The teaching of Plato and his heirs: the visible world images an intelligible one, and the Forms, above all the Good, are what is most real.
Platonism is the longest shadow in Western thought: the conviction, from Plato's dialogues, that truth, beauty, and goodness are not conventions but realities the soul can know and must love. The Academy kept the teaching for nine centuries, Plotinus rebuilt it as Neoplatonism, and Augustine carried its structure into Christian theology. Every later argument about universals, ideals, and the life of the mind replays its founding moves.
Sources
Primary
- Plato, Republic.
Secondary
- Lloyd P. Gerson, From Plato to Platonism (2013).
How this compares to Christianity
How does this branch relate to the historic Christian faith?
This assessment has not yet been reviewed. Every verdict below stands at Not yet reviewed until the named theological reviewers supply it.
- Does it consider itself Christian?
- Not yet reviewed
- Did it arise from the Christian tradition?
- Not yet reviewed
- Does it affirm the ecumenical creeds?
- Not yet reviewed
- Is it recognized as Christian by the historic bodies?
- the Catholic Church: Not yet reviewed
- the Eastern Orthodox Church: Not yet reviewed
- the Oriental Orthodox churches: Not yet reviewed
- conciliar Protestant bodies: Not yet reviewed
- the WCC / National Council of Churches: Not yet reviewed
- This site's assessment
- Not yet reviewed
- Reviewer
- Not yet reviewed. The theological reviewers are named on the criteria page when they are appointed.
The comparative record for this entity, its points of convergence and divergence across the ten loci, has not yet been populated. It stands in the assessment queue on the criteria page.
What this assessment cannot settle
This assessment determines what this entity teaches and how that teaching relates to the historic Christian creeds. It does not determine whether any person is saved, whether God accepts their worship, whether they are sincere, or whether the criteria applied here are correct.
This assessment is made from the standpoint described in our editorial statement and our criteria page. It reports classifications; it does not rank sincerity, spiritual standing, or the eternal state of any person.