(Greek: demiourgos, a craftsman or artisan)
In his philosophical dialogue Timaeus, Plato uses the word to mean the Creator of the universe. According to Plato, this Creator is completely good, and desires only good for the world. The reason why the world is not perfectly good is that the demiurge had to work with the pre-existing raw material, which was chaotic in nature. The demiurge, as envisioned by Plato, is thus not an omnipotent being.
In early Christian philosophy, Plato's demiurge was often used to represent the foreshadowing among the more virtuous of pagan philosophers of the advent of Christian revelation.