San Agustin

St. Augustine, a great lecturer who would later become a bishop and Plato, a Greek philosopher, were born nearly six hundred years apart. Despite the many years difference between the two of them, they were both true believer of just societies. Both of these two characters with different ideas and beliefs, similarities and differences were known to work towards trying to create a better world. Throughout this paper ONE or TWO similarities and differences between Plato and St. Augustine will be discussed.

One of the similarities that St Augustine and Plato had was the idea that they both believed in the absolute and eternal. In Plato’s writing his supreme being is the idea of ‘good’, on the other hand; St. Augustine believed in the idea of one ‘God’, the creator of everything. Many people would argue that what “good” meant to Plato, was the same thing as to what “God” meant to St. Augustine. Plato’s ‘form’ and ‘form of good’ existed in all of eternity; there was never a time when these two forms did not exist. Plato defines this ‘form’ by insisting that on top of being able to identify something as beautiful, we also have a general idea of what beauty itself means to us and we are able to identify something as beautiful because we already have that general conception. In other words, we see beautiful things only because they are part of the general ‘form’ of beauty. This ‘form’, unlike visible things that can grow old and lose their beauty, is invisible, unchangeable and eternal. The one and only God that St. Augustine refers to is also absolute and eternal, as it had always existed, even when the universe was not created yet, God existed. It is also absolute as God exists in one form, it is unchanging. Both form of the Good and God are absolute perfections, which are the best thing that can happen.

two different outlooks on the world, two very different outlooks on religion all come to make two different views on human nature. Probably their most obvious difference is that Saint Augustine, as his name would suggest, was a very religious man whereas Plato sought to question everything and as a true Socratic, believed in logic. Yet looking past all the differences of the two men it is also valuable to see where these two men paralleled and compare whatever ideals both men held.

Plato’s forms and the Form of the Good existed in all eternity; there was no time when they did not exist. There is no variation between them either, as there is only one form of beauty or love or cake. It’s that one form of cake that by acting with other forms produces al the variations in non-absolute changeable limited particulars.

While Plato believed that the world was a sensible place where all the ideas met, St. Augustine believed that the only real thing in his world was God

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Plato

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