Plato: Meno — What Athens Could Not Teach and Jerusalem Was Made to Give

At first glance, Plato’s Meno looks like a pleasant academic exercise — a well-bred young Thessalian testing his wit against Athens’ most famous interrogator. But read carefully, and you will find that this compact dialogue of roughly 400 BC is a document of civilizational crisis. Meno opens the conversation by asking Socrates whether virtue can be taught. It is a question that sounds like it belongs in a university seminar, but in post-war Athens, still shaken by the execution of Socrates and the collapse of civic confidence, it was a question about whether ordered human life was even possible. Socrates dismantles every definition Meno offers — virtue as role performance, as power of command, as the desire and attainment of honorable things — until Meno, in a moment of rare honesty, compares the experience to the numbing shock of a torpedo fish. He arrived in Athens with a head full of sophistic definitions, and now he does not know what virtue is. Most readers of Scripture will recognize that disorientation: it is what honest self-examination feels like before a holy God, the productive aporia that must precede genuine faith.

The Anatomy of a Brilliant Failure

Plato’s dialogue belongs to a genre of philosophical drama conducted through sustained question and answer, and it divides into four movements that mirror the stages of a genuine intellectual crisis. In the first, Socrates exposes the emptiness of Meno’s confident definitions. In the second, he responds to Meno’s challenge — “how can you search for something you do not know?” — by introducing the famous doctrine of anamnesis, the theory that all learning is recollection of knowledge the soul possessed before birth, demonstrated by leading an uneducated slave to a geometrical truth through questioning alone. In the third, he argues hypothetically that if virtue is knowledge it should be teachable, but the absence of any actual teachers of virtue proves it is not transmitted by instruction. The fourth movement concludes that virtue must be a divine gift, given not by nature or teaching but by a kind of divine dispensation to those who have right opinion without knowledge of its grounds. Each movement is philosophically brilliant and theologically incomplete, like a man who has correctly identified the dimensions of a door he cannot open. The Meno is not a failure of intelligence; it is a failure of revelation — the best result possible for an unaided mind pursuing the question of human goodness without the Word of God.

Borrowed Light: Orphic Souls and the Image of God

The intertextual background of the Meno reveals Plato drawing on sources both literary and religious. He cites Pindar by name, quoting a fragment about the soul returning from Persephone’s realm to be reborn in the light of the sun. Behind the philosophical argument about recollection stands a whole tradition of Orphic and Pythagorean religion, with its doctrines of the soul’s journey through multiple lives and its retention of knowledge from prior states of existence. The Meno is not a purely rational construction; it is a philosophical reworking of religious intuitions already alive in Greek culture. When you compare this to the testimony of the Old Testament, the contrast is instructive and the partial overlap is real. The Old Testament’s Proverbs insists that wisdom precedes the created world: in Proverbs 8, Wisdom speaks as the one present alongside God before the first act of creation, the artisan beside whom he delighted. Something does precede our current moral confusion — not the individual soul’s pre-history but the eternal wisdom of God, from which human beings were made and toward which every genuinely moral intuition still, however dimly, points. What Plato half-perceives in the doctrine of anamnesis — that human beings in their present state are less than they were made to be and that something of their original dignity remains — is a genuine observation. But its cause is not metempsychosis. It is the fall, and the image of God that the fall has marred but not erased.

The Sinai Covenant and the Problem of the Teacher

The Old Testament engages the Meno’s central problem with far greater precision than Plato himself achieves. The Torah’s entire pedagogical project assumes that moral knowledge can be transmitted from generation to generation — commandment, instruction, covenant, worship — and the Old Testament is ruthlessly honest about where this project reaches its limits. What Meno discovers in dialogue with Socrates, that external instruction alone cannot produce genuine virtue, Israel discovers in its long covenant history, that a people who know the commandments can still dance around a golden calf at the foot of the mountain where the law was given. Jeremiah, writing in the shadow of Babylon’s coming destruction, speaks of a new covenant that will differ from the Sinai covenant not in its content but in its mode of inscription. God will write his law not on stone tablets but on the heart. He will be their God and they will be his people, and they shall all know him, from the least to the greatest, not because they have found better teachers but because he himself will be the teacher in the only way that produces durable righteousness: by making the heart new. Jeremiah 31:31–34 is the Old Testament’s direct answer to Plato’s philosophical despair — and it points beyond itself, past covenant and prophet, to the One who will accomplish what it promises.

Knowledge, Opinion, and the Deceived Heart

The New Testament takes up the Meno’s epistemological problem in terms that are more radical in their diagnosis and more triumphant in their resolution. Paul’s letter to the Romans opens with a description of the Gentile world — the world of Athens and Thessaly, of Socrates and Gorgias — that identifies the root problem Plato could not name. Romans 1:18 describes human beings who are actively suppressing the truth they know, not merely failing to recollect what they have forgotten. The Greek present participle used for this suppression (katechonton) keeps the action immediate and ongoing: it is not a past failure but a present volitional posture, a continuous choice to resist the knowledge that the created order presses upon every human conscience. This is far more serious than the Meno’s diagnosis. Meno lacks definitions; fallen humanity lacks not information but the will to honor what it knows. Then Romans 7 delivers the coup de grace against Platonic intellectualism: the person who knows the good, wills the good, and still does not do it is not a philosophical puzzle but the universal human condition under sin. No amount of geometrical demonstration, however skillfully conducted, will cure this disease. Virtue does not follow automatically from knowledge when the will is bound.

