Plato believes in the absolute ideas, of the spiritual realm, and the belief of a higher power. Unlike Plato, Socrates, believes in the ideas on earth rather than the spiritual belief. This forces distance between Plato and the teachings of Socrates. Not only that, but also he believes that the ideal of society is the ideal of perfectionism in the spiritual realm. Plato’s views branch from the teachings he received growing up, and in growing up learning and interpreting on his own became key. Augustine believes in salvation and that is by God’s grace through faith that people are saved. He believes that the peace of society rests solely on man being saved. Love which Augustine focuses on primarily is the basis of faith for God. Man’s …show more content…
Plato and Augustine to my understanding both share similarities and differences within their beliefs on worldview, they have different moral beliefs, as Augustine’s beliefs are solely based on faith, as Plato’s, belief includes philosophical aspects, and …show more content…
This is because death may seem scary, knowing that Jesus died for our sins, and because we are saved by grace through faith, allows the comfort that everything will be alright. Stating in his book, “But in the blessed life eternal there will be love and joy, not only right, but also assured; but fear and grief there will be none” (Confessions 38). The motive of understanding between Plato and Augustine focus of death, connects with the sinful nature of man. For example, the Bible states for us as Christians not to worry. “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:34). In brief, both philosophers are attuned on the outlook of death, in correspondence with people and fear. Fear and worrying exists because of sinful nature. Sin came about because of man, the origin of man’s sin is pride. For “pride is the beginning of sin.” Sin pushes man away from God and His love. The only thing that saves man and brings him closer to God is being saved by His grace. Augustine writes that, “ Pride is the beginning of sin . . . for if the will had remained steadfast in the love of that higher and changeless good by which it was illumined to intelligence and kindled into love, it not have turned away to find satisfaction in itself” (Confessions, 38). He recognizes the sin we inherited and the sin we actively produce. There is a nature of
Aristotle believes that society should achieve eternal happiness and just acts. Plato was also an influential philosopher due to his study of the nature of truths and virtues. Thomas Aquinas believed in moral and virtuous acts from a Spiritual perspective. Knowledge and the governance of the law relies on the contribution of several different effective
The Church dominated political thought through thinkers such as Augustine and Aquinas. In The Prince and The Discourses, Machiavelli breaks from the early Christian tradition of thinkers such as Augustine in his work City of God. Augustine lays out the characteristics of a good Christian leader while Machiavelli issues a scathing criticism of such characteristics and the Christian faith in general. Augustine takes a moral approach while Machiavelli remains rather pragmatic in his approach.
Plato's philosophy of government sees the State as a larger version of the individual, and the soul of an individual is comprised of three parts. Plato states that these three parts include the appetite, the spirit, and reason (167), and these parts have goals and desires that pertain only to them. For example, reason finds fulfillment in the study ...
Which resulted Augustine in exploring the philosophical road that led to his conversion from Macheanism to Neo-Platonism to Christianity. But later felt sorrowful for his mother that had died and confesses to God that everyone is a sinner right when they were born and through God that this sin can only be absorbed. He later moves back to Thagaste and then became Bishop of Hippo. As a “doctor” of the Chruch, he defended Christianity against false (heretic) interpretation. After his conversion, he refused to teach rhetoric. Yet, in the end, no matter what sin he had done Augustine found his savior. Which led him to write about how to convey God’s truth to diverse audiences and demonstrates that both the Bible and one’s own life are texts to be read and assessed against the true Cristian Doctrine. The last four books were like an appendix and offers an interpretation of the opening of the Book of Genesis. When Augustine’s converted to Christianity his appropriation of Platonic ideas uses his past sins and later confesses to God that will eventually enhance his soul and body. The consequences of this appropriation are that sins are considered to be
Both Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Politics deal with the issue of justice. In both of these pieces of writings, the authors are trying to determine what is the perfect city, and how justice plays a role in the city, and in turn how justice is present in both society and individuals. While some similarities may be present between Aristotle and Socrates’s thinking, they approach the situation completely differently. Socrates first builds what would be a perfect city to him. He then examines what makes the city perfect and relates it to the individual. On the other hand, Aristotle looks at the relationships between humans that exists in society and then looks for those relationships within the human soul.
