Christian Platonism shares with Neoplatonism a hierarchical understanding of reality, the idea of teleology, and belief in a spiritual realm of reality on which the visible, material world depends. Modern philosophical naturalism rejects all these things. It insists that all that exists is what we can discover using our five senses and that our minds are not capable of knowing intelligible reality such as universals. It should be clear that Platonism has at least some things in common with Christianity and that Naturalism is the common enemy of both.

Everyone approaches the interpretation of Scripture with metaphysical assumptions, some of which may be held consciously and critically and others of which may be unconsciously assumed. A materialist will not be likely to see the soul as immortal, but a person who believes in a spiritual realm of reality beyond the material cosmos may be more inclined to entertain the idea. A person who assumes mechanism may see naturalistic evolution as possible; one who rejects mechanism will look for teleology and Divine directedness.

Throughout the history of the church and even during the second temple period as the Jews encountered Hellenism, the writing and interpretation of Scripture has been influenced by Greek metaphysical ideas. Greek philosophical ideas are visible in the New Testament just as they are in other Jewish writings of that period. The idea that the Bible is hermetically sealed off from the surrounding cultural influences is not an idea that most interpreters of Scripture historically have taken all that seriously. This is not to say that biblical writers uncritically incorporated ancient Near Eastern mythological thinking or that they uncritically incorporated Greek metaphysics into their writings. There is no reason to suppose them to be uncritical. And it is not to say that Divine inspiration did not cause them to modify or reject certain extra-biblical ideas. In fact, it seems clear to me that because the Bible is inspired it does so. The Old and New Testaments alike engage in polemical refutation and correction of pagan mythological and metaphysical ideas in their cultural contexts (e.g. 1 Tim 1:4, 7; 2 Tim 4:4; Tit 1:14; 2 Pet 1:16). (n.b. I discuss the OT polemical correction of ANE mythology in Contemplating God with the Great Tradition, 116-21.)

The pro-Nicene fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries certainly were influenced by Greek metaphysical thinking. For example, Basil of Caesarea studied in Constantinople and Athens and Augustine was famously influenced by Neoplatonic writings, probably those of Plotinus, which helped him come to faith. He talks about this in Confessions, Book VII. By late antiquity, the Platonic tradition was the mainstream philosophical tradition, and it was over seven centuries old. Plato was as ancient to Augustine as Aquinas is to us today.

Neoplatonism

The form of Platonism that was predominant in Augustine’s day has been called, since the nineteenth century, Neoplatonism. This was a mixture of Plato, Aristotle, and Stoicism as taught by Plotinus (204-70) and his disciples.

Neoplatonism was the most potent and influential form of Platonism at that time, and it was both a philosophy and a mystical religion. But it was not a religion for the masses; it was definitely an elite phenomenon, unlike Christianity. In Augustine’s day, Christianity and Neoplatonism were rivals and it was not yet clear which would become most influential in the future development of Western civilization. As things turned out, Christianity won that contest, but Neoplatonism went underground only to re-surface periodically in history.

When we talk of Augustine’s Christian Platonism, it is important that we grasp the fact that he lays out what he accepts and what he rejects in Platonism in The City of God. There is one main point at which the special revelation of Scripture corrects Platonism and two more points where biblical revelation adds entirely new content of central importance to what the Platonists knew.

1. Creation ex Nihilo

This is a huge difference between Neoplatonism and Christian Platonism. For the Neoplatonists, the universe is eternal so far as we know. The One emanates being from itself and this is where the universe originates. Matter is less pure being. There is no hard and fast Creator-creature distinction; the being of the world differs from the being of the One only by degree.

For Christianity, however, God is the transcendent Creator who brings into existence all things visible and invisible. This means that the being of God is eternal, necessary and self-existent, while the being of the creation has a beginning, is contingent and is not self-existent. The Creator-creature distinction is a difference in kind of being, not in degree.

Moreover, in Christianity, the Bible presents creation as an act of God’s will. God did not have to create, nor did he create unconsciously. He does not create as a function of his own existence. But in Neoplatonism the One emanates being without making a specific decision to do so. It is therefore more accurate to see the One in Neoplatonism as part of the cosmos, or on the same plane of reality as the cosmos, rather than as transcendent.

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