Plato's Influence on Western Thought and Christian Theology

In this episode, Nathan and Daniel dive into the life and legacy of Plato, one of history’s most influential philosophers. They discuss why Plato's ideas have had a profound impact on Western thought and Christian theology, outline the structure of upcoming episodes, and explain concepts like Platonism, Middle Platonism, and Neoplatonism. Additionally, they touch on the intertwining of Greek philosophy with early Christian thought and the role of Plato's Academy in shaping intellectual history. The episode sets the stage for a deeper exploration of Plato’s philosophies and their enduring influence.

00:00 Introduction and Catching Up

00:15 Introducing Plato

01:54 Plato's Influence and Importance

03:48 Plato's Systematization of Philosophy

11:46 Plato's Life and Background

13:00 Plato's Academy and Works

17:11 Platonism and Its Evolution

18:42 Neoplatonism and Its Impact

23:25 Conclusion and Teasers for Next Episode

All right.

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We're back.

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Hey, Daniel.

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Good afternoon, Nathan.

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Glad to see you again.

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Yeah.

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Excited to record some podcasts before

I head out on paternity leave here.

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Right.

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Hopefully get a couple in

the bank for editing Yeah.

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So this will be good.

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And we have finally made

it to drum roll, please.

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Plato.

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It's been a long time coming.

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That's right.

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The Plato.

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The Plato.

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Not Plato.

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No, I was telling Nate previously,

I could tell I don't announce yet my

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words very clearly because when the

transcript comes through, the written

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transcript of all the, of the audio,

Um, the AI always puts it as Play Doh,

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like the child's play thing there.

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But no, not that kind of.

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So not Play Doh.

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No, Play Doh.

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Unfortunately.

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Yeah, that would be fun to talk about,

the philosophical meanings of Play Doh.

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Yeah, the malleability of material, so.

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See you're already halfway there.

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Hey, that's that's that's my gift

Maybe we'll come back to that because

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we could use that as illustrating

some aspect of plato's thought nice.

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Yeah, so, What are these next

few episodes going to be?

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All right So i've only got this

one and the next one sketched out

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I haven't really written the script

for either one, so Well, we might

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go back and forth a little bit.

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But today we're going to talk about the

influence of plato And then we're going

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to talk about his life and then his works.

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So that's the episode today.

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Kind of the background so we know the guy,

what he's talking about, what he's doing.

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And then next week we're going to

have a little bit longer episode

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about the big idea of Plato, the one

that has influenced Western thought.

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More than any other philosophical

idea in my opinion at least.

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Very nice.

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So that's a little bit of a cliffhanger.

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Yeah, I'm giving a little tease there.

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I like it.

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I like it.

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So Plato.

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So Plato's a disciple of Socrates.

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Yes, and He is in Athens.

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Yes.

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He is in Athens.

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Actually, let's back up.

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Before we talk about his life, let's

just talk about why he's so important,

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why we're talking about him so much.

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Okay.

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We're going to devote three to

four, maybe even five episodes.

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Let's, let's explain why.

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So, he is, in my opinion, the most

influential philosopher of them all.

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Maybe rivaled only by

Aristotle, his pupil.

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Okay, so that's a, that's a big statement.

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It is, and not everyone's

going to agree with that.

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I, from what I've seen, a lot of people

agree, at least influential in the West.

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Seems like that's pretty I should

clarify, that's what I mean, yeah.

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Yeah, I mean, that's not that

contentious of a, Well, maybe.

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Probably some people would argue against

it, but when you look at European and

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American, Canadian history, Australian,

all the thought that's within that

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culture, I think Plato influences

more than any other philosopher.

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And maybe any other

person outside of Jesus.

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So can you I don't know if I

could defend that but maybe.

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Okay.

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Can you share a few of the reasons why

you think he's so influential and how

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he's shaped our culture or society?

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Yeah, let me read a quote

by Alfred North Whitehead.

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He was an American philosopher and

mathematician and he has a famous

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quote that people, that philosophers

argue about whether it's hyperbole

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or accurate, but he said this.

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The safest general characterization

of the European philosophical

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tradition is that it consists of

a series of footnotes to Plato.

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I do not mean the systematic scheme

of thought which scholars have

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doubtfully extracted from his, writings.

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I allude to the wealth of general

ideas scattered through them.

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Now, there are so many ideas, but

in particular, the ones we're going

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to look at next week, I think are

going to really change the history of

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philosophy, the history of thought.

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and a part of this is involved

with this idea that he is really

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the first great systematizer.

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Systematizer?

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Yeah.

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Okay, what does that mean?

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All right.

