Vilius Bartninkas

Vilnius University

Vilius Bartninkas is an Associate Professor of Ancient Greek Philosophy at Vilnius University and the Head of the Department of Classical Philology. He has published Traditional and Cosmic Gods in Later Plato and the Early Academy (CUP, 2023) as well as many articles and book chapters on ancient cosmology, politics, theology and religion in Mnemosyne, Polis and elsewhere.

Abstract

Cosmological Theology and Its Limits in Plato's Dialogues

In Greek religion, gods are usually recognised by their power, beauty, and imperishability, which we may term as the traditional superiority. Plato’s dialogues engage with this conception, while advancing a new set of criteria, the most important of which is a self-moving soul. However, this aspect is missing in the Demiurge and the Forms, the principles causally responsible for the ensouled gods. Those who maintain that Plato’s theology lies in his cosmology approach these factors as the conditions constituting, or the ontological order imposed on, gods rather than the gods themselves, while others claim that the first principles are in fact the true gods. We shall see that both camps fail to settle the issue, but for different reasons. It is my objective to show that there is an alternative path to understanding not only the godhood of the Demiurge and the Form of the Good, but also a wide spectrum of gods in Plato’s dialogues, and this path leads through the traditional superiority.