The philosophers say that the first thing one must learn is this: that God exists and provides for the Universe, and it is impossible for a man to act or even to conceive a thought or reflection without God knowing.
The next thing is to learn the true nature of the gods. For whatever their nature is discovered to be, he that is to please and obey them must needs try, so far as he can, to make himself like them.
If God is faithful, he must be faithful too; if free, he must be free too; if beneficent, he too must be beneficent: if high-minded, he must be high-minded: he must, in fact, as one who makes God his ideal, follow this out in every act and word.
The next thing is to learn the true nature of the gods. For whatever their nature is discovered to be, he that is to please and obey them must needs try, so far as he can, to make himself like them.
If God is faithful, he must be faithful too; if free, he must be free too; if beneficent, he too must be beneficent: if high-minded, he must be high-minded: he must, in fact, as one who makes God his ideal, follow this out in every act and word.
—from Epictetus, Discourses 2.14
As soon as there is any mention of God, the postmodernists go into a panic. The abject terror of anything Divine can quickly translate into an extreme belligerence, even if the consequent burning at the stake is merely symbolic.
For example, the majority of folks who now describe themselves as “Stoics” are atheists, or at the very least agnostic, on the grounds that the ancient teachings must be updated for contemporary sensibilities. This is disturbing, not because of which side currently happens to be winning in the culture wars, but because a philosophy ceases to be that philosophy once you excise one of its underlying principles.
I have no interest in waging tribal warfare, so I will only suggest that some might feel far more at home among the Epicureans. There is plenty of room for many different views, though we shouldn’t obscure them by attaching the wrong labels.
If it’s any consolation, I too have an immediate aversion to the sanctimonious zealots, for whom religion involves little more than admiring themselves in the mirror. I only get beyond the bitterness when my conception of God becomes so very big that my petty preferences now appear so very small. Let’s not forget who was made in whose image and likeness.
When Epictetus builds his philosophy on the presence of God, he is not concerned with sectarian loyalties or extravagant imaginings. At the most basic level, it is a question of where we find the absolute, that by which all other things are measured. If we remove this, we make any judgment impossible, for then there ceases to be a standard, and we are left with the contradiction of claiming that everything is relative to everything else.
Given my background, it helps me to express this in the language of the Scholastics. There can be nothing complex without something simple. There can be no degrees without a perfection. That which has limits exists within the infinite. Here and there are only possible through that which is everywhere. The changing must proceed from the unchanging. For there to be many, there must first be a one. . . .
Whatever name you wish to apply to it, this is the fullness of the Divine. It follows that, however meager our human awareness might be, all of our thoughts, words, and deeds will only become good by a participation with what is ultimate. From the one end, all beings are but an expression of Being, and from the other end, all creatures aspire to the ideal of their Creator.
There can be no philosophy, not of any sort, in the absence of an anchor, a benchmark, or a touchstone. Some will seek to twist themselves into a measure, at which point an effect is mistaken for a cause, and others will seek to dispose of any measure entirely, at which point reason has been abandoned, regardless of how much we call it science. It is perhaps best to attribute such errors to confusion instead of malice.
Before we can even speak of something as true, or good, or beautiful, we must first establish the norm.
As soon as there is any mention of God, the postmodernists go into a panic. The abject terror of anything Divine can quickly translate into an extreme belligerence, even if the consequent burning at the stake is merely symbolic.
For example, the majority of folks who now describe themselves as “Stoics” are atheists, or at the very least agnostic, on the grounds that the ancient teachings must be updated for contemporary sensibilities. This is disturbing, not because of which side currently happens to be winning in the culture wars, but because a philosophy ceases to be that philosophy once you excise one of its underlying principles.
I have no interest in waging tribal warfare, so I will only suggest that some might feel far more at home among the Epicureans. There is plenty of room for many different views, though we shouldn’t obscure them by attaching the wrong labels.
If it’s any consolation, I too have an immediate aversion to the sanctimonious zealots, for whom religion involves little more than admiring themselves in the mirror. I only get beyond the bitterness when my conception of God becomes so very big that my petty preferences now appear so very small. Let’s not forget who was made in whose image and likeness.
When Epictetus builds his philosophy on the presence of God, he is not concerned with sectarian loyalties or extravagant imaginings. At the most basic level, it is a question of where we find the absolute, that by which all other things are measured. If we remove this, we make any judgment impossible, for then there ceases to be a standard, and we are left with the contradiction of claiming that everything is relative to everything else.
Given my background, it helps me to express this in the language of the Scholastics. There can be nothing complex without something simple. There can be no degrees without a perfection. That which has limits exists within the infinite. Here and there are only possible through that which is everywhere. The changing must proceed from the unchanging. For there to be many, there must first be a one. . . .
Whatever name you wish to apply to it, this is the fullness of the Divine. It follows that, however meager our human awareness might be, all of our thoughts, words, and deeds will only become good by a participation with what is ultimate. From the one end, all beings are but an expression of Being, and from the other end, all creatures aspire to the ideal of their Creator.
There can be no philosophy, not of any sort, in the absence of an anchor, a benchmark, or a touchstone. Some will seek to twist themselves into a measure, at which point an effect is mistaken for a cause, and others will seek to dispose of any measure entirely, at which point reason has been abandoned, regardless of how much we call it science. It is perhaps best to attribute such errors to confusion instead of malice.
Before we can even speak of something as true, or good, or beautiful, we must first establish the norm.
—Reflection written in 9/2001
IMAGE: William Blake, Angel of the Revelation (c. 1805)
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