Influence of Greek Philosophy on Chrisitan Theology

While Christianity, along with Judaism is a monotheistic religion and during the time of the major Greek philosophers, the worship there was of a myriad of deities- masculine and feminine, the one basic origin of Greek thought that is a basis of Christian fundamental theology is the idea of the soul. According to the earliest Christian philosophers "The body ius both the organ and the prison of the soul. The soul knows that it is a higher kind of reality than the bodyà" (Durant 609). While Plato recognizes the existence and importance of the soul, there is a very important linkage in the Christian belief in a "life after death" which Plato emphasizes as the fact that "after death, the soul passes into other organisms, higher or lower depending to the deserts it has earnedà" (Durant 517). It was the Greek philosophers who distinguished whether a sinner goes to heaven or hell, much as the Christian fundamentalists believe.

The soul, as both the Greeks and Christians believe, is a human phenomenon. "Precisely because God and the angels do not have bodies, neither do they have soulsà.Plato and Plotinus speak of a world-soul, or a soul of the universe, confirm(ing) the point that soul is the co-principle or complement of a body" (Adler 791). One can also look at Socrates' belief in the soul, when he states that "we may say that the world became a living creature endowed with soul and intelligence by the providence of

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de him with happiness: namely, it "comes as a result of virtue and some process of learning and trainingà" (Aristotle 345). Greek philosophers (especially Plato in his Republic) forecast the Catholic Church's hierarchy as superceding that of temporal powers. In other words, according to Christian (i.e. Catholic) faith, kings and princes are no better than the common man in their subservience to the Church. Plato puts it this way: "Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evilsà" (Plato 369). One can also point to another "inheritance" from Greek philosophers, namely distancing oneself from the politicians and the state. Lately, of course, with issues like abortion and terrorism, some Catholic candidates have come under attack as being political tools of the Vatican. One can almost see the later idea of the infallibility of the Pope's in Plato's philosopher king of The Republic. At the core of Plato's argument for a philosopher-king is the fact that he cannot brin
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Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)