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So he is, the first one to really

bring together all the different

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thinkers and all their different themes

from the past in Greece and, bring

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together all the different thinkers

and all the different thoughts.

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from the previous philosophers

and then put them together.

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So he's synthesizing them, but he's

also expanding the breadth of that.

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So some of the others, most of

them talked about metaphysics

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and they're trying to figure out,

okay, what is reality consist of?

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A few of them talked about knowledge,

theory of knowledge, but not very deeply.

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And then a very few, uh, the Stoics and a

couple of the others talked about ethics.

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The Stoics, for them it was an ethics

more of personal self advancement.

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Plato is the first to build a system

where all those areas, those three big

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areas of metaphysics, what is real, or

ontology, epistemology, what is true

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and how can we know it, and then ethics,

what should we value, what should we

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do, what should we choose, those three

big areas are all brought together.

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He's teaching on all three.

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And he integrates them.

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So the epistemology is dependent

and tied into the metaphysics

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and the ethics as well.

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So he's the first one.

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Aristotle, you could argue,

does much of the same thing.

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Kant certainly does that

much later on, the German

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philosopher in the 18th century.

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But Plato is the first one, and arguably

the one who does it most successfully,

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in the sense of having a coherent system.

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Yeah.

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So, I mean, you open a, introductory

philosophy textbook and it's going

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to organize kind of similarly,

right, around your metaphysics,

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your epistemology, your ethics.

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And, and so, more modern philosophers

will maybe take one of those

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categories and specialize in them,

or maybe even a subcategory of those

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categories and specialize in them.

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Is that right?

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But he's like foundational because.

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He and Aristotle and then Immanuel Kant

and others have kind of laid groundwork

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for an entire system of philosophy.

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Am I thinking about that correctly?

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Okay.

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So he, is the first great systematizer

and he's still one of the most prominent.

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Okay.

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So if you look at systematizers in the

history of philosophy, I think you would

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say Plato, Aristotle, Thomas, Spinoza.

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Thomas Aquinas.

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Yeah, Thomas Aquinas.

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Okay.

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Spinoza, although his wasn't

quite, to me, as successful.

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Other people might differ.

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And then, uh, Kant.

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But, I mean, there's a sixteen

hundred year gap between Right.

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Aquinas and Aristotle.

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so there wasn't much medieval

Well, almost that much, yeah.

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Medieval, uh, significant

medieval philosophers?

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Well, there were, but

they were mainly English.

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building their ideas either

on Plato or Aristotle.

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Okay, gotcha.

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Yeah, so Augustine was an

original thinker, but he's still

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within the Platonist tradition.

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I see, I see.

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Obviously, there were many other original

thinkers, not as influential as Augustine,

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but they're still within those traditions.

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Okay, I gotcha.

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So those guys are most influential

because they're, they have kind of

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unique foundational perspectives.

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Yes.

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So Plato's going to be

uniquely different from Kant.

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Yes.

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And Thomas is going to be

different from Spinoza.

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Right.

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Okay.

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Now Thomas is going to rely on Aristotle

as well, but he also expands it and

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Christianizing it so much that it's

fair to talk about him separately.

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Okay.

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Wow.

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Okay.

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So we're, I mean, these are big,

broad, sweeping categories and

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there's, it makes sense why we're

going to spend so much time on Plato.

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Yes.

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And the other reason is that, we,

we talked about this a little bit

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last time, You can argue, and I

think pretty successfully, that

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Christian theology, which develops

in the 2nd and 3rd century A.

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D., is really a combination of

Biblical revelation and Greek, and

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particularly, Platonic thought.

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because of that, Plato has a profound

influence on Christian theology,

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and even how Christians who aren't

theologians think about things.

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In particular, the soul, and the

afterlife, and the body, and,

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um, and so many other things.

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Plato is foundational to

Christian, Christian theology.

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Am I thinking about this correctly?

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A lot of that is these,

Hellenized, or even Greek, people.

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who hear the message of Christianity,

the message of Jesus, and have to

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synthesize that message with what

they're already thinking about, and

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try to fit it into the categories.

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I mean, of course, there's going to

be differences, and it's going to

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challenge that, but a lot of that is

just kind of natural, that they're

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trying to fit into their preconceived

categories of how, how life works.

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Yes.

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So kind of two things, and

you're on to one of them.

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As the church becomes less Jewish and

more Gentile, It's going to be bringing

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in people who have been brought up

in the Greco Roman way of thought.

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And really, Rome adopts more than

replaces the Greek ideals of culture and

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philosophy, So, it's going to be coming

to people who are already shaped by that.

