Augustine and the Platonists

As I said I've been listening to some sets of lectures by Dr. Phillip Cary.  I'm listening to the set now called "Augustine: Philosopher and Saint."  I'm liking it very much so far.  Dr. Cary is a Protestant, he says so, but he's also an Augustinian scholar.  That makes sense because Augustine had a lot of influence on the Protestants, especially Luther and Calvin.  The tapes that I've been listening to really point that out, more than I realized before.

With reading the Old Testament closely with the BKC I've really started noticing just how different the Classical Christian Orthodoxy of God is different from the Jewish view.  I've read about this before, but now it's really starting to become real in a way that it never has before.

That being said I still find a lot of beauty in the way Dr. Cary explains how Augustine saw God, which was that he saw him in a Neoplatonistic way.  I've always been drawn to the Platonistic view of "ideas" and can see that that is very appealing.  The idea that God is outside of time, and very different from the rest of creation must be an appealing idea because to my, admittedly limited knowledge, it seems to be the description of many religions idea of God, or the One, or the Infinate or etc...  The real difference in Christianity seems to be that while there is the One, somehow it's three, and one of the three walked the Earth.

I should really probably give Augustine more credit and less approbation.  A couple of people have really pointed out that Augustine is really the point where Western Christianity begins to take on it's unique characteristic.  Dr. Cary seems to be saying it, Bishop Stendhal seemed to say it, and Bro. Nibley and many LDS scholars seem to imply it as well.  Augustine did get some things wrong, but was his influence for good more than the bad?  I think so.  It seems like Augustine was the influential in putting the West solidly on the path of giving reason and logic preeminence in Western Christian thought.

Someday I'm probably going to have to read Augustine myself.  Umm and Luther...and Calvin...  Hmmm.