Does the Allegory of the Cave Demand Jesus?

This is an essay I wrote in response to Plato's "Allegory of the Cave"

DOES THE ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE REQUIRE JESUS?

Every person seeks to understand the world around them. We use our minds to ask if things we sense are real. We wonder about a greater truth. Although everyone seeks to know what this greater truth is, or if it is, very few people ask how it is we can come to know this truth. “The Allegory of the Cave” found in Plato’s Republic is one of the most widely read pieces of literature in history. Its traditional interpretation limits its scope to the discipline of education. This is understandable as Plato opens the allegory by saying, “compare the effect of education and the lack of it upon our human nature” (Republic, 514A). However, the allegory also has significant ramifications in the field of epistemology. “The Allegory of the Cave” demands an epistemology of divine revelation.
Plato uses Socrates to narrate the allegory. Socrates was Plato’s mentor; Plato frequently uses Socrates as his mouthpiece to avoid ridicule from his contemporaries. Socrates starts by describing a large cave, with an entrance at the top leading out of the cave into the light. In the cave, a group of men are bound in shackles facing one wall; they have been there their whole life. Their heads are fixed so they can see only the wall in front of them. There is a fire above and behind them. In front of the fire is a ledge on which another group of men walk carrying various objects. The light from the fire projects the images of the men and their objects onto the wall in front of the men in shackles (imagine making shadow images on the wall by sticking your fingers in front of a flashlight). The bound men can see only the shadows on the wall in front of them. They assume that the images they see are reality because the images are all they have ever known.
Next, Socrates imagines what would happen if someone were to drag one of the chained men out of the cave, into the light. At first, the man would be blinded by the sun. But, as his eyes adjusted to the light, he would see the true forms of the shadows he had previously perceived as reality. He would see for the first time the outlines in the cave were more complex than he had known, that they have color and nuance. He would realize that everything he experienced in the cave was only an adumbration of reality.
Socrates uses the cave to represent the realm of the sensible, what you can experience through your five senses. The area outside the cave represents the realm of the intelligible, what you can conceive only in your mind. Socrates believes he escaped the cave by reason. Socrates feels that by contemplating the form of the light, you can escape the cave. You can move from the realm of the sensible to the intelligible—also known as the invisible—by the “contemplation of the divine” (Republic, 518E).
Socrates says education is the attempt of someone who has escaped the cave to descend once more into the cave to rescue those still bound. Socrates believes he is the one charged by the god with the task of going back into the cave and pulling people out. He must educate them: “It is to fulfill some such function that I believe the god has placed me in the city” (Apology, 30E). He predicts that the people in the cave would be reluctant to leave; they might even kill anyone who tries to “free them and lead them upward” (Republic, 517A). His prediction comes true; the people of the city were so infuriated by his attempts to educate them that they executed him. At his trial, Socrates tells the people of the city that by killing him they are harming themselves because they would no longer have anyone to educate them. They would not have anyone to free them from the cave, “if you kill me you will not easily find another like me” (Apology, 31A).

