The Church Fathers were Influenced by Platonism

                      The Church Fathers were Influenced by Platonism

The early Church Fathers were significantly influenced by the philosophical framework of Platonism, which shaped their theological formulations and interpretations of Christian doctrine. As they sought to articulate the faith in the intellectually dominant Greco-Roman world, many adopted Platonic concepts such as the immortality of the soul, the hierarchy of reality, and the contrast between the material and spiritual realms. This philosophical lens contributed to a shift in Christian thought, often emphasizing spiritual over physical realities and reinterpreting biblical ideas through metaphysical categories. As a result, certain aspects of Christianity—such as the nature of God, the soul, and salvation—were subtly but profoundly reframed in ways that continue to influence Christian theology and worldview to this day. Below our some quotes to support this view.

Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas- Refers to Plato over 70 times, Aristotle over 100 times, Plotinus over 5 times, Platonists over 30 times. Reformers laundered pagan philosophy through Augustine.


"And will he then change himself for the better and fairer, or for the worse and more unsightly? If he (God) change at all he can only change for the worse.... then it is impossible that God should ever be willing to change; being, the fairest and best that is conceivable every god remains absolutely and forever in his own form."

-Plato's Republic Book II-





Socrates: Shall I ask you whether God.....is he one and the
same immutably fixed in his own proper image?

Adeimantus: I cannot answer you, he said, without more thought.
Well, I said; but if we suppose a change in anything, that change must
be caused either by the thing itself, or by some other thing?

Adeimantus: Most certainly.

Socrates: And things which are at their best are also least liable to be altered or discomposed; for example, when healthiest and strongest, the human frame is least liable to be affected by meats and drinks, and the plant which is in the fullest vigour also suffers least from winds or the heat of the sun or any similar causes.

Socrates:Very true, Adeimantus; but then, would anyone, whether God or man, desire to make himself worse?

Adeimantus: Impossible

-Plato's Republic Book II-





" But again the science we are looking for must not be supposed to deal with the causes which have been mentioned in the Physics.
For...it does not deal with the final cause (for that is the nature of the good
, and this is found in the field of action and movement; and it is the first mover-for that is the nature of the end-but in the case of things unmovable there is nothing that moved them first)...."

Aristotle's Concept: God is the Unmoved Mover
Metaphysics
Book 1, Part 1


"There are four species of movement-locomotion, alteration, diminution, growth; consequently if the soul is moved, it must be moved with one or several or all of these species of movement."

Plato's Phaedrus


"But I also, as yet, although I said and was firmly persuaded, that Thou our Lord.....(are) in no part mutable: yet I did not readily and clearly understand what was the cause of evil. Whatever that cause might be, I saw that no explanation would do which would force me to believe the immutable God mutable."

Augustine
Confessions
Book 7, Chapter 3



"I was also glad that the old Scriptures of the Law and the Prophets were laid before me to be read, not now with an eye to what had seemed absurd in them when formerly I censured thy holy ones for thinking thus, when they actually did not think in that way. And I listened with delight to Ambrose, in his sermons to the people, often recommending this text most diligently as a rule: "The letter kills, but the spirit gives life,"(2 Cor 3:6) while at the same time he drew aside the mystic veil and opened to view the spiritual meaning of what seemed to teach perverse doctrine if it were taken according to the letter."

Augustine
Confessions
Book 6, Chapter 4


NOTE: This is eisegesis for 2 Cor 3:6- It is talking about the Old Covenant law kills and the New Covenant brings life. Augustine stated that the letter of the law (literal reading of scripture) is incorrect while the spirit is his allegorical understanding of scripture. If you interpret scripture according to Plato, you will receive life.




"By having thus read the books of the Platonists, and having been taught by them to search for the incorporeal Truth, I saw how thy invisible things are understood through the things that are made (Romans 1:20). And, even when I was thrown back, I still sensed what it was that the dullness of my soul would not allow me to contemplate. I was assured that thou wast, and wast infinite, though not diffused in finite space or infinity; that thou truly art, who art ever the same, varying neither in part nor motion; and that all things are from thee, as is proved by this sure cause alone: that they exist."

