In his introduction to Plato: Timaeus (Focus Philosophical Library) , Peter Kalkavage writes that Timaeus’ “likely story . . . depicts making, poiesis , as an activity that starts with the highest things and proceeds to the lower.” In that is contained all the pathology and pathos of Western philosophy and theology.

If poiesis is a descent, then the move from mind to matter is a descent; the move from conception to execution is not fulfillment but failure; the move from individual to community is a decline; the move from inner to outer is tragic; the move from possession to sharing is a loss; the move from contemplation to action is calamitous. Language is less than thought, poetry than science. If poiesis is a descent, then change is evil, creation is deterioration, and to be a human is to be fallen. If poiesis is a descent, the end can never recover, much less surpass the beginning, and the Last Adam is lower than the First.