ABSTRACT
George Berkeley closed his famous Principles of Human Knowledge with the following paragraph: For after all, what deserves the first place in our studies, is the consideration of GOD, and our duty. Berkeley was first and foremost a Christian philosopher and the animating force of his work was a desire to help locate and root out the sources of evil in this world. According to Berkeley, a physical object is nothing more than a bundle of its sensible qualities and the sensible qualities of physical objects are simply ideas. It is important to remember, however, that at the time Berkeley is writing, atheistic, monistic materialism, though waxing, is not yet ascendant. The tradition closest to Berkeley on this point is the Neoplatonic tradition, the very tradition Berkeley aligns himself with in his last major work, Siris. Berkeley's immaterialism, in other words, can be seen as a development within the long tradition of Christian Neoplatonism.
