Plato's Forms and Mormonism's "Eternal Laws"

[_sethpayne]

It’s been well over a year now but Stak once suggested, in one of his posts, two books: “Riddles of Existence” and “Philosphy for Understanding Theology.” I’m about 1/2 way through Riddles and have just started Philosophy.

Disclaimer: I am a novice when it comes to Greek or classical philosophy so if I say something stupid or incorrect in this post please forgive, and correct me. I’m most familiar with Plato’s Republic and Crito dialogues as they relate to political science and conceptions of justice.

Anyway, in reading more about Plato’s Forms I wonder if Mormonism’s view of “eternal laws” to which God himself is subject, could be considered similar to the Forms.

As far as I understand, the Forms simply exist and our world is a copy of the Forms put together by an intelligent agent. In Mormonism, Elohim is an intelligent agent who, using existing matter and eternal law, organized our world.

On the surface it appears that Mormon cosmology is more in line with Plato than the concept of ex nihlo which Augustine tried to support with Plato’s “creation” story.

I’m sure my thoughts on this are sophomoric at best and so I’d love to hear from board members who are much more skilled in philosophy than I. As Stak has pointed out before, Mormon theology is very much a Natural theology and I wonder if Joseph Smith simply took his observations of the natural world and introduced similar “heavenly” concepts.

[_CaliforniaKid]

The creation account in Moses, with a spiritual pre-creation prior to the material creation, is very similar to the way that Philo handled Genesis 1 and 2. For Philo, Genesis 1 was the creation of the forms, and Genesis 2 was the material creation.

[_lulu]

The creation account in Moses, with a spiritual pre-creation prior to the material creation, is very similar to the way that Philo handled Genesis 1 and 2. For Philo, Genesis 1 was the creation of the forms, and Genesis 2 was the material creation.

And Philo thought Plato was da bomb and tried to combine Judaism and Platonic philosophy. Whether Philo gets the prefix "neo" I don't know.

If you want to know what Joseph Smith was drawing on, I don't think you can do better than Brook's Refiner's Fire.

http://www.amazon.com/Refiners-Fire-Mak ... 21565642#_

Although I like it so much I'm probably blind to its faults.

[_Aristotle Smith]

And Philo thought Plato was da bomb and tried to combine Judaism and Platonic philosophy. Whether Philo gets the prefix "neo" I don't know.

Strictly speaking Philo was a middle Platonist.

[_lulu]

And Philo thought Plato was da bomb and tried to combine Judaism and Platonic philosophy. Whether Philo gets the prefix "neo" I don't know.

Strictly speaking Philo was a middle Platonist.

Thanks. Just did a quick check of Brook, nothing on Plato, middle, neo or otherwise.

Googled around on hermeticism (Brook's view on Joseph Smith) and neo-Platonism and started to get some hits.

Don't know if McMurrin would be helpful here. And I hope someone has at least published an article on this since McMurrin.

http://www.amazon.com/Theological-Found ... g+mcmurrin