Fear of the unknown, and fear of what is to come in our lives, has generations of people wondering what will our lives be like tomorrow or the next day. Death is always there and we cannot escape it. Death is a scary thing. Our own mortality or the mortality of our loved ones scares us to the point that we sometimes cannot control how we are dealing with such a thing as the thought of death. Why do we fear such a thing as death? We don’t know what happens after we don’t how it feels. The fear of death is different for most but it is most certain to come and we cannot hide from it. For death is just around the corner and maybe it’s will come tomorrow or the next day! We fear not death, but the unknown that comes from death, that is the
Plato’s point of view is different as it is quite objective. There are moral truths, and they are true or false independently of an agent. His viewpoint is based largely on his theory of the forms. He believes that there are two worlds, one is the real world and the other is our world. Within the real world resides eternalness, knowledge, truth and form.
Despite these differences between the two writers, neither theory really proves to be right or wrong. Christians tend to side with Augustine and his views, but there is no real absolute here. There are those who say that they try to be good, rational and virtuous within themselves in their earthly life to garner a spot in heaven, and there are those who live according to what they feel God wants them to do. Regardless of their many differences, however, Aristotle and Augustine both prove to us with that there is more than one right way to live a virtuous life.
Augustines first book is devoted to his early childhood and his reflections on human origin, memory, and desire. His ideas of God were very much influenced by the religious teachings of his day.
Through my study of Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” and Saint Augustine’s “The Confessions”, I discovered that both text involve a journey of finding real truths before acquiring a faith. This suggests that faith and reason are compatible because one must embark on journey in which they are educated about real truths before they are able to acquire a faith.
A foundational belief in Christianity is the idea that God is perfectly good. God is unable to do anything evil and all his actions are motives are completely pure. This principle, however, leads to many questions concerning the apparent suffering and wrong-doing that is prevalent in the world that this perfect being created. Where did evil come from? Also, how can evil exist when the only eternal entity is the perfect, sinless, ultimately good God? This question with the principle of God's sovereignty leads to even more difficult problems, including human responsibility and free will. These problems are not limited to our setting, as church fathers and Christian philosophers are the ones who proposed some of the solutions people believe today. As Christianity begins to spread and establish itself across Europe in the centuries after Jesus' resurrection, Augustine and Boethius provide answers, although wordy and complex, to this problem of evil and exactly how humans are responsible in the midst of God's sovereignty and Providence.
In researching his life, I found interesting facts that originally he did have a Christian belief system. However, after the death of his mother, he returned to Rome where he by a bishop named Ambrose began teaching him scripture and later who baptized him. What I found extremely interesting is that he was not a fan of Greek literature and in fact disliked many Greek writings. Because of this one fact, he was limited to the language of the Christians, which was Latin. This I also found to be a break from previous philosophers who seem to be great thinkers of Greek society. Augustine also framed the concept of the original sins and just war. Augustine believed that Christians should be passive and peaceful people but he would lay the foundation of terms that a nation should go to war about.
Philosophy can be defined as the highest level of clarity and understanding human thought can aspire to. In some ways, Plato’s Republic can be compared to George Orwell’s book 1984. It may seem strange to compare the two, however they are quite similar. Plato writes from the Western philosophy, while Orwell tells of a totalitarian society where all free thought is banned. However, the two versions of government, one being a utopian government, and the other being horrific, contain certain connections that will be made clear over the course of this paper.
Thirdly, Plato and Aristotle hold contrasting views on the mechanism of finding the truth. Plato relied on the ability to reason in his attempt to explain the world. He produced his ideal world based on reason since such a world lies beyond the realm of the five senses. Plato ignored his senses because he believed his senses only revealed the imperfect forms of the ordinary world.
For Plato it is the Good, for Augustine it is God. Although their worldviews share this similarity, the central points have a different role, exist in different ways, and are attained reversely. The Good is what gives truth and knowledge, where God gives forgiveness and salvation. God exists as a being, where the Good does not. Lastly, the Good an individual must seek, whereas God is the one that seeks the individual. Worldview is very powerful in shaping who a person is. One’s worldview provides meaning for life. A worldview is not something that appears in one’s life or is automatically obtained, it is something that is developed throughout life. It is important to recognize what one’s personal worldview is and also be open to other views, for the learning of other worldviews often strengthens one’s own