back to ideas for this text


Single Idea 2630

[from 'The Republic' by Plato, in 28. God / A. Divine Nature / 4. Divine Contradictions ]

Full Idea

Plato holds God to be without a body, immaterial; but this is an incomprehensible idea. Such a god would inevitably lack any consciousness, any wisdom and any pleasure (…or motion), all of which are bound up in our idea of God.

Gist of Idea

If Plato's God is immaterial, he will lack consciousness, wisdom, pleasure and movement, which are essential to him

Source

comment on Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') I.30

Book Reference

Cicero: 'The Nature of the Gods', ed/tr. McGregor,Horace [Penguin 1972], p.82