Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.5.1

How can it be that the gods, after having arranged all things well and benevolently for mankind, have overlooked this alone, that some men, and very good men, and men who, as we may say, have had most communion with the Divinity, and through pious acts and religious observances have been most intimate with the Divinity, when they have once died should never exist again, but should be completely extinguished? . . .

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.5 (tr Long)

I have offered myself three answers to this question, at different times. The first is from the oldest me, the second from the middle me, the third from the newest me.

I cannot claim to know precisely why Marcus Aurelius asked this. At first, I would take the question quite literally, and ponder the injustice or tragedy of it all. Later, I would see it as a rhetorical question, and find within the question itself the very problem within my own thinking.

First Stage: Damn straight, how did God get this one thing wrong? There should surely be a reward for being just, for being pious, for trying to rise above all of the muck and the filth. Why do the virtuous die with nothing, often well before their rightful time, while the vicious live with everything, often well beyond their rightful time? It all seems quite unfair.

Second Stage: Maybe it isn’t wrong for something to cease to be? Providence doesn’t get things wrong at all; I just don’t see it right. Living longer or shorter is neither good nor bad. Having more or else is neither good nor bad. I have misunderstood what a good life really is. Yes, I will die, as will everyone else, and the only thing that matters is how well my time was lived, not how long I lived, or how much “stuff” I acquired.

Third Stage: Wait, does anything really cease to be at all? Nothing ends; it only becomes something else, something different, and thereby continues on in the order of Nature. Is it the same? Of course not, and it would hardly be part of a process if it merely stayed the same. Will "I" still exist? In some sense, though it isn’t for me to determine how that expresses itself. I am quite content to let God, or the Divine, or the Logos, or the Absolute, decide what that will be.

Faith, which is nothing but trust, is hardly so unreasonable in the end.

The order of things isn’t messed up at all. My estimation of things is what is messed up. The very way I ask the question reveals my first principles, and the answers come from my own growth in truth.

Perhaps my answer, and even my way of asking the question, will evolve again as I move along, and before I breathe my last. I not only suspect that will happen, I actually hope it will happen. Nothing created stands still.

Written in 7/2009