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But secondly, once the church begins to

get established and they interact with

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other worldviews, they want to be able to,

as much as possible, show the intellectual

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respectability of Christianity.

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And the way they're gonna do that is

say, look, it fits in with what we

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all believe about the big issues of

life, about these philosophical issues.

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So there, it's like, uh, It's

like Paul at Mars Hill, right?

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I mean, you guys are, you guys are close.

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Yeah, that's a pretty good example.

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But here's, but let me, let me

tell you about this God that

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you say is the unnamed God.

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I know who that is.

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Right.

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So he kind of honors them in that they

have some sort of spiritual impulse,

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but he takes them beyond their thinking

in order to show how Jesus and, you

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know, Christianity flows from the

Jewish thought and that kind of thing.

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Yeah, exactly.

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Okay.

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So some of the very earliest churches.

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church fathers and church theologians felt

like God must have been working through

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Plato and the other Greek philosophers

Because they got so much right.

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It's so much that fits in beautifully

with how they understood the message of

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the Bible That is an interesting idea.

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Yeah.

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No others like Others would get

others would question that point.

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Yes what does Athens have to do with

Jerusalem, you know, that's, that's

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an interesting thought experiment

for all the listeners to see maybe

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the Holy Spirit can work outside

of the scriptures or the church.

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Sure, yeah, and that's one thing

I've kind of wrestled with my

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own, I've come to realize what I'm

just talking about, that Christian

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theology is shaped by Greek thought.

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And the question I wrestled in with

is, okay, how much of that is a good

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thing or even a God given thing?

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And how much of that is really

a perversion of biblical thought

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and the biblical worldview.

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And I could see, you

could argue it either way.

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Um, depending on, you know,

how you interpret things, but

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certainly God could do that.

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That's certainly within his providence.

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Or it could be a wrong turn that

we we need to make a U turn on.

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Yeah, that's, that's interesting.

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it certainly seems true that the

Greek thought, may be paved the

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way for Christianity to have some

connection points in their culture.

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But yeah, whether or not that's a good

thing or it's something that we need to

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Reject is an interesting question as well.

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Okay, so Plato Plato should

we jump back to Plato?

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Yeah, let's jump back after that long

digression But I mean, that's the heart

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of the podcast here is understanding

how these things intersect and how

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they intersected back then because they

certainly it's the Same thing today, you

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know Christianity and culture still right?

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There's still that ongoing

conversation going on.

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Yeah

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so tell us about his life a little bit.

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What do we know about his?

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biography Well, there were a lot of

legends that grew after this, and so

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we have to disentangle some of these,

but the bare facts that we know.

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he was born in 425, possibly 426.

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He was an Athenian, and he came apparently

from a wealthy, aristocratic family.

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Uh, his real Aristarchalese.

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Really?

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Yeah.

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I'm not sure I'm saying that right.

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Aristarchals.

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Starklace.

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Yeah, I'm one of those.

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Yeah, I mean I've got a lot of questions

about that, but I'm sure you don't know.

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No, I don't.

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But that was what one

writer said about him.

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It's not clear, but it is clear that

his name is very close to the Greek

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word Platon, which means broad.

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So a lot of people have speculated that

it's a nickname for that he acquired

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either because he was broad and

burly, that's what one writer said, or

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because of the breadth of his teaching.

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Hmm.

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That's interesting.

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Yeah.

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So again, that part's not clear,

but probably it's a, it's a

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nickname referring to one of those.

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yeah, he's born in Athens, 425.

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He, was one of the people who

was influenced and listened

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to firsthand, Socrates.

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He did a little bit of travel.

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So, it's a little bit unclear, those

middle years, but then around 388 B.

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C., he founded a school in

Athens to teach young men.

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Now this is interesting.

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So it was located in a grove outside

of Athens, and this grove was named

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after a Greek hero named Akademos.

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So the grove, then, was called Akademia.

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Oh.

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And his school then was called, well

in English we'd call it the Academy.

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Whoa.

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Yes, and of course we get our words

academic and academia from that.

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Wow.

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that's a good, trivia question there.

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I like the little lesson in etymology.

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So he's, so, okay, so he's in his

forties and he, starts the school.

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Okay, then what?

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And that, well, this school.

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Okay, sorry, I, yeah.

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No, that's fine.

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you could argue that this school is

actually the first European university.

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Because it doesn't just teach

philosophy, but mathematics,

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astronomy, he even teaches some

biology and botany, apparently.

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And then he, led the academy,

but he also lectured.

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Now here's the deal, though.

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We don't have those lectures.

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Wow, what if we did?

