Abstract
Plato (428–7 b.c. — 348–7 b.c.), in introducing natural theology into the subject matter of Western philosophy, has rightly been called the creator of philosophical theism.1 In his dialogues we can discover the philosophical roots of both the cosmological and teleological arguments for the existence of God. The cosmological proof finds only brief statement in Plato’s thought; indeed, it is the presence of teleology in the universe that forms the primary foundation for Plato’s theism.2 But Plato does have a proof for God or gods from motion, and Cicero was correct in pointing to Plato and Aristotle as the originators of the classic prime mover argument.3
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Notes
A. E. Taylor, Plato: The Man and his Work (London: Methuen, 1926), p. 493.
(A. E. Taylor, Platonism and its Influence [New York: Longmans, Green, 1932], p. 99).
Chung-Hwan Chen, ‘Plato’s Theistic Teleology’, Anglican Theological Review 43 (1961): 71–87.
John Wild notes that the teleological argument is propounded in many variations throughout the dialogues, especially in Timaeus 29, 47 and Philebus 28. (John Wild, ‘Plato and Christianity: A Philosophical Comparison’, The Journal of Bible and Religion 17 [1949]: 9.)
Cicero, De natura deorum Cf. J. Ferguson, ‘Theistic Arguments in the Greek Philosophers’, Hibbert Journal 51 (1953): 156.
J. B. Skemp, The Theory of Motion in Plato’s Later Dialogues (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1942), pp. 5–6. See Chapters 3 and 4: ‘Antecedents of the Kivrloiç-doctrine of the Timaeus in Alcmaeon, the Pythagoreans and the medical writers’, and ‘Antecedents of the xivryviç-doctrine of the Timaeus in the system of Empedocles’.
John Burnet, Greek Philosophy pt. 1: Thales to Plato (London: Macmillan, 1914; rep. ed., 1924), pp. 333, 336. It must be admitted that certain pre-Socratics conceived of God as voûç or &uX,j respectively, but they did not seek to construct proofs for God’s existence.
(See Edward Hussey, The Presocratics [London: Gerald Duckworth, 1972].)
Friedrich Solmsen, Plato’s Theology (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1942; reprint ed., Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1967), pp. 89, 92.
This mistake is made, for example, by I. M. Forsyth, who confusedly argues that God is one with the Good and is eternal soul, thus being both the originator of motion in the universe and its final goal (I. M. Forsyth, ‘Aristotle’s Concept of God as Final Cause’, Philosophy 22 [1947]: 117).
Cf. W. J. Verdenius: ‘Plato’s God is such a form, an ideal model or system of models’ (W. J. Verdenius, ‘Plato and Christianity’, Ratio 5 [1963]: 19).
Gerard Watson, ‘The Theology of Plato and Aristotle’, Irish Theological Quarterly 37 (1970): 60.
I. M. Crombie, An Examination of Plato’s Doctrines (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962), p. 369.
A. E. Taylor, The “Polytheism” of Plato: An Apologia’, Mind 47 (1938): 183–4.
F. M. Cornford, ‘The “Polytheism” of Plato: An Apology’, Mind 47 (1938): 324.
(See for example, G. E. L. Owen, ‘The Place of the Timaeus in Plato’s Dialogues’, Classical Quarterly 3 [1953]: 79–95.)
see Ernst Douda, ‘Platons Weltbaumeister’, Altertum 19 (1973): 147–56.
Paul Elmer More, The Religion of Plato (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1921), pp. 222–3.
A. E. Taylor, A Commentary on Plato’s ‘Timaeus’ (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1928), pp. 75–8.
G. C. Field, The Philosophy of Plato (London: Oxford University Press, 1949), p. 145.
It might be asked whether Plato’s God is personal. Field says no (Ibid. p. 147). Taylor suggests that for the Greek, the concept of personality has no real meaning and is thus an inadmissible category to impose on Plato’s thinking. God is mind that sets all things in order, but ‘To ask whether that mind is “personal” is to commit an anachronism’ (A. E. Taylor, Plato [London: Constable, 1914], p. 142).
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© 1980 William Lane Craig
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Craig, W.L. (1980). Plato. In: The Cosmological Argument from Plato to Leibniz. Library of Philosophy and Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-04993-6_1
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