The Teacher Who Transforms

What Socrates could only gesture toward in his closing appeal to divine dispensation, Jesus Christ makes explicit, personal, and historically specific. When the educated Pharisee Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night — another learned man who arrives with confident religious knowledge and discovers he does not understand what he thought he understood — Jesus gives the answer Plato’s Meno is waiting for. The problem is not forgotten knowledge. The problem is that a man must be born again, from above, by the Spirit of God, before he can see or enter the kingdom. This is the Meno’s unanswerable question answered: there is a teacher who can produce genuine interior transformation, and he accomplishes it not by skillful questioning but by sovereign new birth. Jesus himself, the wisdom of God incarnate in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden (Colossians 2:3), stands before Nicodemus as what Socrates at the end of the Meno can only imagine: the one man who truly has understanding while the rest flit like shadows. And unlike Tiresias in Homer, who could offer wisdom only to the shades of the dead, this Teacher sends his own Spirit to lead his disciples into all truth, writing the law on the hearts of all who trust him and calling it not philosophy but new birth.

What Athens Left Open and the Gospel Completes

Reading the Meno with the New Testament in view produces one of those moments of apologetic clarity that can genuinely strengthen your faith. Plato is not groping in the dark; he is following genuine light as far as it goes, and the Meno’s conclusions are the honest achievements of a brilliant mind working at the outer limits of unaided human reasoning. Virtue is not merely role performance. It is not produced by external instruction alone. It requires something interior, something given from outside the self, something that looks like a divine gift. Every one of these conclusions is correct, and the gospel does not contradict them but fulfills them. What Plato cannot supply is the name of the giver, the means of the gift, and the cost at which it was purchased. The name is Jesus Christ. The means is the Holy Spirit, who applies the work of Christ to the souls of those who hear the gospel and believe. The cost was the cross, where the Son of God absorbed the just judgment against every human heart that has suppressed the truth, refused the good it knew, and fallen short of the righteousness of God. Augustine of Hippo, who knew his Plato better than almost anyone, spent years circling this conclusion before he arrived at it, and when he did he described what he found in terms that echo both the Meno and the gospel: our hearts are restless until they rest in God.

Come and Be Taught

You may have arrived at this essay the way Meno arrives at his conversation with Socrates — confident enough in what you know about goodness, about the moral life, about what makes a person virtuous. The Meno’s gift to you is the torpedo’s shock: the discovery that you know less than you thought, that the virtue you have attempted to define and demonstrate in your own life has proved as elusive as Meno’s definitions, that no instruction you have received or self-improvement program you have attempted has produced the stable, anchored righteousness that Plato calls knowledge rather than mere opinion. This is not the end of the road but the beginning of the right one. The Holy Spirit’s work in a human soul often begins exactly here, with the productive despair that precedes repentance. The One who said “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28) is not offering another set of definitions. He is offering himself — the wisdom of God, the righteousness of God, the one in whom all the searching of Athens and Jerusalem finds its answer. Trust him today. He is the teacher who does not merely question; he transforms. And the virtue he produces in those who abide in him is not right opinion that walks away when the conversation ends, but the fruit of the Spirit, rooted in the knowledge of God, anchored by the chain of grace, and growing toward the day when we shall know him even as we are known.

 

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This blog and podcast were created with assistance from AI.

One Minute Manager

In The One Minute Manager, Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson have written a simple, easy to understand and implement, management book that has influenced American management techniques for over two decades. They have three simple steps to becoming an effective manager: One Minute Goal Setting, One Minute Praises, and One Minute Reprimands.

One Minute Goal Setting: Make sure that both the manager and the employee know exactly what is expected and both agree on how it will be measured.

One Minute Praises: Catch someone doing something right. One minute praises need to be: immediate, specific, emotions need to be shared from the heart, and then an encouragement to keep on doing the desired behavior.

There are two different kind of strokes: strokes for being and strokes for doing. While we need to give both, we generally give more strokes for being. However, it is much more effective to give strokes for specific behaviors.

Winners are people who can come right in and do a job well without any training or supervision. They are effective, but they are rare and they are very expensive. In order to be an effective manager, you must learn how to take undeveloped people and turn them into winners. Everyone has the potential to become a winner, but many winners are disguised as losers. To be effective, you must be able to spot, recruit, train and equip potential winners.

When people are learning, you must constantly reinforce positive behavior and bring them slowly towards the goal. In the beginning you will have to praise half successes and partial victories until the learner is able to grasp complex processes. Never reprimand a learner because you will cause him to freeze and inhibit his ability to learn. Limit negative feedback and utilize a lot of positive feedback.

