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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 3 page paper uses Augustine’s Confession and On Free Choice of Will to argue that he was influenced by Plato. Bibliography lists 2 sources.
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3 pages (~225 words per page)
File: KV32_HVptoaug.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
Steven Cahn warns against taking the statement that "Augustine Platonized Christianity" too seriously, for it is unlikely that Augustine read much of Plato, if any at all (2006, p. 356).
In fact, St. Augustine rejected many of Platos "characteristic doctrines," including his ideas of reincarnation, recollection, and "the denial of moral weakness" (Cahn, 2006, p 356). Despite this, Cahn says,
there is a "Platonic core to Augustines thinking"; a parallel seems to exist between Platos Theory of Forms and the way in which Augustine seeks to understand God in the
Confession, for instance. In Free Choice of the Will, Augustine gives an overview of many of his concepts and again, the Platonic echo is there. In the Confession, Augustine
seeks to understand the nature of God and in particular asks for enlightenment regarding the Scriptures: "May Thy Scriptures be for my chaste delight; let me not deceive others about
them nor be myself deceived" (Cahn, 2006, p. 353). Augustine says that God sought Man when Man had turned away, and left a mechanism by which Man can seek God:
"They Word, by which Thou hast made all things and me among them" (Cahn, 2006, p. 353). The problem comes in trying to truly understand Gods word: "I ask Thee,
my God: pardon my sins, and as Thou didst grant to Thy servant to speak those words, grant me to understand them" (Cahn, 2006, p. 353). Here it seems is
one example of Platonic influence on Augustines thinking, because he is seeking a way to understand abstractions, much as Plato did when he devised his Theory of Forms. Plato posited
the existence of the Form of an object as separate and distinct from the object itself. Form, Plato believed, could be understood in this way: "Take any property of an
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