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I know so cool.

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Yeah, people have speculated about

that that maybe What he does in the

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lectures is a little bit different

than what he does in the dialogues

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But hmm, there's no evidence for that.

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It's just speculation but with Aristotle

You actually have the lecture notes

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recorded by his students that have been

written down preserved published So when

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you read Aristotle you're reading the

notes that he gave to or the lectures

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he gave to the students You When you

read Plato, you're reading what he

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wrote more for a popular audience.

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Oh.

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Hmm.

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So, how does that, Well, it

makes him a lot more readable.

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Yeah, I guess that's true.

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And, and Aristotle was one

of his students, right?

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Yes.

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So, so Plato's got the school.

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Socrates didn't.

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No.

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So, this is first, first university here.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Aristotle's one of the students,

and then Aristotle goes.

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Does he go and end up teaching

and lecturing at that same?

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No, he starts his own school.

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Starts his own school, okay.

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the Lyceum.

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Lyceum, okay.

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I forget what that means,

I'll have to look it up.

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so what we have then are not his lectures,

but rather about 35 or 36 dialogues.

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So they're separate books.

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They're usually short,

not tremendously short.

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You could probably read

one in three to four hours.

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Some of these, there are a few

where the authorship is disputed,

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but for the most part they're not.

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We, we have the real deal.

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So it's also the first philosopher that we

have this wealth of material from as well.

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Yeah.

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Wow.

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Yeah.

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And those dialogues, Socrates

is the main character, right?

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Yes.

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Usually.

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Most of them.

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Okay.

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Especially in the early ones.

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And they kind of develop

the Socratic method.

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Yes.

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Okay.

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I'm, I'm putting the pieces together

here in real time ladies and gentlemen.

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Yep.

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Cool.

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All right, so that's just

the bare outline of his life.

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His life is obviously not as

important as his teaching.

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He didn't do anything wondrous.

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He wasn't martyred like Socrates.

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Uh, but he was an amazing teacher

and communicator, that's for sure.

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I mean, you could argue, some people

would argue that he actually started,

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as, someone interested in literature

instead of philosophy, because he's

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writing so well, his books read so well,

that they feel maybe he started that way

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and then kind of went into philosophy.

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Again, that's speculation.

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Do we, do we have any notes of

his teaching on, mathematics

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or botany or any of that stuff?

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Or he's, he's pretty much

remembered as a philosopher?

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Yes, just as a philosopher.

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Now, according to, uh, tradition

above, the academy there was a sign

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that said somehow, Uh, let none enter

here who do not know mathematics.

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Hmm.

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And this was because probably, unlike

the Pythagoreans, remember them?

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Mm hmm.

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He's not really basing his philosophy on

mathematics, but rather that seemed to be,

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this totally intellectual exercise, study

mathematics, that he, he really valued and

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prized as you, this is one way you have to

learn to think with your mind logically.

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Hmm.

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Hmm.

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Hmm.

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Wow.

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Yeah.

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Anyway, so that's his life.

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Now last thing I'm gonna talk

about today is the difference

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between Plato and Platonism.

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Yes.

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Yeah.

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So sometimes people talk about the

difference between Calvin and Calvinism.

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Mm-Hmm.

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, the idea that his followers were

more Calvinistic than Calvinism,

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you know, things like that.

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Well, with Plato, well, you kind of have

that, but not the, quite the same way.

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There are really three

different kinds of Platonism.

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There's one that is Plato himself, so

what he taught or what he wrote down

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in the dialogues during his lifetime.

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that's Platonism in its purest form.

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and then the second form is

usually called Middle Platonism.

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And this is from around

90 BC to two 50 ad.

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And this is primarily from people

who taught or led in the academy.

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And if you wanted to sum it up in one

or two sentences, I guess you could

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say it's, it's Plato, but revised and

corrected by Aristotle and his followers,

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as well as influenced by the Stoics

and some of the other philosophers.

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So it's Plato, but it's

modified a bit in that way.

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What, I mean, just briefly,

what were those modifications?

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Well, a lot of it has to do with the

theory of forms that we'll talk about.

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Okay.

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So, Aristotle had a radically different

understanding of the forms, and

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he had some very cogent criticism

of Plato's theory of the forms.

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So part of it is that, and

there's some other things as well.

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And then the third is

probably the most interesting.

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The third is what's called Neoplatonism.

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You've heard me mention that before.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Neo meaning new.

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Right.

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So this is going to come after

middle Platonism, presumably.

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Much later, actually.

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Usually dates from, from about, uh, 250.

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And then we have an end date of 539

when the Emperor Justinian, shut down

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the school that was teaching this.

