Alexander Kavteladze
04/08/2011
The similarities and differences between Plato’s Realm of the forms and in
particular the form of the good as well as his ideas of God to early Christianity and
Augustine’s view of God.
Plato’s metaphysical ideas bear a close resemblance to the Christian theology. In
Republic, Plato provides his explanation how people acquire knowledge and also
explanation how different material things exist. The forms can interact, like form of the
good and form of the chair to make a good chair on the material realm. One of his forms
in particular is rather interesting- form of the good, which stands out from the rest of the
forms and may be the highest form for Plato.
In my paper I will discuss the Plato’s ideas in regards to forms, and form of the
good in particular as well as his ideas about divinity and gods in the immaterial world.
Then I will talk about main Christian ideas about God and I will discuss St Augustine’s
ideas about God in particular. Then, after introducing their concepts, I will compare and
contrast the two Philosopher’s ideas about God and then show the similarities between
the form of the good from Plato as well as Plato’s ideas regarding gods and Christian God
according to Augustine.
Plato was arguably the brightest student of Socrates. He wrote about his
mentor in his works and made him one of the key characters in them, as the writing
style of Plato was dialogue. Plato was the first major philosopher with reordered
written works, where he talked about many aspects of universe like Metaphysics,
Morality, love and other things.
In Republic Plato begin to construct his metaphysically sociopolitical work,
where he wrote about how the government should be made mainly through
Socrates speaking about it. But Republic was also a work where he talked about the
concept of forms or ideas, abstractions from another world, which participate with
particulars in physical universe. Without forms, nothing can exist on this world.
Knowledge is a priori, according to Plato, and he claimed that only through intense
studying one person could get the knowledge of the forms and achieve full
knowledge of the world, which would also make the person knowledgeable about
forms of virtues.
And then Plato claimed that there is a hierarchy of the forms, with the biggest
one being the form of the good. It is the form, which sits on top of the form pyramid
and by it everything else, works and exists, including other minor forms. The form of
the Good is the source of everything and it also provides absolute morality for
people.
Plotinus was one of neoPlatonist philosphers, who among other things talked
about the form of the good. In his interpretation of the form of the good, he created
the concept of One, which also means god and associated this concept with the form
of the good. Plotinus also thought that One was a transcendant being and it was also
perfection.(Remes 49) Also, now Plotinus added some new ideas to One like
omnipresence which was not present with Plato’s form of the good. (Remes 51)It
seems that if speaking in Evolutionary terms, Plotinus’s philosophical ideas about
divine and god were a transitional fossil between dinosaurs and modern beards
with Archeopteryx being ideas of Plotinus.
Proclus was another neoPlatonist, who in his proposition 25 talked about
the One and goodnesss to be the same, Proclus ideas seem to be another transition
between Plato’s philosophical idea of the form of the good and God in a sense that in
Plato’s theory of forms, the form of Good is located on top of everything and
basically rules everything; Proclus wrote that Good is the same as the One, which
was one of the words they used for God. He also stated that “action that is
performed in accordiance with goodness is identical with unitary action”(Dillon and
Gerson 271). Proclus also thought that Good and One is similar in a sense that One
provided goodness, like God and the form of the good is similar to that as it is the
crown of the forms and dictates how things should work, basically dictating to other
forms and through them to particulars that they should be good although not really
in a moral sense.
Christianity originated in the beginning of the new era in AD as a sect of
Christianity. Later, Christianity spread to other regions and got more popular.
Christianity is one of the monotheistic religions where there is only one God who
has all sorts of omni powers and is the generator of morality according to JudeoChristian religious tradition.
St Augustine was at first a follower of some pagan religion but later
converted to Christianity. He thought that the Religion should include reason more,
not just faith. He wrote a lot on Religious Philosophy about Christianity and used
some of the ideas from Plato to early Christian ideas.
As St Augustine borrowed a number of ideas from Plato’s form of Good, there
are many similarities between the concept of God according to Augustine and Plato’s
form of Good, which makes a lot of sense since the two main sources for Augustine’s
philosophy were Plato and the Bible, with using neoPlatonism ideas as well.
However, there are some significant differences as Augustine was trying to fuse the
two ideas together and have a benevolent God rather than having a form which
would provide knowledge of the good.
The first similarity between the two is about both being absolute and eternal.
Plato’s forms and the Form of the Good existed in all eternity, there was no time
when they did not exist. There is no variation between them either, as there is only
one form of beauty or love or cake. Its that one form of cake that by acting with
other forms produces al the variations in non absolute changeable limited
particulars. The Christian God is also absolute and eternal, it always existed, and
even when the universe did not according to Judeo-Christian believes. It is also
absolute as God exists in one form- it is unchanging. Both Form of the Good and God
are absolute perfections , which are the very best thing possible.
The second similarity is about duty. Plato thought that philosophers were to
seek knowledge and that the absolute knowledge came with the highest form- the
form of the Good. So for Plato people needed to strive to learn the form of the Good
and act upon it, knowing what actions are right ones. Christian’s God has a similar
element- people need to do their duty on doing what is right and good, and that
knowledge comes from God.
The third similarity between the two is about highest reality. Plato’s forms
and all particulars are ultimately dependent on thing- the form of the Good. Also by
knowing the form of the good gives the knowledge of all other forms. As for God, to
understand him is to have all knowledge possible.
The forth similarity is about the overwhelming quality. Republic 508-9, Sun
metaphor. The form of the good could be overwhelming to grasp. In Christianity,
the knowledge of God has a similar effect on the person. Old Testament- direct
looking at God die- find quote.
