Saint Augustine's Contribution Of Platonism To Christianity

Platonism played an influential role in the Saint Augustine’s understanding of and conversion to Christianity. By bringing concepts from Platonism into Christianity, Augustine not only helped shape his conception of Christianity, but through doing so he also contributed important ideas to theology and philosophy—more specifically, epistemology and metaphysics. In this essay, I will demonstrate how Augustine brought Platonism into Christianity and argue he was mostly successful in combining the two. Before displaying how Augustine applied Platonism to Christianity, I will briefly explain Platonism and some of its main claims. Next, I will focus on the three main ways Augustine applies the metaphysics and epistemology of Platonism to Christianity,

The metaphysical view he applies to Christianity mirrors the theory of forms, as he assigns several of the attributes and roles of the forms to God. For instance, Augustine describes the nature of God as timeless, immutable, and infinite, and asserts that He belongs to the intelligible or spiritual realm of reality. (Confessions 133-134). In addition, God’s role in the existence of all physical things in the world mimics that of the Forms. For instance, just as all beautiful things exist only to the extent to which they partake in the form of Beauty, similarly, all physical things exist as part of and because of God. Augustine also employ the relationship between forms and physical things to argue the relationship between God and the physical world is a unified hierarchy in which all physical things are tied to God, who is the ideal form and the ultimate source of existence.(Stanford encyclopedia). By attributing the nature and roles of the forms to God, Augustine provides a philosophical explanation for God’s omnipotence and the existence of and nonphysical entities. Furthermore, the application of the metaphysics of Platonism is significant because it allows Augustine to dismiss empiricist objections to Christianity, such as one objecting to Jesus’s resurrection because he or she has never seen someone rise from the dead, or claiming God does

According to Platonism, to possess real knowledge of a thing one must know its form; however, this knowledge is solely intelligible. Augustine applies a similar rationale to defend Christian faith and the existence of a spiritual reality. For instance, he posits God and spirituality, like the forms, cannot be known through the senses. An important aspect of Augustine’s argument for faith is his theory of illumination, which posits faith is a necessary condition for understanding God and the Christian doctrines(Rist p.32). To illustrate this, he explains that while he could read the words of the scripture he could not truly understand them until he was graced by God with religious faith. According to Augustine, in acquiring real knowledge, faith plays a more significant role than reason, as it informs and enhances one’s ability to reason (Rist 27) Furthermore, faith is important because one cannot have true knowledge and understanding of God and the intelligible, spiritual world without having faith