Page 67 - GALIET KAFKABEL JOB, KANT AND MILTON: Omnipotence, Impotence and Rebellion IV+

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tried for his despotic license to freeze and turn upside down, says Milton, “whole commonwealths of men as if they were a nation of pismires.”378
Truth does not progressively unfold when an arbitrary omnipotent Court negates rights to a hearing,379 and when freedom of expression is gagged bequeathing ignorance, tyranny, and random persecutions.380 Once the system is challenged or changed, it uproots Job (14:7-9) and dangerously cuts the ground under K’s own feet (T120). There is no progress in the cycles of argumentation. In the suffocating hours of Job and K, Milton’s dream vanishes. Truth is no longer strong next to the Almighty. Once upon a time, Truth needed “no policies, nor stratagems, nor licencings tomakehervictorious.”381 Onceasleep,sheneedednotbebound,unlikeProteus,tosingofherTruth.382 Onceit was not impossible for her to “have more shapes than one.”383 Truth for Milton, never single shaped, perpetually renewsitself. Allknowledgeismerelyastartingpointforthediscoveryof‘onwardthings’moreremotefromexisting knowledge,384 resonating with the Hegelian ideal of the progressive blossoming of truth.385
Thus for Milton, Platonism’s degrees of being culminate in an ascent towards the Form of Beauty itself; Judaism is renewed in Christianity; The Fall of Man blossoms into Restoration (where Adam had brought death, Christ had brought life); Platonism blooms in Neo-Platonism, Plato’s Republic culminates in his Philosopher King’s aim to lead the gaze of the polis towards the Really Real Beauties of the Beautiful, Just and the Good.386 Just as in Milton, in Kafka, “there is a world of the Absolute, Freedom from sin, Perfection...or what the faithful call ‘God.’”387 Kafka saw “continually from the depths of his heart the ‘World of Ideas’ in the Platonic sense 3⁄4 that was the distinguishing feature of Kafka’s life and of his works...it was a kind of revelation, peace, certainty, in the midst of the storm of suffering and uncertainty.”388 If everything is uncertain, there remains a degree of understanding that is never lost, says Brod. “It is Plato’s doctrine in its purest form.”389 This feeling for the “Indestructible” is [was] for Kafka an immediate certainty...yet he did not overlook a single one of the countless, wretched backslidings, not one of the sins, not one of the absurdities with which men embitter each other’s lives...and which cause them to wander farther and
378 Milton. Complete Poems and Major Prose. Ed. By Merritt Y. Hughes. The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1957. 771
379 Yahweh appears to Job after the Elihu speeches (Job 38:1-42:6). Divine Truth unfolds for Job when he is restored, but it reveals itself in God’s omnipotence, and the works of God’s creation. At first, the Absolute Mind or Understanding Consciousness, as a great unifying principle, might seem to be the ultimate Hegelian synthesis for Job. However, in Hegel’s Absolute Mind, the multiplicity of the myriad things and appearances in the world are unified under the Absolute Mind’s, or transcendental apperception. This Hegelian Absolute Mind, to some critics, is a higher consciousness than the consciousness revealed by religion. To some extent, it transcends religion, so, in this regard it transcends the revelation of Yahweh in the Book of Job.
380 Milton posits along with Goodwin in his Theomachia (1644; E12[1]), that “Truth is strong and must always contend with Falsehood for only Truth suppresses error, and light destroys darkness.” Milton. Complete Poems and Major Prose. Ed. By Merritt Y. Hughes. Areopagitica. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1957. 559-561
381 Milton. Complete Poems and Major Prose. Ed. By Merritt Y. Hughes. Areopagitica. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1957. 563 382 Milton. Complete Poems and Major Prose. Ed. By Merritt Y. Hughes. Areopagitica. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1957. 563 383 Milton. Complete Poems and Major Prose. Ed. By Merritt Y. Hughes. Areopagitica. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1957. 563 384 Milton. Complete Poems and Major Prose. Ed. By Merritt Y. Hughes. Areopagitica. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1957. 561 385 Hegel. Phenomenology of Hegel. Phenomenology of Mind. Translated by J. B. Baillie. Rev. 2d ed. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1949. 47-55
386 Even if some critics regard Plato’s ideal Republic a tyranny when it comes to vanishing the poets, it is best to opt for the “tyranny of the genuine good,” than for the tyranny of Jobel or Kafkabel.
387 Brod, Max. Franz Kafka. A Biography. Trans. By G. Humphreys Roberts (Chapter I to VII) and by Richard Winston (Chapter VIII). New York, Schocken Books, 1937. 175
388 Brod, Max. Franz Kafka. A Biography. Trans. By G. Humphreys Roberts (Chapter I to VII) and by Richard Winston (Chapter VIII). New York, Schocken Books, 1937. 176
389 Brod defends his claim with Plato’s Phaedrus. Once the upper path is trodden, it is ordained one will not fall back to the lower one. Brod, Max. Franz Kafka. A Biography. Trans. By G. Humphreys Roberts (Chapter I to VII) and by Richard Winston (Chapter VIII). New York, Schocken Books, 1937. 173
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