God Takes on the Form of the Good

Aristotle tried to fix the gaps left by Plato’s assessment of reality by saying that the dual nature of reality was to be explained by form and matter. Plato said that achieving form was the goal of matter. Matter was potential; form was fullness of being. Form and matter existed in pure form only in the ideal world; they could never be completely isolated. Everything existed in some sort of cycle that continually went on between form and matter.

Critique of Plato’s Theory of Form: Shortcomings and other conflicts and problem The world according to Plato is divided into two worlds: The Visible: The world we live in, the world we taste or touch. The Intelligible: We can only grab this with our mind. It is made up of Abstract forms, which are absolute and this exists in the permanent relation with the visible realm and makes the visible realm possible as all our knowledge of the visible world is derived from here. Because only they possess the eternal unchanging truth of mind and not the senses. Conflict: Plato is not very clear about how the Forms relate to things in the realm of Intelligible and Visible.

The bottom line is Theocentrism is a belief that God is everything and within everything. This belief is similar to pantheism. However, Theocentrism focuses on physical connections to God instead of spiritual. Therefore, the knowledge of God instructs humanity in their proper dealing with creation. One of the essential gifts within knowledge of God is “a perfect knowledge of the nature of the animals, the herbs, the fruits, the trees, and the remaining creatures.

Plato was able to create his metaphysical inception of Forms by studying the Ontology of his predecessors such as Parmenides. According to Plato Forms are the only genuine entity of study that can provide us with absolute knowledge. Plato is faithful to the perseverance of a world that is unbiased and mind independent. Previous philosophers believe that our senses, which are our illusive access to the world are wholly mistaken about the reality we live in, Plato also shares this belief. “The Form of Good” is known by Plato as the intellectual brilliance of all Forms.

The definition of what a perfect person was developed by Plato. Plato believed that the physical world did not matter it was the form in the ideal world and this value of form and thought can be seen throughout many of the works of art. Plato said that in the physical world we did not see the real object we only saw a shadow of it. The art of this time period showed form and subject that were far more perfect than one could actually exist in the real would in an attempt to represent the world of ideas. All of these aspects together confirm that Plato has a major influence on Greek art of the time.

Aristotle’s argument was that, because everything physical was subject to change, there must be an immaterial, immutable mover, causing movement without being changed itself during the process. This is the Prime Mover. In a similar was, Judaeo Christians believe that God is invariable and eternal. These traditional theists think God is the creator of the world, and creates ex-nihilo, but is unaffected by these creations. He is purely a sustainer of the world and all things.

Ultimate reality has no direct definition as each person has a different perspective of what they believe is real. The Bhagavad-Gita shows ultimate reality in the form of Brahman. Brahman is the final cause to all that exists and has two sides, the objective and subjective. Similarly, The Republic of Plato uses the forms as a way to explain reality. The forms and Brahman are unchanging and the form of the good is the most important as it is the utmost object of knowledge.

At the same time he has in mind a problem which claimed much attention from pre-Socratic thinkers, the problem of change. The Platonic theory of Ideas is an attempt to solve this crucial question by a metaphysical compromise. The Eleatics, Plato said, are right in maintaining that reality does not change; for the ideas are immutable. Still, there is, as contended, change in the world of our experience, or, as Plato terms it, the world of phenomena. Plato, then, supposes a world of Ideas apart from the world of our experience, and immeasurably superior to it.

Kepler, Newton, Galileo, and Descartes-- and their answer to the first question was traditionally God as the embodiment of the laws of nature. Unless one endows God with some other attributes such as being the God of the Old Testament employing God as a response merely substitutes one mystery for another. So if we involve God with the first question as answer we see the real crunch comes with the second question: Are there miracles, exceptions to the laws? Opinions about the second question have been sharply divided. Plato and Aristotle the two most influential ancient Greek writers held there can be no exceptions to the laws.

Also, the form is at its perfect. Plato believes that the Form has no matter while Aristotle believes that the Form has matter, making up the substance. As Aristotle was Plato’s inspiration, Aristotle combined his study of the world by his classifications with his work in logic and theology. In ancient times he became recognized as the leading authority on logic and was recognized in the Middle Ages as well. He began his study of logic as lessons, of how to succeed in the kind of debates found in Plato 's writings.