On Being, Theology, Metaphysics And The Failure Of Platonism

The fact that Neoplatonism makes bad theology and worse [biblical] exegesis is no philosophical argument against the Platonic notion of being. Yet, it goes a long way to prove something else, which is the only point I am now trying to make. If any being ever entailed the notion of existence, it is Yahweh, the God whose very name is, I AM; and here is a Christian theologian [Marius Victorinus] who, because he still conceives being after the manner of Plato, cannot even understand the very name of his God. A tangible proof indeed that the Platonic notion of being is not only foreign to existence, but inconsistent with it.

- Étienne Gilson, Being and Some Philosophers, 2nd Ed., (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1952).