A Search For The Origins of God
Part 2: Ancient Philosophical Gods
Picking back up in Ancient Greece, certain individuals
began questioning the gods and looking for better explanations for how the
world works. These individuals became known as philosophers, and their story
starts with Thales, who was born in 624 BCE and died around 546 BCE. Thales
sought to explain the workings of the universe without recourse to the gods and
to find the fundamental nature of reality. Thales came to the conclusion that
water is the fundamental nature of reality, which may seem like a primitive
conclusion about the universe today. However, Thales’s ideas were a major step
forward in the sense that he was now looking for natural explanations for the
universe.[1] Thales also was the first true mathematician who used
deductive logic to calculate things, rather than rules of thumb like the
Egyptians.[2]
Thales set the stage for numerous other men in ancient Greece to think about
the nature of the universe, the first of which were the Milesian philosophers.
Pythagoras and his mathematical cult flourished a generation after the Milesian
philosophers in Ionia, and discovered even more mathematics. The Pythagoreans thought that numbers were
mystical entities that composed reality, and were far less naturalistic than
the Milesians.[3]
Xenophanes
was born in the same year as Pythagoras, in 570 BCE, and was another second
generation Greek philosopher. Xenophanes was a poet who satirized the religious
beliefs common to most Greeks.
Xenophanes wrote that, “mortals
suppose that gods are born, wear their own clothes and have a voice and body,”
and that “if horses and oxen had hands and could draw pictures, their gods
would look remarkably like horses and oxen.” He also wrote that, “Ethiopians
say that their gods are snub-nosed and black; Thracians that theirs are
blue-eyed and red-haired.”[4]
Xenophanes was not an atheist, but he pointed out that peoples’ ideas of the
gods reflected their own appearance and customs, and were very human. He was unhappy that people could think the
gods were capable of evil acts, and wrote that, “Homer and Hesiod have
attributed to the gods all sorts of things that are matters of reproach and
censure among men: theft, adultery, and mutual deception.” One can only imagine
what he would have thought of the Israelite god Yahweh, who absorbed
characteristics of other gods and was frequently warlike and vicious in the Old
Testament. Xenophanes proposed that there is, “One god greatest among gods and
men, not at all like mortals in body or in thought.”[5] Xenophanes seemed to be embracing a
form of monotheism. While he references gods in the plural, he describes god as
being immaterial and transcendent, an idea closely associated with monotheism,
such as the worshipers of Aten in Egypt representing Aten as an incorporeal
sun disk. Xenophanes also believed what we could know about the deity was very
limited; “the clear and certain truth no man has seen nor will there be anyone
who knows about the gods and what I say about all things. For even if, in the
best case, one happened to speak just of what has been brought to pass, still
he himself would not know. But opinion is allotted to all.”[6] If god
was transcendent and was not part of the corporeal world, then no one would
have direct contact with god. If no one can directly observe or communicate
with god, then no one can have knowledge of god. Xenophanes was reported to be skeptical of
sense perception by Aëtius and Aristocles, which was common among the
contemporary philosophers of his time. If that is the case, even if someone did
report seeing an action attributed to the deity, such as a miracle, Xenophanes
would be inclined to doubt their reports. Because Xenophanes did not think
there were gods responsible for various natural phenomena, he thought that
nature worked mechanistically through interacting elements. He wrote that, “The
Sea is the source of water and of wind, for without the great sea; there would
be no wind, nor streams of rivers, nor rainwater from on high. But the great
sea is the begetter of clouds, winds, and rivers.”[7]
Xenophanes was revolutionary. Not
only did he reject the polytheistic gods of ancient Greece, but he believed in
a single transcendent god and that nature worked through what today we could
call scientific laws. Rather than drawing on tradition in the formation of his
religious views, like Akhenaten and the Jews, he used rational thought to think
about god and the universe. Xenophanes’ way of thinking about god would become
embedded in the philosophical tradition of ancient Greece.
Plato, who lived from about 428 BCE
to 348 BCE, also had much to say on the topic of god. In order to better
understand Plato’s god, however, it is best to understand the basics of his
epistemology [theory of knowledge] and metaphysics [theory of reality]. Plato
made a distinction between opinion and knowledge. For Plato, if you have
knowledge, you have knowledge of
something. One cannot know something about nothing and knowledge must be
about something. True knowledge is infallible. Opinion, however, can be
mistaken. Opinion can be held about something that does not exist.[8]
Particular things always have contradictory characteristics, for instance, a
piece of art can be both ugly and beautiful to different people. Plato believed
all particular things have these contradictory characteristics and are
imperfect, and occupy a space between being and not being. If one has thoughts
about particulars, then one has opinions. Only those who see the absolute,
eternal, and immutable can have knowledge.[9] These
perfect and immutable things are called ideas, or forms. Forms are perfect
entities after which earthly things are modeled. For instance, there are many
kinds of trees, and even within a kind of tree, every tree looks different.
