(January 21, 2019 at 5:27 pm)Acrobat Wrote: If Plato conception of The Good, constitutes as a God, than you can’t be an atheist and subscribe to Plato’s conception of the Good.
Ummmm, no. I've known quite a few professional philosophers (ie they have doctorates) who find Plato's theory of forms compelling and yet are thoroughly atheist. The form of the Good is goodness itself- full stop. Plato thought that goodness (all by itself) was intelligible to the intellect- full stop. If you accept these conclusions, then you are (at least somewhat) in agreement with Plato. No God belief whatsoever required.
Sure, those who followed in Plato's footsteps (especially the Christians) drew an equal sign between the form of the Good and their own God concepts. So what? Do some research and point out where Plato himself makes this claim. Plato had a God concept that he employed from time to time in some of his arguments. Funny how he never equates his God concept with the form of the Good.
But what if Plato did (in the back of his mind) think that the form of the Good was (in fact) some kind of God. It still doesn't matter. People who appreciate Plato's thinking are under no obligation to swallow his philosophy whole. I reserve the right to say that Plato was absolutely right about X, except for one particular idea concerning X, which is completely wrong. This is philosophy, not Sunday school. If I'm going to adopt a belief, there had better be good reason to do so. I don't accept philosophical conclusions because Plato said so. Plato himself didn't want his readers to accept truths on Plato's own authority. Plato was not some idiot evangelist like Saul of Tarsus!
I think there is something compelling about the notion of "goodness itself"-- that goodness can be understood apart from this or that particular "good" thing. The whole point of the forms is that they are intelligible to the intellect but not the senses. They can be understood but not seen, heard, or felt. How is God intelligible to the intellect? Believers say (rightly) that it takes faith-- not thought -- to believe in God (read Paul's diatribes against philosophy some time). At the very least, belief in God is a matter of the heart and has little to do with intelligibility. Plato was concerned with something altogether different.
