“Contemporary philosophical anthropology does not have the capacity to speak of a “fall” because it does not accept any reality beyond man himself – so there can be no talk of a fall from, or ascent to, that reality. In the mythological view of things and due to the levels of existence that it considers, there is mention of war with the gods and an escape or exile from their presence. For contemporary philosophical anthropology though, even this latter is not a possibility.
Scientific anthropology also cannot speak of a “fall”. This is because it reduces all reality to the natural and material level. The idea of the Fall can only be spoken of where there is attention paid to existence in its totality and to multiple states of being. Such a point of view has its roots in religion….
Post-modern ideas are rooted in contemporary philosophical anthropology and accept the idea of cultural relativity. As a result they not only do not see the issue of the fall or ascent of man as substantive, but also deny the story of man’s historical evolution. They see it rather as a cultural phenomena which is produced by humanity and hence can be destroyed by it.
Now in classical philosophy, where there is talk of the totality of existence and the laws of metaphysics, a certain type of “fall” is envisioned. For instance, Plato saw man’s appearance in this world to be the result of his falling from the intelligible world of the forms….
The first stage of the fall is the descent from the heaven of divine unity. In this stage, whatever is seen in the natural or imaginal worlds is no longer a sign or indicator of the One God. It is rather the sign of the intermediaries and agents which are mistakenly seen to be discrete and independent existents. The world of myth begins precisely at this stage. During the course of the levels and stages that follow, man’s connection with heavenly and imaginal realities becomes weaker and weaker yet. Until finally, there remains no trace of even the broken and skewed visions of those realities that he previously had. Those unsound visions and apparitions become totally hidden and the perspective of polytheistic man now becomes one that is purely worldly and material. He sees nothing but matter and feels only the physical….
The place where the physical sun goes down turns out also to be the place where the light of truth wanes and sets. This is so because the lowest stage of the fall of man took place in the geographical west and the lowest interpretation of man and the world appeared for the first time in this part of the world in the form of a new culture and civilisation.”
(from Existence and the Fall)
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