This means each tree is imperfect, and only approximates the perfect form of a
tree in heaven.
If the things in this world are modeled after
something in a heavenly realm, then who did the modeling? As was stated before,
Plato believed that what changes is apprehended by opinion, and is not certain.
However, since the changing world displays order and is sensible, it must have
had a designer.[10]
This creator is called the demiurge in Timaeus,
and is the god of Plato’s philosophy. Plato’s god is responsible for designing
the forms.[11]
God found the world as a visible sphere moving in an irregular and chaotic way,
and crafted the world into something sensible. God wanted the imperfect
material world to be as best as possible, he modeled things after the forms.[12] God
made sure that the elements were in proportion to each other, as to be as
perfect as possible. His first creations were souls, which are part indivisible
and unchanging, and part divisible and changing. God then fashioned the heavens
and set them into motion, creating time and light from the sun. Before this, there
were no days or nights. Then the four types of animal were created: gods,
birds, fish, and land animals. God created the forms of each of these however,
and left it up to the gods to fashion material bodies for the birds, fish, and
land animals (which presumably includes humans).[13]
Plato’s account of creation is not all together
dissimilar from that found in the Bible. Both the stories in Timaeus and the book of Genesis feature
god crafting the universe together in stages. The biggest difference however is
that Plato’s god found the imperfect material world and tried to fashion
something better out of it, while Yahweh is described as fashioning the
universe out of presumably nothing. It is also worth noting that Plato believed
our souls could be reincarnated, and that there is punishment for the
wicked. In Phaedo, Plato has the character of Socrates argue that the reason
people can have knowledge (which is of something perfect and immutable) is that
they recollect the forms from before their souls were put in a material body.[14] Plato
also believed that our souls were judged in the afterlife. Souls that were good
were allowed to spend seven days in a heavenly meadow, and then choose a new
life into which they would be reincarnated.
Wicked souls were to be punished, unable to escape.[15]
No
one in ancient Greece perhaps represents the influence of Xenophanes in
theology better than Plato’s student Aristotle, who lived from 384 BCE to
322 BC. Aristotle did not speak much of Xenophanes, but he did credit him with
founding the Eleatic school of philosophy.[16]
In his book Rhetoric, Aristotle
mentioned that if two arguments have the same result, then their antecedents
were the same. He gives the example of Xenophanes’ argument that if you believe
gods are born, they also must die. Either way, that means there was a time when
gods did not exist, which for Xenophanes was absurd because he considered god
to be eternal.[17]
Aristotle argued that anything
that is moved is capable of being in another state, and that these things need
to have been set in motion. There must have been a first cause to set things in
motion, so there must have been an unmoved mover.[18]
How then does god produce motion in the first place? Aristotle’s answer is that
god produces motion by being loved. God is perfect, and all else wishes to be
like god, so they strive to be like god. This is how god produces motion
without moving.[19]
Aristotle concludes that “God is a living being, eternal, most good, so that
life and duration continuous and eternal belong to God; for this is God.”[20]
Aristotle’s god does not intervene with nature, because god is so perfect that
he cannot think about anything but the thought of his own perfection.
Aristotle’s god “must be of itself that the divine thought thinks (since it is
the most excellent of things), and its thinking is a thinking on thinking.”
Aristotle’s god was only capable of thinking about how perfect it is, much less
intervening or designing anything. It seems safe to assume Aristotle’s god is
not even aware of our existence, and is not capable of loving us. Aristotle’s
god is not a religious one, but a metaphysical hypothesis used to explain
motion in the world. Aristotle believed the universe itself was eternal, and
was not created. Since change originated by all matter striving to be like the
perfect unmoved mover, there was a purpose in the universe; nothing is
accidental. This view of the world is called teleology.
The
question remains, was Aristotle a monotheist? He mostly speaks about God in the
singular; however he also concludes that each spherical heavenly body must have
its own unmoved mover. He concludes that there are either forty-nine or
fifty-five unmoved movers.[21]
Since Aristotle repeatedly refers to God in the singular, however, it is
reasonable to conclude that his thought is comparable to monotheism.
