Christian Platonism: A History ed. by Alexander J. B. Hampton and John Peter Kenney

Abstract

Reviewed by: Christian Platonism: A History ed. by Alexander J. B. Hampton and John Peter Kenney Jessica L. D. Jones HAMPTON, Alexander J. B. and John Peter Kenney, editors. Christian Platonism: A History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. xv + 497 pp. Cloth, $130.00 One would be hard-pressed to think of a philosophical school more consistently in dialogue with Christianity over the centuries than Platonism. Platonism's influence on the development of Christian theology and philosophy has at times been one of assistance in articulating the intelligibility of the Christian faith to the degree that it can be articulated, as we find in Augustine's oeuvre. But fierce debate has also marked the relationship between Christianity and Platonism. Platonist thinkers in the early centuries of Christianity, such as Porphyry in his Κατὰ Χριστιανῶν, have been among the religion's most dedicated critics. Christian Platonism: A History is self-conscious about this complicated relationship between Christianity and Platonism. As such, the volume's purpose is not to shy away from this relationship but, rather, to articulate its complexity in all its facets. For Christianity's longstanding dialogue with Platonism exhibits the best kind of philosophical and theological influence, one that refines the thought of both Platonists and Christians alike as members of each school deliberate about the highest things. As the editors Alexander Hampton and John Peter Kenney point out in their introductory essay, such rigorous debate could not have taken place at the level of sophistication that it did without some common, shared principles. One of those common principles, they contend, is Christianity and Platonism's mutual and fundamental "commitment to transcendence" and "adherence to an ontology countenancing the existence of a higher level of reality beyond the manifest image of the physical world." Another is a shared interest in articulating the precise sort of ontological relationship that transpires between transcendent, immaterial being and sensible being, with a "focus on the incarnational, participatory, and sacramental character of being, which calls us back to its motive force in love." Such ontological assumptions held in common made a profound dialogue between Christianity and Platonism possible. Christian Platonism uses the term "Platonism," then, for a purpose. The volume traces Christian reception of both Plato as well as subsequent philosophical iterations of Platonic-inspired schools (such as the Neoplatonists and the Cambridge Platonists). It is an intimidating task for any volume of collected essays to undertake. But the book does a wonderful job of capturing the scope of such a project by distinguishing [End Page 819] three primary areas for reflection: the conceptual, the historical, and the topical. The first distinguishes conceptual allegiances and distinctions between Christian and Platonic thinkers; the second treats a chronological set of historical intersections between Christianity and Platonism; and the final section engages subjects of contemporary concern through the lens of Christian Platonism. Rather than summarize all the essays contained in such an expansive volume, I shall highlight a few essays that may be of interest to Review of Metaphysics readers. The volume opens with Lloyd Gerson's defense of the perennial importance of Platonism, in which he focuses on drawing out the reasons why a Platonic metaphysic of eternal forms grounding the multiplicity of existing things and the possibility of practical wisdom endures in its attractiveness. While Gerson notes that Christianity is a "mixed" science, given that Christianity has to work out its theological positions with an attentiveness to history (Platonism does not have the same restriction), he nevertheless attributes Christianity's incorporation of Platonic-inspired metaphysical reflections into Trinitarian theology as a sign of Platonism's philosophical explanatory power. The subsequent essays in the conceptual section trace out the dialectic between Platonism and Christianity on metaphysical topics such as the transformation of Platonic forms into the theory of divine ideas, the nature of participation of sensible things in relation to the ideas, the simple yet Trinitarian nature of God, and the nature of theology itself. The next section concerns itself with essays on various historical intersections and divergences of Christianity and Platonism. These essays open with tracing Platonism's influence on the early Church's theological attempts to interpret scripture, which John Peter Kenney recounts as beginning with...