Augustine
Confessions
Book 7, Chapter 20,
Section 26-paragraph 1



"So now I seized greedily upon the adorable writing of Your Spirit, and
especially upon the apostle Paul. And I found that those difficulties, in which it had once seemed to me that he contradicted himself and that the
text of his discourse did not agree with the testimonies of the law and
the prophets, vanished away. In that pure eloquence I saw One Face, and I learned to rejoice with trembling. I found that whatever truth I had read (in the Platonists) was said here with praise of Your grace: that he who
sees should not so glory as if he had not received-and received, indeed ,
not only what he sees but even the power to see, for what has he that he has not received? And further, that he who sees is not only taught to see You who are always the same but is also strengthened...."

Augustine
Confessions
Book 7, Chapter 21


"Now the expression, "Once hath he spoken," is to
be understood as meaning "immovably," that is, unchangeably
hath he spoken, inasmuch as He knows unchangeably
all things which shall be, and all things which He will do."

Augustine
City of God
Book 5 Chapter 9



"But, among the disciples of Socrates, Plato was the
one who shone with a glory which far excelled that of the others,
and who not unjustly eclipsed them all... To Plato is given
the praise of having perfected philosophy...We must,
nevertheless, insert into our work certain of those opinions
which he expresses in his writings, whether he himself uttered them, or
narrates them as expressed by others, and seems himself
to approve of,-opinions sometimes favorable to the true religion,
which our faith takes up and defends, and sometimes contrary
to it...👉Plato....is justly preferred to all the other philosophers of the Gentiles.....👈"

Augustine
City of God
Book 8, Chapter 4



"...when the universe was completed...Plato was not so foolish
as to mean by this that God was rendered more blessed by the
novelty of his creation....For he.... beholds all things with
absolute unchangeableness so that of those things which emerge
in time, the future, indeed, are not yet, and the present are now,
,and the past no longer are; but all of these are by Him comprehended in his stable and eternal presence. Neither...does his present
knowledge differ from that which it ever was or shall be,
for those variations of time, past, present, and future,though
they alter our knowledge, do not affect His, "with whom is no
variableness, neither shadow of turning." (James 1:17)"

Augustine
City of God
Book 11, Chapter 21







Thomas Aquinas-Summa Theologica

Q9. #1 Whether God is altogether immutable?

I answer that, From what precedes, it is shown that
God is altogether immutable... But since
God is infinite...He cannot acquire anything new,
nor extend Himself to anything whereto He was not extended
previously. Hence movement in no way belongs to Him.

Q14.#15 Whether the knowledge of God is variable?
I answer that, Since the knowledge of God is His substance, as is
clear from the foregoing, just as His substance is altogether
immutable, as shown above, so His knowledge likewise must be
altogether invariable.



GK Chesterton
St Thomas Aquinas (2012)

"The truth is that the historical Catholic Church
began by being Platonist; by being rather too Platonist."


Peter Stanford
Catholicism: An introduction: A comprehensive
guide to the history, beliefs, and practices of the Catholic Faith (2010)

"Both Aristotle and Plato were crucial in shaping Catholic thinking."


Hannah Arendt, Jerome Kohn Between Past and Future (1961)

"The Catholic Church incorporated Greek philosophy into the structure
of its doctrines and dogmatic beliefs...."



"Wherefore, with reference to the time future,
since the events of things are, as yet, hidden
and unknown, everyone ought to be as intent upon
the performance of his duty as if nothing
whatever had been decreed concerning the
issue in each particular case."
John Calvin

NOTE: Live out the lie that you have free will even when I say you don't. Go pray and evangelize like it matters at all, which it really doesn't.



"As to repentance, we must hold that it can no more exist in God than ignorance, or error, or impotence...We cannot attribute repentance to God without saying either that he knows not what is to happen, or that he rushes precipitately and inconsiderately into a resolution, and them forthwith regrets it...When it said that God repented of having made Saul king,
the term change is used figuratively. Shortly after, it is added.
"The Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent, for he is not a man,
that he should repent." 1 Samuel 15:29. In these words, his
immutability is plainly asserted without figure."

