gurugeorge

Well, the whole book's quite interesting But this passage in particular strikes me as relevant to the issue at hand.

This is the justice of the Gods who inhabit Olympus. O youth or young man, who fancy that you are neglected by the Gods, know that if you become worse you shall go to the worse souls, or if better to the better, and in every succession of life and death you will do and suffer what like may fitly suffer at the hands of like. This is the justice of heaven, which neither you nor any other unfortunate will ever glory in escaping, and which the ordaining powers have specially ordained; take good heed thereof, for it will be sure to take heed of you.

It seems to me that Plato, being an intelligent person, was quite capable of conceiving and arguing for either position. I don't know myself which is the "real Plato".

All I wanted to flag was that quoting Plato is perhaps not the best way of showing that the ancient Greeks didn't believe in their gods. I'd imagine that "the ancient Greeks" had all sorts of ideas, and even among intellectuals they weren't necessarily all of the same mind:-

[...] no one who had taken up in youth this opinion, that the Gods do not exist, ever continued in the same until he was old; the two other notions certainly do continue in some cases, but not in many; the notion, I mean, that the Gods exist, but take no heed of human things, and the other notion that they do take heed of them, but are easily propitiated with sacrifices and prayers.

Here, atheism is treated almost as something callow youths get into. Could Plato partly be referring to himself here? Also note that the (as it was later) "Epicurean" position must have been common enough for him to have mentioned it.

Horatio Parker

I don't see why this couldn't be allegorical.

On the same basis, the Timaeus would constitute "proof" that Plato believed literally in the gods.

Nor does anyone else.

The original statement was the Greeks didn't believe in the gods literally. Not non-existence.
According to the levels of reality Plato described, this sounds like something in the realm of "right opinion". Only a philosopher can know, because only a philosopher understands the distinction between imagining, thinking, opining and understanding. Anyone can opine, and they may be right, but only the philosopher can know. So the gods can be a useful construction for the less enlightened.

It's important to remember that these realities exist in the invisible intelligible world, not the material world. Although they bring order to the material universe, they are only perceived with the eye of the mind. The classic example in the Republic is the form of a chair. A chair exists in a intelligible, non-material form that the chair builder attempts to realize. Now the exact nature, the qualities and properties of the form "chair" are not known, but, building on the assumption of the one, it is presumed to exist.

The same would be true for the gods. Their nature is unknown, but they are real. But the representations of Homer and others are not literal.

andrewcriddle

I don't think this passage implies a literal belief by Plato in the traditional Greek myths about the Gods.

Andrew Criddle

Cheerful Charlie

Plato despised Democritus and probably Epicurus. He never mentioned either. At one point in his life he thought about gathering up and burning as many Democritus' manuscripts as possible.

Wikipedia - Democritus
Diogenes Laërtius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, Book IX, Chapter 7 (40): "Aristoxenus in his Historical Notes affirms that Plato wished to burn all the writings of Democritus that he could collect".

Cheerful Charlie

Cheerful Charlie

There are several cautious comments by Plato that indicate he did not care for the Homeric Gods. A touchy subject at any rate in Athens. He damns these beliefs with faint CYA praise. Occasionally he tried to argue that Homer's description of the Gods was false. Many of his dialogues speak of God as singular.

Cheerful Charlie