Nevertheless, it would be Aristotle’s influence on the medieval Christian
thinker St. Thomas Aquinas that would make him a figure head in monotheistic
theology.
The
generation following Aristotle’s yielded two new schools of philosophy that
competed for dominance, as well as the continuation of Aristotle’s own school,
called the Peripatetic school. These new traditions were the Epicurean and Stoic
traditions.
The
Epicureans were founded by Epicurus, who was born in 341 BCE and died in 269 BCE. Epicurus was a hedonist
who considered pleasure the greatest good. He distinguished between active and
passive pleasures. Active pleasures consist of getting something that you want,
and passive pleasures consist of a pleasant state of affairs in the absence of
something negative. Epicurus considered the goal in life to be reaching a state
of ataraxia and aponia, that is, to live without fear and to live without pain.
While hedonism has a connotation of indulgence and carelessness, because
Epicurus considered passive pleasures to be superior, he advocated a life of
modest living. He lived on a meager diet consisting mostly of bread and water.
He abstained from political affairs, and had no use for mathematics or
deductive logic. For Epicurus, philosophy’s purpose was to help you achieve a
life free of fear and free of suffering, not to solve complex problems.[22]
However,
Epicurus was not a philistine who ignored intellectual pursuits on the whole.
In fact, it is his thoughts about metaphysics and theology which influenced his
ethics. Epicurus believed in the doctrine of atomism, which was the idea that
all matter is made of indivisible particles.[23] Democritus was a philosopher who
lived in the generation between Xenophanes and Aristotle, around the time of
Socrates. Democritus believed everything was composed of atoms, and that
everything is determined by the motion of matter. For Epicurus, everything is composed
of atoms, even the soul and the gods. Unlike Democritus, Epicurus was not a
determinist and believed that atoms could swerve at random and that there was
chance in nature. From this arises free will.[24] After death, the atoms of the soul
dispersed, and the person’s soul would cease to be. Epicurus taught that death
is not to be feared, for “death is nothing to us; for that which is dissolved,
is without sensation, and that which lacks sensation is nothing to us.”[25]
Epicurus was a polytheist, and as
to why he believed in the gods he merely thought that they must exist,
otherwise so many people would not believe in them. However, he believed that
the gods do not interfere with the affairs of man and was indifferent to them.
He considered acts of divination to be mere superstition.[26]Just as for Xenophanes and
Aristotle, Epicurus’s notion of divinity is not exactly a personal being to
which you can pray and interact, as with the traditional Greek gods and the
Israelite god Yahweh. Being that Epicurus believed morality was based in
pleasure rather than an abstract concept or divinity, that the soul does not
survive death, and that the gods were irrelevant to mankind, Epicurus was by
practical standards an atheist. Socrates was famously put to death after rumors
circulated that he was an atheist and corrupting to youth, so it is highly
possible that Epicurus merely professed belief for the sake of protecting
himself from a painful death.
The secular philosophy of Epicurus
made him an unfriendly rival to the other new school of philosophy developing
around the same time, Stoicism. Stoicism was developed by the philosopher Zeno
of Citium. The name stoicism comes from the Greek word stoa, which meant porch,
as Zeno would often speak from a porch. The stoic Epictetus, who lived in Rome
several centuries after Zeno, addressed the long dead Epicurus in writing,
saying, “This is the life of which you pronounce yourself worthy: eating,
drinking, copulation, evacuation and snoring.”[27] While Epictetus sorely
misunderstood the type of hedonism that Epicurus advocated, this serves to
illustrate the animosity that developed between Stoicism and Epicureanism.
Originally, however, Stoics and Epicureans were not entirely different.
Zeno was largely influenced by the
Cynic philosophers, as well as Heraclitus. Zeno was born around 335 BCE and died around 263 BCE. He was born in at Citium, in Cyprus, and
eventually moved to Athens. Here he became very interested in philosophy, and
idolized Socrates. Zeno admired Socrates because of his emotional coolness
throughout the entire trial he was put to, and faced death without fear. [28]Like Epicurus, Zeno only had minimal
use for abstract philosophy, and only valued physics and metaphysics insofar as
they can help inform ethical discussion. Like Epicurus, Zeno was also a materialist. He believed everything was composed of atoms,
and that this made the universe deterministic. Determinism is the first point
of departure for Zeno and Epicurus. Zeno did not believe in chance, and thought
that everything in nature is determined by strict causal laws. He believed that
atoms combined to form four basic elements: fire, air, water, and earth in that
order. He believed that eventually, everything would break down into the basic
element of fire again, and that the universe would be reborn in a continuous
cycle.[29]
Another major difference between
Zeno and Epicurus was that Zeno believed Zeus pervaded the entire universe, and
that he was the mind of the universe, the source of divine providence.[30] Zeus was referred to as the Logos,
the eternal reason.[31] Zeno did not believe temples were
necessary, but that divination and prayer were valid.[32]
Zeno also had an entirely different
view of ethics than Epicurus. Whereas Epicurus put an emphasis on the
consequences of an action in bringing about pain or pleasure, Zeno believed the
goal of ethics was to be in harmony with nature.[33] This meant accepting whatever
happens with indifference, to reach a state of apatheia – which is origin of
the word apathy. This apathy was the highest virtue.
