The Calvinist International
Augustine is well known for the degree to which he was influenced by Neoplatonism in the first phase of his career. (It is sometimes assumed–incorrectly–that this makes his early works insufficiently “Christian.”) In the preface to his first completed extant work, for instance–the De beata vita, “On the Happy Life”–he refers in the preface, addressed […]
It may be news to many of you that Origen, the church father, and Plotinus, the great Neoplatonist philosopher, at one time or another, both sat under the teaching of Ammonius Saccas, who was perhaps the founding teacher of Neoplatonism. Joseph Trigg, in his book on Origen, briefly explains the similarities and differences between Origen […]
Philip Cary explains Augustine’s relationship to Plotinus in terms of an “inward turn” in moral philosophy. The idea of turning inward was prevalent among Platonists of antiquity and stems from the basic distinction between material and immaterial principles. Since man is guided by an immaterial soul his happiness is not to be found in the […]
Phillip Cary offers an informative summary of Augustine’s appropriation of the Platonic concept of love or eros (ἔρος) – the Symposium (a dialogue “περὶ τῶν ἐρωτικῶν λόγων”) is perhaps the most famous dialogue in this regard – and its relationship to his theology of grace and freedom of the will – for those who are interested in further examination […]