Socrates makes two epistemological assumptions. First, that the things we experience with our five senses are not the ultimate reality. Since we are bound by our physical circumstances, we have no way of knowing if the things we experience are reality. The men in the cave cannot discover the light by more closely examining the shadows in front of them. They will not escape the cave by using their senses to gather more information about the cave. In the same way, as humans stuck in space and time, we cannot escape the sensible world by studying it more carefully. This is the mistake many naturalists have made in modernity. They assume there is nothing besides the physical world. They refuse to entertain the idea that the things they hear, taste, touch, smell, and see are merely shadows of some bigger reality. Socrates assesses correctly that the things in the sensible world point us to something more.
Second, Socrates assumes by contemplating the divine (which is represented by the light) he can discover its form. He believes he can find the nature or essence of the divine through reason. To put it in terms of the allegory, he can escape his bonds in the cave by engaging his mind. By employing his intellect he can break free of his entrapment in the sensible realm. Socrates claims reason can lead him to an accurate understanding of the nature of reality. This is his epistemology: reason, not the senses, brings understanding about the intelligible. Reason is how comes he knows what he knows.
The flaw in Socrates’ epistemology is he trusts too fully in the capacity of his intellect to unveil the nature of the invisible. Socrates believes reason has freed him from the cave. In reality all it has done is show him there is something more than the cave. He is still bound in the cave. He believes the mind is the key that unlocks his shackles.
However, the mind is limited. It cannot comprehend the nature of the divine; it is not equipped to do so. Socrates fails to see that even his reason is shaped by the sensible realm; his reason is in the cave. The mind can conceive that there is something more than the sensible realm or the physical world. But, since it is stuck in the physical, it has no way of thinking about the nature of any reality outside of its experience. The intellect can only conceive that there is something more. It cannot discover what this something more is like. Since the mind has not experienced this something more, it cannot tell us about its nature or its qualities. Reason has no language by which to define this something more. Reason can only imagine about things it has not seen; it cannot know them. It does not have the power to bring us out of the cave; it can only bring us to recognize the existence of the light.
Imagine you lived in the year 1490. You could look out over the ocean and think, “There could be land somewhere over the horizon”. But you could only think about that land in terms of the geographic features you are familiar with. If the land was altogether different than any land you have ever seen, you would have no means of contemplating this new form of land. Now imagine as you stare across the ocean, a ship appears on the horizon. It brings people from the other land. Only they can reveal to you the nature of their land. Your reason is limited by your experience.
In the same way, something outside of the cave must go into it to free those bound there. We need something external to the physical world to step into it and describe the nature of the nonphysical world. Socrates believes that he is the one to go back into the cave to tell of the intelligible realm. The problem is that he has not experienced the intelligible realm. He is like the person who looks across the ocean and dreams of a distant land. He has no understanding of the invisible realm, just as the person who looks across the ocean has no understanding of the land beyond the horizon. In order for him to learn anything about the invisible world, it must be revealed to him by something that has experienced it.
This is exactly what Christians believe the Bible is: God’s revelation about the invisible world. God steps into the world, our realm, to tell us about Himself. Since our language does not allow us to understand the invisible, God puts Himself into language our minds can comprehend. If God wishes to reveal Himself to us and if the sensible realm is all we know, then God must translate Himself into the words of the sensible realm.
The ultimate manifestation of God’s nature is Jesus Christ, the God who became human in order that we can know God. Notice the parallel between the imagery of the allegory and the Bible’s description of Jesus: “He is the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15 NRSV). The invisible (God) became visible (Jesus), so that we might know the form of the invisible. It is the exact same imagery. God is “speaking our language”. He is communicating to us about his nature in terms we understand. Jesus is the ultimate revelation of the nature of the invisible realm. The Bible also uses the imagery of light saying Jesus is “the light of all people. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1:4b-5 NRSV). God is equating Himself to the light in the allegory, which represents the invisible realm. Jesus, not Socrates, is the one who comes into the cave to free us because Jesus is the only one who knows the invisible. The beautiful message of the Bible is not that we can find a way out of the cave into the light, but that the light has come into the cave.
Many would argue it is irrational to believe in divine revelation. Yet, this interpretation of “The Allegory of the Cave” shows that it is the only rational option. Our senses are clearly unable to glean the nature of the invisible world because they are only able to gather information about the visible world. Our intellect can provide us with no sufficient definition or description of the invisible because it is has not experienced the invisible. Socrates is certainly correct in his assessment of our situation: we are indeed chained in a cave. Some of us say the cave is all there is. Most of us engage our minds to see there is, at the very least, the strong possibility of a greater reality. We are left with our imaginations screaming that there must be something more. We dream with C.S. Lewis when he says, “All [our] life in this world and all [our] adventures have only been the cover and the title page” (The Last Battle, 210-211). Without divine revelation, without the Bible and Jesus Christ, we have no way of knowing what this something more is.