Simone Weil - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Simone Weil

Overview

Simone Weil is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

that was technically hers by birth; others have identified her as a gnostic for similar reasons, as well as for her mystical theologization of geometry

Geometry

Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....

and Platonist

Platonism

Platonism is the philosophy of Plato or the name of other philosophical systems considered closely derived from it. In a narrower sense the term might indicate the doctrine of Platonic realism...

philosophy. However, it has been pointed out that this analysis falls apart when it comes to the creation of the world, for Weil does not regard the world as a debased creation of a demiurge

Demiurge

The demiurge is a concept from the Platonic, Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy for an artisan-like figure responsible for the fashioning and maintenance of the physical universe. The term was subsequently adopted by the Gnostics...

, but as a direct expression of God's love

Love of God

Love of God are central notions in monotheistic and polytheistic religions, and are important in one's personal relationship with God and one's conception of God ....

—despite the fact that she also recognizes it as a place of evil, affliction, and the brutal mixture of chance and necessity.

Quotations

Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.

The Pre-War Notebook (1933-1939), published in First and Last Notebooks (1970) edited by Richard Rees

Concern for the symbol has completely disappeared from our science. And yet, if one were to give oneself the trouble, one could easily find, in certain parts at least of contemporary mathematics... symbols as clear, as beautiful, and as full of spiritual meaning as that of the circle and mediation. From modern thought to ancient wisdom the path would be short and direct, if one cared to take it.

The Need for Roots (1949) p. 292

Religion in so far as it is a source of consolation is a hindrance to true faith; and in this sense atheism is a purification. I have to be an atheist with that part of myself which is not made for God. Among those in whom the supernatural part of themselves has not been awakened, the atheists are right and the believers wrong.

"Faiths of Meditation; Contemplation of the divine" as translated in The Simone Weil Reader (1957) edited by George A. Panichas, p. 417

Whenever one tries to suppress doubt, there is tyranny.

Lectures in philosophy [Leçons de philosophie] (1959) as translated by Hugh Price p. 103

There are two atheisms of which one is a purification of the notion of God.

As quoted in The New Christianity (1967) edited by William Robert Miller : As translated in The Simone Weil Reader (1957) edited by George A. Panichas

Rome is the Great Beast of atheism and materialism, adoring nothing but itself. Israel is the Great Beast of religion. Neither one nor the other is likable. The Great Beast is always repulsive [p. 393]