Healing the World from Evil: Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Proclus

Could Greek philosophers—Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Proclus—be considered as guardians and schoolmasters (παιδαγωγός) that brought humanity to Christ in a way similar to the Law of the Old Testament according to Saint Paul (Gal. 3,24)? Τhe philosophical project of Platonism had five fundamental tenets, namely monism, transcendence, participation (μέθεξις, μετοχή), ethics of purification (κάθαρσις) and a relevant notion of evil as non-being. Dr. Dionysios Skliris is both theologian and philosopher, and he sees that all of these philosophical demands were realized in the theology of the Fathers in the most radical way, yet “in another form” (Mark 16,12). After Christ, transcendence means that God is uncreated and creates a contingent world out of free love. Monism coexists with a Trinity of Persons since God is love in His own transcendent being and not only in relation to the world. On every page, Skliris shows us the true implications of purification: it leads to transformation and evil is non-being not as a “fading away” of light, but as a historical closedness to God that cannot survive in the eschaton.