Reason, God and Religion With Reference to

¶ … reason, God and religion with reference to ancient philosophers. These philosophers gave us some interesting views on the subject of God, which may prove helpful in understanding the nature of good in a world where evil often dominates. PHILOSOPHY Socrates maintained that 'reason' must dominate every community and its beliefs or else the world would turn into a chaotic, poorly organized unit. He was of the view that with reason comes knowledge, which further helps the statesmen in acting virtuously.

Virtue is then the most important product of reason, which is needed to save a society. Here it is important to keep in mind that Socrates wasn't concerned with reason for its own sake but because of the notion that it could give birth to knowledge and virtue. It is also critical to know that for Socrates, reason was not connected with an ability to separate right from wrong.

Instead he felt that reason was something that helped a man attain 'natural order." Socrates mostly presented his views for the rulers and statesmen in order to assist them in better governance. He was of the view that man needs to understand what is meant by natural order and how reason plays a role in that if he truly wants to base a society on knowledge.

Both Socrates and Plato believed that virtue or reason did not mean acting on what appears to be right but on what would ultimately prove to be good for the community. Socrates believed that men and women were equal but there were certain men who were greater than the rest and these are the ones who should be given the responsibility of running the state. In Socrates' views, these great men were no other than philosophers themselves as they possessed reason and could act virtuously.

Socrates entire belief system was based on Pythagorean philosophy, which states, "There are three kinds of men and three sorts of people that attend the Olympic games. The lowest class is made up of those who come to buy and sell, the next above them are those who compete. Best of all, however, are those who come simply to look on.

The greatest purification of all is, therefore, disinterested science, and it is the man who devotes himself to that, the true philosopher, who has most effectually released himself from the 'wheel of birth'" (4) We may or may not agree with this, but Socrates' disciple Plato justified his teachers's views on meaning of life by connecting them to this Pythagorean philosophy. It is important to understand what Pythagoreans meant by the philosphy presented above.

They, like Socrates, believed that man needs to lose his desire for fame and glory in order to reach the point of true greatness. Socrates thus maintained that man cannot hope to become a true philosopher unless he stops actively seeking glory. Socrates it appears was conecerned with the true purification of soul and believed that this was the only way man could achieve true greatness and an ability to act virtously.

In today's world however this philosophy appears rather queer because today we feel that great people are the ones who are center of all the action and not those who stand on the sidelines. Therefore most of us would find it slighlty difficult to relate to Socrates' meaning of life and his ideas of reason and virtue. Plato however did understand his teacher's views when he studied them in the light of Pyathagorean belief system.

It is important to keep in mind that Plato himself believed that Pythagorean views could be integrated in religious beliefs. After careful study of Pythagorean views, he came to the conclusion that God was indeed present and He was most probably one. An excerpt from Theon of Smyrna, a Pythagorean helps us understand how Plato integrated Pythaogrean views into religion, "Unity is the principle of all things and the most dominant of all that is: all things emanate from it and it emanates from nothing.

It is indivisible and it is everything in power. It is immutable and never departs from its own nature through multiplication (1 x 1 = 1).

All that is intelligible and cannot be engendered exists in it: the nature of ideas, God himself, the soul, the beautiful and the good, and every intelligible essence, such as beauty itself, justice itself, equality itself, for we conceive of each of these things as being one and as existing in itself." (Page IX) This helps us understand how Plato used some Pythagorean views to develop his understanding of the existence of God.

He also maintained that God can only be truly discerned by philosophers beause they were in a better postion to understand what he called 'forms'. These forms were again taken from Pythagorean system and referred to divinity and its various representations. Plato mainated that everything present on this earth was created in the image of one Great soul and this is how he proved the existence of God.

Another important thing that both Plato and Saint Augustine propounded was the belief that God must always be presented as someone good and pious. Augustine is considered a sort of plagiarist when it comes to his views on Christianity. He took inspiration from Plato's religious views and extended them to the realm of Christianity and many are of the view that most of his thoughts are not original at all. Descartes similarly connected his views on God with knowledge.

He felt that God must be a perfect being who should possess infinite knowledge or else he couldn't possibly be expected to control the entire Universe. But there are certain flaws in his philosophy, which a modern day reader would find rather confusing. Descartes unlike Plato believed that understanding of God should begin not from numerical understanding of forms but from creation of doubt. He felt that complete doubt was the one thing that could lead man to the source of all knowledge, which is God.

Now that we know what Augustine, Plato and Descartes said about God, it is important to find out just how did they solve the problem of evil. If God is infinitely good and pious, how can He be held responsible for creating something as despicable as evil? Plato probably did not essentially create evil. He created good from which evil originates.