Religious Ground Motive - The Form/Matter RGM of The Greeks

The Form/Matter RGM of The Greeks

The Form/Matter motif is not entirely original with Dooyeweerd, but his treatment is exceptional. Nietzsche argued that Greek values from the time of Homer to that of Plato and Aristotle were in a constant state of tension between a volarization of a Dionysian natural orgiastic devotion to the life force, celebrated in the annual Baccanal at Delphi, presided over by that Temple's Oracle through whom Dionysios would communicate in riddles and puzzles of a prophetic but obscure kind. The other Greek volorization turned on the order of the city and its justice achieved by calm thought in accord with an Apollonian devotion situated in the Temple of Athena. Perhaps the best articulation of this side of the bipolar tension of values can be seen in the tragic drama where the Furies are constrained and given a place below the Temple's altar where they can no longer unleash themselves in the historic form of a blood revenge.

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