The City of God by Augustine - 8 - Plato and Natural Theology
Book Eight
Quote
📝 For philosophy is directed to the obtaining of the blessed life, and he who loves God is blessed in the enjoyment of God.
Notes
🔥 Augustine moves to natural theology to handle the arguments of the philosophers who believe in a supreme God, but still think worshiping many gods in their smaller assigned domains is okay.
🔥 His focus is on the Platonic philosophers. He traces some of Plato's philosophical ancestors, including Anaxagorus, who held that all things are the product of a divine mind.
🔥 Socrates focused his philosophy on virtue and right living, so that the mind might be purified and therefore able to better comprehend the divine mind. But, among his followers, there was disagreement about what the final good was.
🔥 Plato eclipsed all Socrates' other followers. He combined the active (the study of the moral life) and the contemplative (the study of the cause of all things in nature) into one.
🔥 It's a bit tricky to ascertain Plato's own thoughts on things because he wrote in dialogues. But he does share opinions that God is the centre of all things and the cause of all existence.
🔥 Let all other religious ideas we've dealt with so far yield to Plato, says Augustine. Plato recognized the divine mind as the source of life, and that the source was not some material thing or set of corrupt gods (demons). The divine mind transcends all material reality. It is eternal and unchanging. And there is something of that in us which allows us to perceive it. Not our physical senses, but some other light in our mind.
🔥 But for some reason, Plato and the Platonists still believed sacred rites ought to be performed in honour of many gods. Plato thought all gods were good, but the plays honouring them were bad, and he banned them from his state (in the Republic). Augustine wonders how this makes sense?
🔥 Augustine maintains that the many gods are demons — below God — and it's silly to worship them. They, in fact, lead us to vice.
🔥 Some say the demons are intermediaries between God and men, but that doesn't make sense either. How can we trust demons to honourably transmit messages when they are evil?
🔥 Then there's a bit of an interlude where Augustine discusses Hermes Trismagistus and his idea that men discovered how to create gods and imbue them into images. To Augustine's mind, these are still idols and demons.