I want to finish my train of thought that Mormons claiming Greek philosophy was central to the apostasy is problematic. Again, this was a common Protestant claim, and I argue that Joseph Smith knew of the claim and rejected it, seeking to embrace the “ancient theology” instead.

I once saw a video of Mormon thinkers attributing the embraced of the Platonic-corruption idea to B H. Roberts’s Outlines of Ecclesiastical History (1893), so this post takes a look at what Roberts said on the topic. I argue that Robert’s statements inadvertently highlight the problems with the claim of linking Greek philosophy to the corruption of Christianity.

Roberts lists out a number of points he got from Protestant historians including Johann Lorentz von Mosheim, whose very influential history of Christianity Joseph Smith also owned.

What’s curious is that before Roberts makes the claim the Greek philosophy was responsible for Christians claiming God didn’t have a body, he cited passages indicating Platonic philosophers with some rather Mormon sounding ideas.

Point 23 on page 190: “The New Platonic Philosophy:–The Eclectic or ‘New Platonic’ philosophy came into existence in the early Christian centuries…. The founders of this philosophy professed simply to follow truth, gathering up whatever was accordant with it, regardless of its source, or in what school it was taught—hence the name eclectic.  Still the teachings of Plato formed the basis of their doctrines, and they embraced most of his dogmas concerning God, the human soul and the universe.” 

This passage comes from Mosheim and Joseph Smith declared “The First Fundamental principal of our holy religion is, that we believe that we have a right to embrace all, and every item of truth, without limitation or without being circumscribed or prohibited by the creeds or superstitious notions of men.”  Joseph Smith, letter to Isaac Galland, March 22, 1839.

As I’ve noted, Mormonism has a lot of Platonic doctrine, especially the plan of salvation (chapter six of my dissertation).

The next point that Roberts notes is even more peculiar. #24: “Plato held that God and matter existed from all eternity—that they were co-eternal.  Before the creation of the world matter had in itself a principle of motion, but without end or laws…. God wished to give form to this mass of eternal matter, regulate its motion subject it so some end and to certain laws.”

As I noted in this video, Plato, like all ancient thinkers, had God creating out of something and that creation ex nihilo was a an attempt to make the Christian God different than Plato’s creator.

These two points Roberts makes are curious as they seem to call into question the claim that Platonic doctrines corrupted Christianity. Here Mormonism and Platonism agree.

On page 195 Roberts claims that “The evil which grew out of these contentions in respect to Deity is found in the conclusion arrived at that God is an incorporeal, that is to say, an immaterial being.” 

I’ve argued that God’s corporality isn’t that clear in the NT, so it seems to me that asserting that claims of God’s immateriality happened AFTER the NT seem problematic. As I note in the video, Professor John Smith claimed that the ancient theology promoted an embodied God like Stoicism.

So I would argue that Roberts’s claims highlight the problems of the Protestant claim that Plato corrupted Christianity.