Thrice Removed From The Truth

(WARNING! This is typically incomplete, long, but hopefully worth the read.)

In Book 10 of Plato’s Republic, Socrates makes a statement of, “…imitations thrice removed from the truth, and could easily be made without any knowledge of the truth”.

The principle of being “thrice removed from the truth” is discussed in detail using poets, writers, (Homer) and painters as an example. In concept, the “removed from truth” principle speaks of emulation of the original, but not being the original itself or able to reproduce the original in its natural or pure form. They (artist & writers) imitate imperfectly, and not replicate completely.

People who we often esteemed as creators are often nothing more than imitators. This carries over into all of life, not just poets and painters.

 An imitator can be a person of great intellect and creative powers. They could also be a dolt.

Are we copying or are we creating?

Professionally speaking, whenever I discover that I am in fact, an imitator and not a creator, is when I make a quantum shift into another direct. It isn’t an issue of a need for uniqueness, it’s much more utilitarian than that. If there are 1,000 widgets all attempting to clone the original, what use is 1,001 widgets? Why not become a wadget that is original in thought, creativity or function?

It seems that everyone, consciously or not, wants to be like (Fill in the blank), if not a specific person, then their idea or caricature of someone, some essence or being.

Why copy what exists?

For example, what are your thoughts and opinions? Not Rush Limbaugh’s, or Obama’s, or Aquinas’s, or Thomas Payne’s, or Charles Spurgeon’s or Carl Sagan’s, but yours. What do you think and why?

Don’t be an imitator and regurgitate what someone else thinks and call it your own. Well, in a sense, it would be your own, for as we learned in Plato’s example of being thrice removed from the truth, the act of imitating makes an imperfect facsimile of the original. No matter how exacting you are, you will always fail, falter or alter the “truth”, as Plato calls it.

The Exception

There is one exception. We are to strive to the best of our natural and supernatural abilities to be imitators of THE truth, the truth which is Jesus Christ.

Christ is our perfect example of being a perfect imitator of the truth.

“Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.” (John 5:19)

“For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.” (John 12:49).

Jesus imitated and emulated God, perfectly.

And when it comes to the Bible, be an imitator as well. Jesus was. All Jesus did when He preached in the synagogue was to open the Bible, read, and then sit down.

“And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him” (Luke 4:17-20).

Jesus imitated and emulated the Bible, perfectly.

We must understand, accept and proclaim the truth of Jesus and the Bible as they are, and not as we would like them to be or think them to be. Any deviation from the Word leads us away from the truth. It is a lie, not the truth.

“Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you” (Deuteronomy 4:2).

“For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book” (Revelation 22:18).

Now here’s something to ponder. The Apostle Paul in Chapter 10 of his epistle to the Romans made it very clear the need for preachers.

“How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent?” (Romans 10:14-15).

A preacher is to preach the word of God. He is to be an imitator of that word and spread the gospel and not create a new one.

But Paul says something else of great importance

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“But I say, Have they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world” (Romans 10:18).

So what is the function of the preacher then if the world has already heard the message? Why is the gospel preached to folks that have already heard it? Is it a matter of reminding? Is it a matter of understanding? We find an example of this in the Book of Nehemiah after the discovery of the long lost law.

“So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading….And all the people went their way to eat, and to drink, and to send portions, and to make great mirth, because they had understood the words that were declared unto them” (Nehemiah 8:8-12).

Is it a matter of quickening the spirit with the word?

“It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63).

Does hearing the word quicken the spirit within us and open our eyes to truth and reality? So is that the purpose of preaching? Not so much to inform, for we already know, but to awaken? Is it to take us from knowledge to belief, which hopefully will lead us to faith in Jesus Christ?

For the devil knows and the devil believes in Jesus, but he doesn’t put his faith in Christ.

“Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble” (James 2:19).

 Why do we preach? To what purpose? What are we doing and what are we trying to accomplish?

This leads us to predestination. Those who know are destine to God. Those who do not know never will be.

So are we preaching to the elect to awaken and excite the spirt within them? To stir God’s chosen so as to go out and do the same? Is God’s elect the chosen imitators? Is this why we preach?

I’ll stop here for now.

Bill Hitchcock