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Plato's Conception of Divinity

In: English and Literature

Submitted By iqrach310
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TOPIC OF ASSIGNMENT:

“PLATO’S CONCEPTION OF GOD AND HOW IT IMPACTED HIS VIEWS ON LITERATURE”

Plato considers God as having perfect goodness; and that the fundamental reality exists in the mind of god who directs other souls to spread righteousness in the world; every soul is responsible for its actions therefore it must do goodness to become like god in order to get an ideal society.
Plato refutes literature, especially poetry, on the basis of this conception. He believes that purpose of creating this world is to spread goodness. Hence literature must possess elements of true reality in it to convey to the readers.
In this task, I am assigned to give a glimpse on Plato’s conception of God and his process of creating this world with the help of fundamental reality. I will describe his beliefs with the help of examples from some of his works. At the end, I will sum up by describing his preference of dialogue over poetry which depicts his views about literature.
Plato belongs to philosophers of Greek era. There were many school of thoughts concerning with the existence of God. Three of them were very popular which were consisted of denial of God’s existence; God’s indifference to the world; and that god can be bribed. Plato refuted these principles and established god as having “absolute reality”. Every action has some driving force behind it which is soul. God creates those souls therefore we cannot deny god’s existence. He establishes that God is not indifferent to the world. He has created man free of will to choose between right and wrong; and good and bad. He rewards the good while gives punishment to those who pervade evil and chaos in the world. Thus man’s own soul is responsible for its activities and motions. Consequently every motion depends upon soul. If we take this principle, we come to know that every organism has soul in it, even in heavenly

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