Plato's Explanation Of Christianity By St. Augustine

St. Augustine’s was one of the most profound philosophers regarding Christianity, he defined Christianity in a unique way that had not been done since the religion had surfaced. At the time this religion was only four centuries old making it much younger then it’s competing religions. As a new religion, before, God had only been perceived, as a metaphysical substance however had no ties to more familiar philosophical notions. For example his literary work Confessions, he revealed his interpretation of Christianity on a personal level while producing a sophisticated interpretation of God’s word by merging it with widely spread Platonic ideas. Augustine states, “The utterance of Plato, the most pure and bright in all philosophy, scatters the

Plato’s views were still an imminent source of influence around the time of the Roman Empire in which Augustine resided. These philosophies influenced Augustine, because he lived in an era when Rome’s might and stability were crumbling as well as his own life. Augustine early life was surrounded with much sorrow and loss; he lost his mistress, then his mother, and finally his son. When he was seeking to convert to Christianity he questioned the presence of God in such chaos and made it a life’s mission to answer why, God is all mighty and the highest form of truth but would allow suffering to exist. St. Augustine used Plato’s distinction between the imperfect world in contrast with God (who is constant, perfect, and everlasting) to seek truth about the presence of God. In particular he agreed with Plato’s belief that the earth is ruined by temptations and corruption, thus true knowledge can only be achieved by looking toward ones eternal soul. This distinction described the struggles between the physical and the ideal by symbolizing them with the body and the soul. Augustine compared the belief of Neo-Platonists by likening the purity of the soul trapped in an imperfect body conflicted by temptations to souls trying to fulfill their Christian faith saying, “The soul is torn apart in a painful condition, as long as it prefers the eternal because of its truth but does not discard the temporal because of familiarity” (Augustine 150). Because the body resides

Augustine philosophized that evil exists due to free will; God had let human beings freely choose the kinds of lives they will lead and actions they will take, however unfortunately this results in inevitable evil. The soul must over come these temptations to rejoin God in the eternal. Augustine refers to this Platonic "ascent of the soul" in Book 9 of his Confessions where he recounts his journey to God by addressing his conversion and his exit from a secular life. He talks about his baptism with Alypius and Adeodatus and reading and writing about Neoplatonist views of Christianity. Based on these influences from Plato, Augustine 's concluded instead of trying to see existence of the transcendent in other beings one must realize the presence is everywhere including inward, no matter how compromised the soul might have become, thus showing everyone owes their existence to God. Augustine reiterates this notion saying, “Some people, in order to discover God, read books. But there is a great book: the very appearance of created things. Look above you! Look below you! Read it. God, whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with ink. Instead, He set before your eyes the things that He had made. Can you ask for a louder voice than that?” (Augustine). Augustine claims God made all beings with the intentions of purity in all, even when one such as himself