Before converting to Christianity, Augustine found that the philosophy of Plato offered him a more compelling view of morality than did the dualism of Manichaeism. This school of philosophy, neoplatonism, was the intellectual bridge that allowed Augustine to move from pagan life to Christian life. Suffice to say, Augustine used this philosophy in the service of Christianity but some Christian beliefs are irreconcilable with neoplatonism. .
A striking example of the influence of Plato on Augustine is Augustine's critical appropriation of the ancient concept of eros. An important component of the philosophy of love and desire can be seen in the poetic image of the ladder of eros, with its powerful suggestion that all early loves are, rightly understood, continuous with and, finally, but a vehicle for the love of Being itself and of its highest principles. In Plato's Symposium, Socrates shares with us the nature of nature of eros through a speech recounting his dialogue with Diotima. This notion that in reality there is a hierarchy, or ladder, of being and good serves as the backbone for Augustine's theology of love. Throughout his writing, Augustine holds to a doctrine of gradations of goodness. The good of the body is inferior to that of the soul. One's will, in itself, may turn to higher or lower things, and may err by preferring inferior good to superior. Eros not only concerns thinking about the good and beautiful, but also "requires the active pursuit of it as to possess it. " Eros recognizes a scale of beauty and of good. Diotima tells us of the movement from bodies, to forms, to thoughts, to institutions and law, to science, and to absolute or ideal beauty. Stated in other words, eros moves us from physical things, that is, things that change, to permanent things. In the experience of this true beauty one sees true virtue and becomes "dear to god. " Socrates concludes his speech as follows: "And in this state of conviction, I try to persuade others that for this possession one could not easily get a better co-worker with human nature than Eros.