When learner s are reprimanded there are three common responses: First, they will try to avoid the punisher. Second, they might do nothing because they think that no matter what they do they will get hit. Third, they spend their time plotting to get even with the one who is attacking them.

Four steps to effective training: First, tell them exactly what they need to do. Second, show them how to do it. Third, delegate parts of the project to them. Fourth, observe them doing it and give positive feedback. Catch them doing something right and give them one minute praises.

If a learner doesn’t even get close to getting anything even approximately right, you do not praise them or reprimand them. In stead, you need to go back to step one and tell them as clearly as possible, and then show them, delegate and watch them again.


One Minute Reprimands: Responding effectively when someone knowingly does something wrong. One minute reprimands need to be: immediate, specific, emotions need to be shared from the heart, and then an encouragement to go back to performing the desired behavior. Reprimands must be done immediately; don’t store up mistakes and throw them all at the person at a later date because that will never accomplish anything positive. Never reprimand a learner but only someone who already knows how to do what he is supposed to do. You must be specific and focus on the behavior and not the person. You must also share your feelings without attacking the other person. Then tell him that he is better than that and can do much better.


While these principles are common sense, they are not common practice. Even though they are simple to understand they are not always easy to implement. Clearly articulating expectations at the beginning so that both sides know exactly what is expected will alleviate many of the common problems faced by managers and employees. I also think the idea of “catching someone doing something right” is powerful, yet I find it difficult to apply consistently. I find that when I am not clear about what I expect from the other person, or have failed to communicate it clearly, it is easy to fall into the negative trap of catching others doing things wrong.

I also was challenged to never reprimand a learner. It is difficult to remain positive when someone isn’t learning fast enough or is having difficulty learning a concept or skill. This book reminded me to be much more patient and intentional when dealing with learners. I also realized that learners need a lot more attention and support than I have usually given.

I highly recommend this book to everyone, even if they are not a manager. These principles work in family relationships as well as friendships and other non-business settings.

Self-knowledge

“Self-knowledge is best learned, not by contemplation, but by action. Strive to do your duty and you will soon discover of what stuff you are made.” Johann Goethe

The Goal of Education

Here's another quote to ponder:

Abraham Joshua Heschel: "The Greeks learned in order to comprehend, the Hebrews learned in order to revere, while modern man (or woman) learns in order to use."

The Apostle Paul said: "The goal of our instruction is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith." 1 Timothy 1:5

Life Lessons 4

The fourth life lesson is Loss. We lose everything we own. You don’t own anything; everything is on loan. The most important things in life cannot be taken away from you. The sooner you accept the fact that loss is an essential part of life, the sooner you will be able to live fully. Everything is temporary, so don’t try to make it permanent.

In the school of life, loss is one of the major courses. Loss teaches us what is truly important in life. Loss also draws us closer to each other and deepens our connections with each other. When you realize that you will eventually lose a loved one you will treasure that person all the more. Without loss there can be no growth. With loss there is always growth. With growth there is always loss. Everything that begins will eventually end. When we go through loss we are enabled to change. If we guard against loss, we hurt ourselves and hinder our own growth.

There is a natural process of grieving over loss. First, we deny the loss. Second, we become angry. Third, we try to make bargains to regain what was lost. Fourth, we become depressed. Finally, we learn to accept the loss and move on. Each person will experience this process differently, in a different order and at a different pace. This process can’t be forced or hurried along before the person is ready. All we can do is let it take its own course, realizing it will pass. Accepting this process is essential to healing and change.

What do you know?

I heard a few sayings today that I want to pass along:

“To know and not do is to not really know at all.”

“The more you know, the more you know you don’t know.”

“Learning is changed behavior.”

“The problem is not that people don’t know how to solve their problems, but rather the problem is the people don’t even know what their problems are.”

“You don’t know what you don’t know.”


Knowledge is not merely amassing a lot of facts and being able to spout them off at will. Knowledge is taking what you learn and applying it to your daily life. Learning facts and not acting on them leads to self-deception, so that you think you are wise when you really are a fool. Whenever you learn something, always ask yourself what you are going to do about what you learned. Find some small practical way that you can utilize the knowledge you have gained. Never leave the scene of learning without taking a small step forward in response to the knowledge gained. In this way, you will truly become a wise person.

Ignorance is not bliss; it can kill you, or at least keep you from experiencing life in all its fullness. One of the main reasons to study and gain knowledge is so that your ignorance and blind spots can be exposed. If you don’t even know what your problems are, there is no way that you will be able to solve them. Most people go through life thinking they know what is going on, but in reality, they are ignorant of the real issues. Constantly learn and expose yourself to new ideas, stretching yourself in many different directions, so that you become aware of your limitations, failures, mistakes; then you will begin to understand what your true problems are. Only then will you be able to begin to search for the solutions to your problems. If you don’t know what you don’t know, there is no way for you to even know what you need to learn in order to overcome your ignorance. So make life-long learning and growth an essential part of your life.