  It is typical of Choumnos’ approach that he seeks to argue philosophically, that is by valid inference from principles and definitions that are universally accepted, for views that are already theologically established. Thus he attempts to refute Aristotle’s theory that the heavens are composed of a fifth, naturally ungenerable and imperishable body, not by simply appealing to the Christian doctrine that the world was created at the beginning of time and persists only through the grace of its creator, but by pointing out that Aristotle’s attempt to deduce his theory from the fact that the heavens have a circular movement fails, inasmuch as he has only secured the premise that all simple bodies have simple movements, not that all simple movements belong to simple bodies, which is what his argument requires. Likewise, Choumnos argues by elimination against the theory of pre-existing matter (which is how he, following Aristotle, interprets the chōra of Plato’s Timaeus), and insists against the theory of separate forms that if forms do not allow self-predication, they are not participated in by individuals; but if they do, they are not universal and eternal, but individual and perishable. The bottom line is that matter and form are inseparable and simultaneously created. Another time he attacks the theory of recollection, which he takes to entail the pre-existence of the soul, by flatly denying that knowledge can suffer destruction or, obviously, be revived, and stressing the fact that this follows from Plotinus’ (whom he considers to be his main opponent) view that the activities of the soul are immortal. He even prides himself on having proved the doctrine of the resurrection of the body on the basis of Plato’s views on the migration of souls.