I recently finished Plato’s Republic. It is a long conversation that considers the merit of practicing justice. It eventually blows up into a macro view of what the “ideal” city would look like. While it is replete with logical fallacies, the way it walks through arguments and reveals the speaker’s values is quite interesting.
One of the biggest catalysts of thought was Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.
I had a vague recollection of talking through this allegory in undergrad and remember being required to read but don’t recall actually reading it. In Republic, Plato, through his character Socrates, employs the allegory to talk about the kind of leaders that should be leading the people of a city.
The allegory is that of men limited to living in a cave looking at shadows, falsely thinking they look at reality. When one escapes the cave and sees light, fully experiencing all it touches, he is finally able to properly see reality. If he then goes back to his neighbors in the cave, he is best suited to lead them toward reality because he has seen it, and because he has lived in the cave and knows what it is like to be transfixed with shadows. (Book 7)
The allegory was used to point to the need for a leader to be versed in philosophy and knowledge, but my mind took the allegory and saw the ramifications of the Gospel. We are the ones trapped in the cave, looking at mere shadows, thinking they are the extent of reality when they are but imitations. As we come out of the cave and begin to see light, we see things as they truly are.
We see the brokenness of our prior state and the presence of grace permeating our lives. We see that the Savior Creator has made us, redeemed us, and is worth glorifying. We see that the things we used to glory in were shadows and realize the insufficiencies of the shadows we used to be enamored by. We thought the small things could hold the weight of life and glory but really they are tools that, in their proper context, point us back to the light. Family. Work. Marriage. Joy. All of these are only shadows if not seen in the light.
The shadow of marriage is fragile until you realize you sit in a glorious picture of Christ’s love for his Church. The gift of children could be taken as a weight or glorified beyond its station to idol until we see that relationship as a picture of Father God lovingly bringing us up into sonship in Christ. In addition, it is an opportunity to call your own out of the cave. The examples are numerous.
Those who see the light are those best suited to run back into the cave and explain the light to those who still sit in darkness—trapped in their shortsighted view of reality. The whole allegory seemed to put legs on the metaphorical language used by John in the New Testament. He often talks about walking in the light, living in the light, realizing the light is here (Jn 12:35, 1:5, 3:19). He plays the darkness against the light and begs us to abandon the shadows and the death that dwells there and glory in the light.
John was a former cave dweller that saw the light and invites us to true reality illuminated by the light he experienced. He calls us out of the cave.