Plato's Courage

In a previous article I dealt with Plato's first pillar of a well-ordered community, which is wisdom. In this article I'd like to explore how we as Christian men may redeem and apply his second pillar: courage.

Unsurprisingly, Plato contrasts courage and cowardice. In his eyes, courage is a kind of salvation, and therefore, cowardice can be seen as something of a condemnation or death. Courage endures in the truth, no matter the circumstance, in conformity to the law of the polis. Someone with courage upholds the truth about the nature of things to be feared and not to be feared “in pleasure or in pain, or under the influence of desire or fear, a man preserves and does not lose this opinion.” 

Courage is instructed by the law—it is ordained. This virtue is not what is found in wild beasts or slaves—instincts and responses resulting from threats or brute force are not Plato’s courage of the citizenry. This courage is nurtured and trained. A society or social unit is marked as courageous or cowardly, not by the actions of every citizen, but by “the part which fights and goes out to war” on behalf of the people. In other words, if someone breaks into my home, as husband and father, if I am courageous in meeting and defeating the intruder, the fear in my small boys does not make us a cowardly household. 

What can we glean from Plato?

Since grace restores nature and takes it to its pinnacle, we must not settle for a natural courage. We need a courage that is beyond natural—we need the supernatural to undergird and inform it. We can rightly say that we are to draw strength for our courage from Christ (Daniel 10.18-21). His Word and his Spirit are to instruct us to conform to his standard. Courage for the Christian man comes from a fear of the Lord. When we have courage founded on a godly piety and reverence for God, we will be saved from the living hell of cowardice and the fear of man (Psalm 27). 

The congressman Ron Paul used to say, “Truth is treason in an empire of lies.” The modern West is an empire of lies collapsing under the weight of its full-scale denial of the truth. Being godly men requires courage to uphold the truth about the nature of things: we must fear God and not fear the mob of man. We must not fear those who are doing what is right in their own eyes. 

It's easy to stand for the truth of God in good times and in times of pleasure. But we are in an era of pain, disorder, and fear. And so, the Church and the culture in which we live in the West needs Christian men of courage now more than ever. We need men who are willing to say “That boy is a boy, and that girl is a girl; and it doesn't matter that they feel like taking drugs and mutilating their bodies so that they can appear to the world like something else.” This is the kind of courage we need to nurture and train into our children, particularly our sons. They will not stumble upon it—they must be led to it.

How do we do this?

We show them the beauty and the majesty of Christ our king who as the second Adam and the firstborn from among the dead shows us godly courage. We must show our people that our captain and King, Jesus Christ, is worth following into battle—it is a worthy cause to uphold His truth. That's the courage of the citizenry of heaven needed here on Earth. As men, we are the ones who are to go out to war and fight. As men we are to contend for the truth of Jesus in the city gates. As men we are to lead in the spiritual war in our churches. And as men we are to lead the fight against the forces of darkness in our homes. When our courage fails, the people under our care are dismayed (2 Sam. 4.1). 

Courage is required in the face of evil (Joshua 1). It is demanded of you. It is needed in your family, your business, your church, and your county. In the era to come, the Church and the men within her walls will be marked as courageous or cowardly not based on the actions and affections of women and children but based on whether men who professed faith in Jesus obey the command of the apostle Paul to act like men (1 Cor. 16.13). Brothers, be broad men—men of courage.

Nate Xanders is the pastor of Christ the King Church (PCA) in Louisville, TN and serves as an editor for Reforming Men.