Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth — Page 76
GREEK PHILOSOPHY objects are constantly changing. Thus an observation made at any given time could differ from that made at another. 'Plato held that the idea is an ideal, a non-sensible goal to which the sensible approximates; the geometer's perfect triangle "never was on sea or land," though all actual triangles more or less embody it. He conceived the ideas as more real than the sensible things that are their shadows and saw that the philosopher must penetrate to these invisible essences and see with the eye of his mind how they are linked together. For Plato they formed an orderly system that was at once eternal, intelligible, and good. '2. Abbasi. In contrast to Plato, Aristotle gives priority to the external observable reality. For him any understanding gained by man at any particular moment is to be taken as the truth. It seems as though for. Aristotle the external world was itself the eternal truth. Aristotle was also persuaded of the existence of ideas towards which all the 'various physical forms' are moving. In sharp contrast to Plato, he perceived matter to be an independent eternal reality and presents a view of continuous evolution in which no External Conscious Being has a hand to play. . He considers this evolution to be dependent only upon the natural propensities latent within matter itself. . ARISTOTLE. That should not be taken to mean that Aristotle does not believe in God, the Creator. On the contrary, he believed in a Supreme Being Who was responsible for the entire chain of cause and effect and could be referred to as the Ultimate First Cause. However, as we trace the idea of 76