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Yeah.

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So there is an end point.

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So about two 50 to five 29.

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The thing is, though, that you

have antecedents to that, all the

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way into the 2nd and 1st century.

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What I mean by antecedents is, you

had ideas that were already in the

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air that were then later incorporated

into the system of Neoplatonism.

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Now, we can't really go into

that now because it is complex.

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But basically, it's a Platonism

Platonism that's also a religion.

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So it's a religious philosophy

or a philosophical religion.

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It's, it's not a religion where

you go and you worship and

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you're engaged in community.

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It's more of an intellectual, knowledge

of religious thought, basically.

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it's also different because

it's more heavily monistic.

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We'll explain that term

in the next episode.

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Think of a cocktail or a recipe.

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And if you mix in maybe three parts

of Plato, one part Gnosticism, one

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part the mystery religions, and one

part Old Testament, then you've

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got something like Neo Platonism.

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Wow.

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Yeah.

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It's thought provoking.

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Yeah.

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It's interesting.

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And it had influence beyond itself.

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Some of the themes it taught.

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were carried over into the Middle Ages,

not the whole scheme, but there were

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certain emphasis and themes, especially

about knowing God and mysticism that

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carried over into the Middle Ages and

even into today, but it was also conceived

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as a main competitor of Christian

theology, philosophically at least.

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And so some Christian theology

is a response to what's

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happening in neoplatonism.

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Ooh, that's interesting.

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Right.

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So Plato is Cutting a

wide swath of influence.

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Yeah, wow.

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Yeah.

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He and his descendants.

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So, real quickly, going back to the

idea of it being a religion, a religion

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of the mind, you just mean it's more,

it's, it becomes more intense, that

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people begin to get more dogmatic

about it, or it begins to get coupled

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with religious practices, or like,

in what sense does it move beyond.

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um, philosophy.

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Are there, are there gatherings

of people, or, or clubs formed

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based on the, the thought, or like,

how, what do you mean by that?

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Okay, yeah, fair enough.

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So, not religious in terms of activities.

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You didn't, you didn't have a weekly

meeting or anything like you would

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in, say, Judaism or Christianity.

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it wasn't like that.

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But, what's happening here, here.

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And I'm just going to paint a very

broad brush, but what you have

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is a philosophical system that

teaches that you need a salvation

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experience or a salvation route.

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So this, this goes beyond what

most philosophy does, right?

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So most philosophy explains the

world, maybe tells you what you

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should do in some situations.

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This one is saying you need to

fundamentally change, and there is

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a route of salvation in a sense.

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But, it's a salvation by knowing that's

why you have Gnosticism in there.

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Gnosticism means knowing, um, or

the religion associated with that.

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So it's, it's by knowing, it's not

by moral repentance or belief, say in

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Christ, or, or following a covenant.

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But as part of that knowing, it goes

beyond, it's, there is an intellectual

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knowing, very, very heavily involved.

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But there's also a knowing that

goes beyond the intellect and almost

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of a mystical union with the One.

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So in Neoplatonism, the One

is going to be functional,

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functionally equivalent to God.

483

The highest thing, the

most valuable thing.

484

so they're going to take that

idea from Plato and they're going

485

to run with it and deepen it.

486

But they would also view this idea that

you can ascend Towards the One, by your

487

knowledge, but you can also have this

mystical union with the One in some ways.

488

So, that's the goal.

489

And that's very different

than most philosophies.

490

Yeah.

491

So, kind of follow up question.

492

is that something that

also transcends death?

493

I mean, are they talking about some sort

of afterlife as well, that's part of the

494

religious uh, element of the philosophy?

495

Not usually.

496

Okay.

497

Okay.

498

I think there may be

different answers to that.

499

I'll have to Okay, I'll have to

think about that a little bit more.

500

Okay Well, this is great.

501

This is exciting.

502

Uh, you can already see the influence

Over the next 800 years as he goes

503

to you know, as it becomes middle

platonism and neoplatonism, right?

504

And we're already seeing the way

that that's converging with monism

505

and christianity and all that stuff.

506

Yeah Which is an interesting dynamic

because Plato, as we'll talk about in the

507

next episode, is a strong dualist, but his

system lends itself to being interpreted

508

monistically, which is interesting.

509

Anyway, we'll come back to that.

510

So unpack it next week.

511

Yep, we'll do that.

512

All right.

513

Well, thank you for the, the

introduction to Plato and his

514

life, his work, and his influences.

515

And until next time.

516

This is philosophy and faith.

517

Okay.

518

That's a nice outro.

519

Thanks.