Timaeus' Prelude

by Plato

4 minutes • 712 words

Critias

Timaeus is the most of an astronomer amongst us. He has made the nature of the universe his special study. He should speak first, beginning with the generation of the world and going down to the creation of man.

Next, I am to receive the men whom he has created, and of whom some will have profited by the excellent education which you have given them.

And then, in accordance with the tale of Solon and his law, we will bring them into court and make them citizens, as if they were those very Athenians whom the sacred Egyptian record has recovered from oblivion. From there, we will speak of them as Athenians and fellow-citizens.

TIMAEUS:

All men who have any degree of right feeling, at the beginning of every enterprise always call on God.

We also invoke the aid of Gods and Goddesses as we talk about the nature and creation of the universe.

What is that which always is and has no becoming? What is that which is always becoming and never is?

That which is apprehended by intelligence and reason is always in the same state.

But that which is conceived by opinion with the help of sensation and without reason, is always in a process of becoming and perishing and never really is.

Everything that becomes or is created must necessarily be created by some cause. Without a cause, nothing can be created.

The work of the Creator must necessarily be fair and perfect.

But when he looks to the created only, and uses a created pattern, it is not fair or perfect.

Was the heaven or the world always in existence and without beginning? Or was it created, and had it a beginning?*

Superphysics Note

Timaeus uses the created angle to explain how physical reality works. Whereas Superphysics believes in both non-created and created angles. The non-created is the Nirguna Brahma or the Absolute Entity and the created angle is the journey from the Absolute into the Supreme Entity or Saguna Brahma. The kew feature of the Supreme Entity is a natural hierarchy wherein the aether is superior and matter is the inferion. This is why money cannot buy true happiness or anything lasting, which can only be acquired by aethereal spirituality.

It was created. It is visible and tangible and has a body. Therefore, it is sensible.

All sensible things are apprehended by opinion and sense and are in a process of creation and created.

Whatever is created must necessarily be created by a cause.

But the father and maker of all this universe is beyond finding out. Even if we found him, it would be impossible to tell of him to all men.

Which of the patterns did the artificer have in view when he made the world? The pattern of the unchangeable, or of that which is created?

If the world is indeed fair and the artificer is good, then he must have looked to that which is eternal.

Every one will see that he must have looked to the eternal; for the world is the fairest of creations and he is the best of causes.

The world has been framed in the likeness of that which is apprehended by reason and mind and is unchangeable.
Therefore it is necessarily a copy of something.

It is all-important that the beginning of everything should be according to nature.

And in speaking of the copy and the original we may assume that words are akin to the matter which they describe;

When creation relates to the lasting, permanent, and intelligible, then they should be:

lasting and unalterable, and
as far as their nature allows, irrefutable and immovable—nothing less.

But when creation expresses only the copy or likeness and not the eternal things themselves, they need only be likely and analogous to the real words.

Being is to becoming just as truth to belief.

In our opinions about the gods and the generation of the universe, our notions are not altogether and in every respect exact and consistent with one another. But do not be surprised.

It is enough if we adduce probabilities as likely as any others, since we are only mortal men
We should accept the tale which is probable and enquire no further.