpressibly beautiful manner in the Gospels. And so, I'm very much looking forward to the forthcoming discussions.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
May I just add to that, in terms of the text, there were two words here that are very difficult to translate into English. And one, of course, is logos, which can mean, obviously, word, proposition, meaning, story. The resonance of that word is very rich. But also the word that's translated as beginning, the ache, because in the Greek philosophical tradition, that word is used for God.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
So, and there are reasons why this should be the case, but the is a term which has a very powerful theological meaning within the Greek philosophical tradition. It's the first principle. It's the source of all reality. So one way of looking at this is to say, well,
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
In the source, there was the word, i.e., to say the Trinitarian reading, although that sounds like an absurd Christian interjection of a much later period, you could see that as making perfect sense with just these initial words.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
The other interesting aspect about that passage as well is that What we read as in the beginning is using another very important word in Greek philosophy, and that word is the ache, which means beginning, which means source, principle. And that usage is also very interesting. So in ancient Greek, in the philosophical tradition, the word God is not... So theos is not used for the first principle.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
The word that is used is this word, achei. So the fact that we start off this prologue with these terms which resonate with profound metaphysical questions is, I think, of profound significance.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
The most incomprehensible fact of the universe is its comprehensibility. That's the Einsteinian thought.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
So are you saying then that the microcosm, macrocosm structure is both significant anthropologically and in terms of the theology of the incarnation.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
This is the apocalyptic eschatological context and one might say mood, isn't it? So maybe this fits in with your setting the scene. Yeah. And this is a period when we know that there were these various groups emerging in this Jewish context. It's a symbolic prefiguring.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
And by the way, just on Dennis' point, I think actually it's fairly... fairly clear that, you know, this is the power of the highest. And that's a literal, very literal translation. And also that this is hagion, it's the holy thing. And then the huios theou, it is the son of God. So I think actually the... You see it again. This is not any human being.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
Just two points. Great things from lowly beginning. Just about Augustus and whether fragile or endangered state of the child, Augustus is also... the emperor in this period of extraordinary stability for the Roman Empire. So it's also a good time for Jesus to be born because... Pax Romana. Exactly, exactly. So I think there's the tyrant element, the false deity, but also it's auspicious.
Global News Podcast
US demands Panama 'reduce China's influence' over canal
And the second point about his vulnerability, but again, the emphasis on David... This is the Davidic house, so it's in a manger. There's no room in the inn, but the emphasis again, this is the true successor of David.