Zeno had many followers, the two
most important of which became the head of his school. The first of his
successors was Cleanthes of Assos. Cleanthes, like his later stoic comrade
Epictetus, was unkind to opposition. He believed the philosopher Aristarchus of
Samos should be put to death for believing the sun is the center of the solar
system. Cleanthes held, like Aristotle, that the Earth was the center of the
universe. A hymn to Zeus is also attributed to him, though it may have been written
much later by a post-Newton Christian admirer.[34]
The second successor to Zeno was
Chrysippus, who lived from 280 BCE to 207 BCE. He is said to have written a
total of seven hundred and five books in his life time. He believed in many
gods, but maintained that Zeus is the only immortal god.[35] It is worth noting that among the
Stoics, Zeus has been elevated variously to being the best of all the gods or
the only true god, just as Yahweh was among the Israelites. Chrysippus believed
that good and evil are dependent on each other for existence. He also put an
emphasis on logic, whereas his predecessors in the stoic school had not.
After the death of Chrysippus,
Stoicism became much more influenced by Platonism. The philosopher Panaetius
introduced a large amount of Platonic philosophy, and abandoned materialism –
which was a founding principle of Stoicism. It is here that the second
generation (intellectually speaking) of Stoics begins. Panaetius introduced
Stoicism to Cicero, through whom Stoicism became popular among the Romans.
Posidonius was a Syrian Greek who
moved to Athens, and became exposed to the Stoic school of thought. He
introduced even more Platonic philosophy into Stoicism. Whereas the previous
stoics believed in an afterlife that only extended to the next rebirth of the
universe, Posidonius adopted the Platonic doctrine of reincarnation. He thought
that virtuous souls reach a state of peace and become part of the stellar
sphere until they are reincarnated at the next universe’s birth. The souls of
the wicked (which in this case, means the average unenlightened person) do not
rise as far as the virtuous souls and only float in the air. The truly evil
become reincarnated after death, and will get a chance to live a better life.[36]
After this era, Stoicism had become
very popular among the Romans, particularly, among Epictetus. Epictetus was born in 55 CE, and died in 55
CE. He was a slave, and suffered an
injury from his slave master that left him crippled. He was freed, and turned to philosophy. He
taught philosophy in Rome until 90 CE, when the emperor Domitian banished all
philosophers and intellectuals.[37]
God was very important to Epictetus
and played a central role in his views. Epictetus believed that god was
responsible for the creation of all of mankind, and that all should be treated
equally. He wrote that:
He then who has observed with
intelligence the administration of the world, and has learned
that the greatest and supreme and the most comprehensive community is
that which is composed of men and God, and that from God have descended the seeds not only to my father and grandfather, but to all beings
which are generated on the earth and are produced, and
particularly to rational beings- for these only are by their
nature formed to have communion with God, being by means of
reason conjoined with Him- why should not such a man call
himself a citizen of the world, why not a son of God, and why should
he be afraid of anything which happens among men?”[38]
Epictetus said that, “If a man
should be able to assent to this doctrine as he ought, that we are all sprung
from God in an especial manner, and that God is the father both of men and of
gods, I suppose that he would never have any ignoble or mean thoughts about
himself.”[39]
God was the center of his
philosophy; Epictetus believed that if we acknowledge we are all children of
god, then there could be peace both in society and in one’s own mind. Peace of
mind of course is the ultimate goal of Stoicism. If one acknowledges God’s
omnipotence, then one can realize all is for the best. He wrote, “From everything which is or happens in the world, it
is easy to praise Providence, if a man possesses these two
qualities, the faculty of seeing what belongs and happens to
all persons and things, and a grateful disposition.”[40] Even
bad things were part of God’s plan, for, “what do you think that
Hercules would have been if there had not been such a lion, and hydra, and stag, and boar, and certain unjust and bestial men, whom
Hercules used to drive away and clear out?”[41] In
other words, without evil, there can be no good.
