ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author selects five fundamental features of the thought of Plotinus and Iamblichus that major Christian thinkers of later centuries found necessary to think through on their own terms, in the project of developing a Christian philosophical theology. He proposes to examine, in other words, is how Christian philosophical theology engaged in practice with some of the fundamental principles and structures of pagan Neoplatonism – in this case primarily Plotinus, and secondarily Iamblichus. The author starts from the more theoretical questions of divine hypostasis and substance, move through more immediate issues such as creation, the making of man, and the nature of freedom and agency, to the question of Christian philosophy itself in the context of theurgy and theology broadly conceived. Naturally, there is a different emphasis in Christianity upon everything, including philosophy.