The fifth similarity is about the reflection of the highest entity in regards to
everything else and humans in particular. Plato stated that the Form of the Good is
absolute and perfect, however even when humans are trying to do good, they are
not doing something fully a hundred percent good deed. This happens as humans
have no real grasp on what the true goodness means and that they only have a pale
reflection of what good truly is. This is highly similar to Christian view as Christians
think that humans cannot be perfectly good and only God can, people’s moral
behavior is the result of reflection of perfect goodness, which came from God.
The sixth similarity is that both of the concepts have a quality of being
morally absolute and unchanging. The form of the good is always there and the
morality will always stay the same way forever. This is similar to the Christian
concept of God, in particular to Old Testament, like in Ten Commandments.
Even thought there are many significant similarities between Augustine’s
concept of God and Plato’s form of Good, there are differences between them as well.
Augustine appreciated many ideas Plato put forward but he wanted to write his
Philosophy with using early Christian ideas about God and took some ideas from the
Bible, so he has some differences from Plato. Augustine also used some ideas from
neoPlatonism and some of those ideas differ from Plato’s ones as well.
The first differece between the two concepts is in transcendence and
immancence. To be transcendent is to be be present beyond of this world with no
interaction between the two possible. This is the stance Plato takes when he
describes his forms and in particular the form of the good. Christian God sometimes
is attributed this property of being outside of universe; however he is also attributes
another property- that of immanence. Immanence is somewhat related to the
concept of God being omnipresent in the material universe, not just in the
metaphysical immaterial one but this one as well.
One of the main reason or probably the reason why there is a difference
present between the two is that while the form of the good does not interact with
humans at all and is present in a different realm, Christian God interacts with
humans and is somewhat involved with humanity. Taking the assumption that what
is written in the Bible is true (I would never really think that way but for the sake of
the argument I assume that “Bible events” are true), God interacted a lot with
humans, teaching them morality and showing them good from bad, right from
wrong on different occasions. According to Christianity, humans and God have a
relationship, where God tells what the rules are and these rules are ought to be
obeyed unless people want to end up in Hell. And sometimes Prophets come to tell
humankind if people need to return to the path they need to walk on and follow
God’s rules. There is none of that in Plato, as the form of the good does not interact
with people and does not tell them what they ought to do, it rather gives knowledge
of what is good after humans reach the full knowledge of the forms.
The second difference between the two is that the Form of the Good is
impersonal whereas Judeo Christian God is personal. According to Christianity, God
is touched when people suffer and rewards good people and punished bad ones. For
example, a faithful and good person might get an extremely good life and he also
eases of suffering for good people.
Unlike the form of the good, which just sits on top of the pyramid in the realm
of the forms, Christian God is more personal towards humans and has an interest in
the material universe unlike the form of the good. God can also change unlike the
form of the good and his mind is susceptible to change to grant a human a wish upon
receiving the prayer.
Lastly, Chirstian God is also personal in a sense that humans can relate to him
as he was incarnated in this world as Jesus Christ and lives as more or less a human
life until he was crucified and went to heaven, according to Judeo Christian
Tradition. This is different from the form of the good as it never got incarnated in
this wold and never became flesh and bones or even resemble a human, it is still an
abstract quantity present in the realm of the forms, which is not present in this
plane of existence according to Plato.
The third difference between the Form of the Good and God is morality.
According to Plato, the form of the good is absolute and the source of all morality, of
all good actions in the world. However Christian God sometimes is not seen as
having absolute mral view. Of course it seems that the Old Testament God has
absolute moral values which sometimes bordered on being insanely psychotically
extreme; however in some passages in the New Testament, Jesus Christ pointed out
that sometimes people should behave in relative terms, the example the article gave
is that Jesus healed a person when no body was meant to work and only relax, on
Sabbath.
The forth difference between Plato’s form of the good and God is in the
qualities they possess. The form of the good is an abstraction, which is present in
the realm of the forms on top of the pyramid of the forms and has no real qualities to
it whereas Christian God is not entirely an abstraction where he has a lot of omni
qualities, often paradoxical.
Conclusion
As it can be seen, the Form of the Good and God have many similarities, partly
because St Augustine used some Plato ideas to bring reason into Christianity besides
faith. However, there are differences due to Augustine taking ideas from the Bible
and neoPlatonic ideas , which make the two quite distinct.
Sources:
Banach, David, “Plato Theory of the Forms”, 2006
“http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/platform.htm”
Boulding, Maria “The Confessions: Saint Augustine” New City Press, 1997
Cohen, Mark. “Theory of Forms”, 2006
http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/thforms.htm
Dillon, John and Gerson Lloyd “Neoplatonic Philosophy: Introductory readings”
Hucket Publishing Company Inc, 2004
“Comparing God’s Goodness with Plato’s form of the Good””
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/4487621/Comparing-God-s-Goodness-with-Plato-sForm-of
Plato, “Republic”, Books 6 and 7
Portalié, Eugène. "Works of St. Augustine of Hippo." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol.
2. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907. 8 Apr. 2011
<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02089a.htm>.
Protevi, John “Neoplatonism in Augustine’s Confessions”
http://www.protevi.com/john/SH/PDF/Neoplatonism.pdf
Remes, Pauliina “Neoplatonism” University of California Press, 2008
Remes, Pauliina “Book Reviews: Neoplatonism” Stockfield, Acumen, 2008