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Epicureans:
The followers of Epicurus, the Greek philosopher who lived 341-270 B.C. He taught that nature rather than reason is the true reality; nothing exists but atoms and void, that is, matter and space. The chief purpose of man is to achieve happiness. he has free will to plan and live a life of pleasure. Epicurus gave the widest scope to this matter of pleasure, interpreting it as avoidance of pain, so that the mere enjoyment of good health would be pleasure. Such stress on the good things of life, while very practical, is also very dangerous.
For the philosopher the highest joy is found in mental and intellectual pursuits, but for lesser souls lower goals of sensual satisfaction fulfill the greatest pleasure. Thus the high standards of the founder were not maintained and the philosophy gained a bad reputation. Since such teaching appealed to the common man, this natural philosophy became widespread. It was widely held at the time of Christ. Paul met it at Athens when he encountered the philosophers of that city.(ACTS 17:16-33). They were not impressed by his teaching of creation, judgment, and resurrection, since all these doctrines were denied by the Epicurean philosophy.
The Epicurean idea was that at death man is extinct.
Stoics:
Stoicism was a system of pantheistic monism. It held that fire is the ultimate substance with God, the active principle of the cosmos, premeating everything as a sort of soul. Nature, it taught, is a hierarchical unity controlled by the unversial Logos, an impersonal reason at once immanent and divine. As a logos-being man can perceive and assent to the determinism which makes all events necessary and which therefore reduces evil to mere appearance. By assenting to this determinism - indifferently called fate or providence, man is able to live in harmony with native. Nothing lies within man's power except imagination, desires, and emotions; thus by cultivating not alone detachment from the world outside him but also mastery over his reactions to the world's impingement upon himself, the philosopher achieves freedom, happiness, and self-sufficiency.
Stoicism was aristocratic and austere, rigorously excluding pity, denying pardon, and suppressing genuine feeling. Its view of sin was hopelessly shallow, since it did not think in terms of obedience to a personal God. Sin was simply an error of judgment, easily rectified by a change of opinion. But among its virtues were cosmopolitanism and egalitarianism. Moreover, as partakers of a common rational nature, men everywhere are subject to the same law.
The Stoics believed that the body ends in death while the soul merges with deity and loses its identity.
Plato:
Plato was born in Athens. His father Ariston died when Plato was a child. As a young man, Plato wanted to become a politician.
Plato was deeply disillusioned when they brought the philosopher Socrates to trial and sentenced him to death in 399 B.C. Plato left Athens and traveled for several years.
In 387 B.C., Plato returned to Athens and founded a school of philosophy and science that became known as the Academy. The school stood in a groove of trees that, according to legend, was once owned by a Greek hero named Academus. Some scholars consider the Academy to have been the first university.
Except for two trips to the city of Syracuse in Sicily in the 360's B.C., PLato lived in Athens and headed the Academy for the rest of his life. His most distinguished pupil at the Academy was the Greek philosopher Aristotle.
Plato's political philosophy, like his ethics, was based on his theory of the human soul. He argued that the soul is divided into three parts; 1) the rational part, or intellect; 2) the spirited part, or will; and 3) appetite or desires.
Plato argued that we would know that the soul has three parts because they occasionally conflict with each other.
Plato believed that though the body dies and distintegrates, the soul continues to live forever. After the death of the body, the soul mingrates to what Plato called the realm of the pure form. There, it exists without a body, contemplating the
After a time, the soul is reincarnated in another body and returns to the world. But the reincarnated soul contains a dim recollection of the realm of forms and yearns for it. Plato argued that people fall in love because they recognize in the beauty of their beloved the ideal of beauty that they dimly remember and seek.
Plato held that the body ceases to exist in death forever, but the soul continues with its own individual identity.
Christians:
Christianity teaches that the spirit leaves the body and returns to God to an intermediate state. When the spirit returns to the body at the resurrection, both body and soul will live forever by the eating of the Tree of life in the Paradise of God. The wicked shall be cast both body and soul into Hell.