John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion
Book 1, Chapter 17
Sections 12–14


"It seems absurd that man should be blinded by the will and command of God, and yet be forthwith punished for his blindness. Therefore they
escape by the evasion that this (wickedness) is done only with God's
permission, not also by His will. He himself, however, openly declaring that he does this repudiates the evasion that men do nothing save at the
secret instigation of God, and do not discuss and deliberates on anything
but what he has previously decreed with Himself and brings to pass by
His secret direction is proved by numberless clear passages of Scripture...
Therefore, whatever men or Satan himself devise, God holds the helm, makes all their efforts contribute to the execution of his judgments.

If the blinding and infatuation of Ahab is a judgment from God, the fiction of
bare permission is at an end, for it would be ridiculous for a judge only to permit, and not also to decree, what he wishes to be done at the very time that he commits the execution of it to his ministers....

....it is perfectly clear that is the merest trifling to substitute a bare permission for the providence of God, as if He sat in a watch-tower waiting for fortuitous events, His judgments meanwhile depending on the will of man."

John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 18,





"With regards to secret movements, what Solomon says of the heart of a king that it turned hither and thither, as God sees meet, certainly applies to the whole human race, and has the same force as if He had said, that whatever we conceive in our minds is directed to its end by the secret inspiration of God.....not that He intends to teach wicked and obstinate man to obey spontaneously, but because he bends them to execute His judgments, just as if they carried their orders engraven on their minds. And hence it appears that they are impelled by the sure appointment of God. I admit, indeed that God often acts in the reprobate by interposing the agency of Satan; but in such a manner, that Satan himself performs his part, just as he is impelled, and succeeds only in as far as he is permitted."

John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion
Book 1, Chapter 18, 2.

NOTE: Compare this to Proverbs 21.






"Their first objection-that if nothing happens without the will of God, He must have two contrary wills, decreeing by a secret counsel what He has
openly forbidden in his law-is easily disposed of....

I have already shown clearly enough that God is the author of all
those things which, according to these objectors, happen only by
His inactive permission.....

Still, however, the will of God is not at variance with itself. It
undergoes no change, He makes no pretence of not willing what He wills
, but while in Himself the will is one and undivided, to us it appears
manifold, because,👉 from the feebleness of our intellect,
we cannot comprehend how👈", though after a different manner, He wills and wills not the very same thing.

👉When we cannot comprehend how God can will that to be done which he forbids us to do, let us call to mind our imbecility....👈"

John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion
Book 1, Chapter 18,3



Hence he (Augustine) exclaims " Great is the work of God, exquisite in all
He wills! so that, in a manner wondrous and ineffable (indescribable)
nothing is done outside His will, not even that which is contrary to His will, because it could not be done if He did not permit; nor does He permit
it unwillingly, but willingly; nor would He who is good permit evil to be done, were He not omnipotent to bring good out of evil,"
(Augustine in Psalm 111:2)






"The first mover must be in itself unmovable...."
Aristotle Metaphysics Book 12, Part 8



"Then reconstruct a sole Life in the Supreme...
a Life never varying, not becoming what previously
it was not, the thing immutably itself.... and knowing this
we know Eternity....knowing
nothing of change, for ever in a Now....it cannot include any past;
futurity, similarly, is banned."

Plontinus-Enneads 3, the Seventh Tractate, Section 3.


"God foreknows nothing by contingency, but that He foresees,
purposes, and does all things according to His immutaable, eternal,
and infalliable will. By this thunderbolt, "Free-will" is thrown prostrate, and utterly dashed to pieces."

Martin Luther-Bondage of the Will Section 9



"By His providence, not Heaven and Earth and inanimate creatures only,
but also the counsels and wills of men are so governed as to move exactly in the course which He has destined."

John Calvin Institutes Book 1 Chapter 16