SLD

I have heard the claim that Christianity is hashed over religious thought of the later Platonic school of Greek religious thought. However, I am curious about how exactly this is. How exactly are these two related and I wonder if we have the sources for this information, i.e. which particular Platonic writers of that time period were used and do we have the original writings to compare with Christian thought.

Or is this claim highly exagerrated and there are only limited connections between Platonic religious thought and Christianity?

SLD

Clivedurdle

Isn't this accepted? Plato's belief that there is a perfect something somewhere else and what we believe is real is in fact a copy, a second best, is the whole basis of the idea of the perfect Christ, of heaven being perfect, of striving after perfection.

It is the basis of the concept of supernatural being somehow better than natural, and the hatred by fundies of all the materialists and naturalists who heretically go and look at things instead of working out how they diverge from a fictional ideal.

CJD

It is hardly accepted. The basis of God's messiah (conceived of either collectively or individually) coming to lead his people out of exile is quite comfortably couched in Hebraic thought.

It goes without saying, of course, that many an early Greek Christian was just as influenced by Plato as they were by Hebrew scriptures. But Paul was not one of them. Moreover, these Greek apologists (of the second century and beyond) were in the business of saying that what Plato got right, he got right because all truth proceeds from the father, and that what he touched through natural revelation is more clearly revealed through supernatural revelation. In other words, since we all have the faculty of reason, we are capable of speaking truthfully about the world in which we live. Just relating the general mindset here; I'm not interested in defending the Christian platonist.

Clivedurdle is right about one thing: the dualism inherent in Platonism has infected many Christian thinkers throughout the centuries, so much so that the gospel gets turned into something like "going to heaven when you die" (which is a backhanded degradation of the physical world).

CJD

Clivedurdle

But in Babylon, Judaism met dualistic thought via Zoroastrianism! Anyone know where dualism came from? Did Plato get it from Persia?

Ruhan

Neo-platonism certainly did influence Paul's thinking. The whole concept that everything related to the flesh is evil vs. the spirit being good, was typical Roman neo-platonistic thinking. Early Judaism as well as the Gospels do not contain this paradigm to the same extent as Paul's writings does.

CJD

No, it didn't, at least not to the extent you think it did. Now, on with the typical elementary and baseless reasons …

This is not what Paul had in mind in the slightest when speaking of sarx, for the "flesh" to which Paul refers has to do with humanity's sinful nature (via Adam), just as the "spirit" refers to the higher and abundant life in Jesus. Matter has nothing to do with it. Indeed, in Paul's view, all matter will one day be redeemed.

You can keep on thinking this, but it is wrong, and does not at all cohere with the pertinent texts. Of course, no thinking takes place in a vacuum. And if this guy Paul was worth his salt, he would've known enough about Platonism to have an eye on it when he wrote. But I assure you, he was no "neo-platonist."

CJD

Chili

Paul was a shepherd with the insight of a Platonist and that is what it takes to be a good shepherd. A shepherd must know that light cannot be mixed with darkness inside religion where flesh is flesh and will be flesh until redemption takes place. If anything, Paul was the cause of neo-Platon-ism.

SLD

This was what I was kind of looking for, but specific authors and sources for this claim.

It is my understanding (and I could be mistaken) is that the Gospel of John was very similar to greek platonic thought. I don't mean Plato himself but later writers from his schools of thought had the same concept of "the Word" and it being with God. That the Platonists of the early 1st century understood God as being too perfect and therefore an intercessor is thus required who comes down from heaven to nearer our realm to save us. This is of course Doherty's position WRT Paul's writings. But what I am getting at is the actual source of such Platonic thought. Which Platonic thinkers made these types of claims, when, and exactly what were these religious views? I'm curious also if there is any literary connection between these writers and some concepts expressed in the NT. It would be interesting to see if any particular phrases had been lifted from one writer to the NT.

SLD

Ruhan

Here are a few sources I have found:

Will Durant mentions in his book The Age of Faith on the Trinity in regards to Nicaea and the 4th century, "Neoplatonism was still a power in religion and philosophy. Those doctrines which Plotinus had given a shadowy form- of a triune spirit binding all reality, of a Logos or intermediary deity who had done the work of creation, of soul as divine and matter as flesh and evil, of spheres of existence along whose invisible stairs the soul had fallen from God to man and might extend from man to God-these mystic ideas left their mark on the apostles John and Paul..." (P 9)

Peter Kirby mentions it as well:

http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...peed/ch08.html

Some other interesting articles:
http://www.cornerstone1.org/trin-gp.htm
http://www.theandros.com/time.html
http://www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/...ed/me-imo2.htm
http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/encyc/e...ii.cxxxiii.htm

Ruhan

I am sure you learned in play school that an argument cannot be supported by simply stating that something "isn't so"....

There are valid reasons why historians believe that Paul (or at least the authors of the Pauline texts) was influenced by neo-platonism.

Paul's use of "spirit" and "flesh" is more in line with their usage in extra-biblical platonic texts than you allude to here. Things of the spirit are valued as much higer than that of the flesh. There are other aspects of neo-platonism which Paul also adopted such as becoming one with God.

I never said he was a "neo-platonist" but that he was influenced by neo-platonism. Obviously Paul did not write all the Pauline texts and one cannot argue that neo-platonism did not influence early Christian thought based on the idea that one man would have been descerning enough to exlude it from his theology. We find neo-platonistic ideas all over the Pauline books. Neo-platonism was a major force in 1st century Rome and as such it's a logical conclusion. To suggest anything else is simply being apologetic.