The followers of Epicurus, the Greek philosopher who lived 341-270 B.C. He taught that nature rather than reason is the true reality; nothing exists but atoms and void, that is, matter and space. The chief purpose of man is to achieve happiness. he has free will to plan and live a life of pleasure. Epicurus gave the widest scope to this matter of pleasure, interpreting it as avoidance of pain, so that the mere enjoyment of good health would be pleasure. Such stress on the good things of life, while very practical, is also very dangerous.
For the philosopher the highest joy is found in mental and intellectual pursuits, but for lesser souls lower goals of sensual satisfaction fulfill the greatest pleasure. Thus the high standards of the founder were not maintained and the philosophy gained a bad reputation. Since such teaching appealed to the common man, this natural philosophy became widespread. It was widely held at the time of Christ. Paul met it at Athens when he encountered the philosophers of that city.(ACTS 17:16-33). They were not impressed by his teaching of creation, judgment, and resurrection, since all these doctrines were denied by the Epicurean philosophy.
The Epicurean idea was that at death man is extinct.
Stoics:
Stoicism was a system of pantheistic monism. It held that fire is the ultimate substance with God, the active principle of the cosmos, premeating everything as a sort of soul. Nature, it taught, is a hierarchical unity controlled by the unversial Logos, an impersonal reason at once immanent and divine. As a logos-being man can perceive and assent to the determinism which makes all events necessary and which therefore reduces evil to mere appearance. By assenting to this determinism - indifferently called fate or providence, man is able to live in harmony with native. Nothing lies within man's power except imagination, desires, and emotions; thus by cultivating not alone detachment from the world outside him but also mastery over his reactions to the world's impingement upon himself, the philosopher achieves freedom, happiness, and self-sufficiency.
Stoicism was aristocratic and austere, rigorously excluding pity, denying pardon, and suppressing genuine feeling. Its view of sin was hopelessly shallow, since it did not think in terms of obedience to a personal God. Sin was simply an error of judgment, easily rectified by a change of opinion. But among its virtues were cosmopolitanism and egalitarianism. Moreover, as partakers of a common rational nature, men everywhere are subject to the same law.
The Stoics believed that the body ends in death while the soul merges with deity and loses its identity.
Plato:
Plato was born in Athens. His father Ariston died when Plato was a child. As a young man, Plato wanted to become a politician.
Plato was deeply disillusioned when they brought the philosopher Socrates to trial and sentenced him to death in 399 B.C. Plato left Athens and traveled for several years.
In 387 B.C., Plato returned to Athens and founded a school of philosophy and science that became known as the Academy. The school stood in a groove of trees that, according to legend, was once owned by a Greek hero named Academus. Some scholars consider the Academy to have been the first university.
Except for two trips to the city of Syracuse in Sicily in the 360's B.C., PLato lived in Athens and headed the Academy for the rest of his life. His most distinguished pupil at the Academy was the Greek philosopher Aristotle.
Plato's political philosophy, like his ethics, was based on his theory of the human soul. He argued that the soul is divided into three parts; 1) the rational part, or intellect; 2) the spirited part, or will; and 3) appetite or desires.
Plato argued that we would know that the soul has three parts because they occasionally conflict with each other.
Plato believed that though the body dies and distintegrates, the soul continues to live forever. After the death of the body, the soul mingrates to what Plato called the realm of the pure form. There, it exists without a body, contemplating the
After a time, the soul is reincarnated in another body and returns to the world. But the reincarnated soul contains a dim recollection of the realm of forms and yearns for it. Plato argued that people fall in love because they recognize in the beauty of their beloved the ideal of beauty that they dimly remember and seek.
Plato held that the body ceases to exist in death forever, but the soul continues with its own individual identity.
Christians:
Christianity teaches that the spirit leaves the body and returns to God to an intermediate state. When the spirit returns to the body at the resurrection, both body and soul will live forever by the eating of the Tree of life in the Paradise of God. The wicked shall be cast both body and soul into Hell.
