In Book VII of The Republic of Plato, Socrates tells the infamous allegory of the cave. In a brief summation, the allegory of the cave is about prisoners who have lived their entire lives shackled in a cave, only able to see what is directly in front of them. Thus, they only see shadows created by the light of a fire, and they believe these shadows to be truth, because it is all they have ever seen. But a prisoner escapes from the cave, and ascends aboveground, where he discovers light from the sun, which blinds him at first. He eventually adjusts to the sunlight, but must return back to the darkness of the cave, where his eyes are no longer suited to see. The other prisoners now mock him.
Socrates draws this allegory to represent the realm of opinion, or convention, and the realm of nature, or truth. The cave is the realm of opinion. The prisoners base their entire existence off of shadows of truth, yet they believe it to be truth. The prisoner who escapes ascends into the realm of nature, or of truth. At first, he is unaccustomed to the light because he has lived his whole life off of opinions of what is true, and so does not immediately recognize truth when he sees it. But eventually he comes to recognize the truth for what it is, and a life of shadows will never be able to satisfy him again.
In my philosophy class last week, we discussed this allegory. My professor asked us if we believed that our society was based primarily upon natural law or conventional law, or if even, in fact, there was such thing as natural law. Several of my classmates argued that there is no natural law that our societal laws are based upon, and this bothered me.
If there is no natural law, then what is the truth that Socrates speaks of? If there is no natural law, I think it’s safe to assume that there is no truth. Are we then doomed to live our lives in the darkness and the shadows of the cave? If there is no natural law, then the answer is yes. If there is no natural law, then the atrocious acts of terror ISIS has been committing are not wrong in themselves, but only wrong because society has decided that they are. If there is no natural law, then there is nothing inherently evil happening in North Korea. If there is no natural law, then love is not beautiful in and of itself, and hate and violence are not ugly.
Without Jesus, we are stuck, forever shackled in the darkness of the cave. Without Jesus, we are stuck in a world with laws of our own making, slaves to shadows of what truth really is. By condemning ISIS, and the government of North Korea, and other evils happening in our world every day, we are grasping shadows of the truth. We know that atrocities such as those committed by ISIS and the government of North Korea must be inherently wrong, yet we refuse to acknowledge the natural law that makes them so. We can’t have our cake and eat it too.
In John 14:6, Jesus says: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
Let Jesus be your truth. Let him lead you out of the cave and into his light.
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