The Basis of Early Christian Theism

The present writer is strongly of the opinion that much violence has been done the words of Socrates by translators and interpreters, and that this fact will account for much of the alleged theistic teaching which is, without warrant, ascribed to the Athenian sage.


The contribution of Plato to the theistic argument was, characteristically, the form of the "Ontological proof" which has been called "Idealogical". This process is a very natural development for Plato's Dialectic. [8] Once divide the universe, as he did, into the two classes of permanent existence and transient phenomena, and identify the former with the ideas (which are nothing else than universals, each of which expresses the essence of many phenomena), and it is a very easy process.