We will be attending to what is arguably the most influential translation in western culture of philosophy into a theological idiom. Where Plato speaks of eros and ignorance, Augustine speaks of grace and sin. There would seem to be a world of difference between the incarnate divinity of Augustine’s affection and Plato’s impersonal Form of the Good. And yet Augustine will say this of his distance from Plato and his heirs: “There are none who come nearer to us than the Platonists.” This seminar will take the measure of this nearness and explore the nature and limits of secularization within a spiritually ambitious tradition of philosophy.
