Plato Vs. Christianity

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Free Essay Submitted by blaine on 04/17/2008 10:17 PM

  • Category: Philosophy
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Plato Vs. Christianity

Plato and Christianity are views with different ideas of afterlife. They differ in several aspects but both share the belief that the human person is immortal and death is the cessation of bodily functions but one’s soul exists for a time disembodied. Plato believed in immortality and dualism (the idea that humans are composed of two substances, a material substance or body and an immaterial substance or soul). Plato believed that the soul was immortal in both directions, past and future, in which you’ll always exist and believed that humans will survive past their deaths. Plato believed that souls were simple and that simple things could not be destroyed because they don’t have parts, hence leading to the idea that the soul survives death. After death the soul is disembodied. Plato believed that this state was the highest form of survival because the immaterial realm of the Forms is the highest form of existence. The physical world is the lower kind of existence because it’s constantly changing unlike the immaterial world. Hence, bodily existence is less perfect than disembodied existence.
Christianity also believes in an immortal soul and that death is a transition to disembodied existence, however it carries the idea that this disembodied state is temporary until the act of resurrection performed by God (he creates a new body for the soul). Thus Christians believe the human person is mortal and death is the extinction of consciousness, but at resurrection God re-creates the person, raising the person from the dead to continue its embodied state. Christianity holds the view of predestination, the idea of salvation where one receives everlasting life in heaven. Salvation is due to god; a human can do nothing to bring about their own salvation and is saved (goes to heaven and not hell) only if God saves them. It’s impossible to change your predestination by living morally good in order to gain entrance to heaven. Christians believe...

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