Marcus Aurelius, on the other hand, was not a slave
but an emperor. He was born April 26,
121 CE in Rome, and died March 17, 180. His most famous work is known as the Meditations. It was a personal journal of his, rather than
a proper work of philosophy, but is filled with stoic thought. Like Epictetus,
Aurelius believed that we were all equal and that there is no real difference
between the races. He wrote that, “If our intellectual part is common, the
reason also, in respect of which we are rational beings, is common: if this is
so, common also is the reason which commands us what to do, and what not to do;
if this is so, there is a common law also; if this is so, we are
fellow-citizens; if this is so, we are members of some political community; if
this is so, the world is in a manner a state.”[42] In
other words, all humans are capable of rational thought. Since rational
thought, according to stoic tradition, comes from the Logos, we all have a bit
of the divine spark in us, and all are subject to the same laws of morality. We
are all in the same proverbial boat, and are all citizens of the world.
The difference between Stoicism and Epicureanism
should now be obvious. While Zeno and Epicurus may have shared their belief in
materialism and atomism, and both believed in a simple life, the Epicurean
tradition was practically atheistic, while Stoicism became profoundly religious
with the Logos or God (Zeus) being the centerpiece of the Stoic way of life.
Epicureanism and Stoicism were not the only major
schools of philosophy to be relevant to religion. Traveling backwards in time
to the time of Zeno’s birth, 335 BCE, another philosopher was born. His name
was Strato of Lampsacus. He became the second head of the Lyceum, first founded
by Aristotle. Strato was an atheist, and had taken theological and teleological
concepts out of Aristotle’s philosophy. If God played a minimal role in
Aristotelian philosophy before, there was no role for a god at all. He likely
knew Epicurus when he was teaching in Lampascus, which might account for his
more naturalistic worldview. He moved to Athens
at some point and studied in the Lyceum. He studied there until his teacher
died, and then moved to Egypt to tutor Ptolemy II Philadelphos. He returned to
the Lyceum in 288 after Theophrastus died to become schoolmaster.[43]
Later schoolmasters of the Lyceum
appear not to be concerned with theology, but focusing instead on ethics and
science. Critolas was largely occupied with defending the concept of the
eternal universe against the Stoic belief that the universe went through
cycles, Diodorus of Tyre was concerned with reconciling Stoic and Epicurean
thought, to make a grand synthesis of philosophical views.
And so it was that leading up to the
last century BCE, there was the largely secular philosophies of the later
Aristotelians and the Epicureans, and the very religious thought of the stoics.
It might be added that the from the middle era onward of Plato’s Academy, which
lasted from 266 BCE to 155 BC, abandoned
most of Plato’s philosophy and embraced skepticism. This occurred after
Arcesilaus became headmaster of the Academy. Following the philosopher Pyrrho,
they did not believe humans could have absolutely certain knowledge about the
natural world, but only probable knowledge. They embraced agnosticism and
strongly criticized the dogmatic philosophy of the Stoics.[44] This is
the scene for Greek philosophy as it concerns religious affairs as the 1st century CE drew near, and
the Stoic school in particular would play a role for one Jewish thinker’s attempts to
synthesize faith and reason. His name was Philo, who was born 20 BCE. He rejected the hedonism and "practical atheism" of the Epicureans and agnosticism of the Academic Skeptics and embraced the concept of the Logos from the Stoics. It is generally held that either Stoicism influenced early Christianity directly, or that Stoicism influenced Christianity by means of Philo. Philo was also heavily influenced by Platonism and attempted to synthesize the teachings of Moses with those of Plato. The influence of Stoicism on Christianity, whether directly from Stoicism or through Philo, is evidenced in John 1:1, where it reads, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God", where the "Word" is translated from the Greek word Logos. For Philo, God wasn't reasonable, God was reason itself, and his views, while falling out of favor with Jews after the fall of Jerusalem, influenced early Church fathers and early Christian theology for years to come. [45] It was through the works of philosophers such as Philo that ancient Middle Eastern myth blended with Greek philosophy and gave form to the concept of God known to Jews and Christians worldwide.
[1] Russell,
Bertrand. A History of Western
Philosophy. Touchstone, 1945. ; pg. 24
[2]
Russell, 24
[3]
Russell, 29
[4] Lesher,
James. "Xenophanes." n.d. Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 19 June 2012.
.
[5]
ibid
[6]
ibid
[7]
ibid
[8]
Russell, 120
[9]
Russell, 121
[10]
Russell, 143
[11]
Russell, 122
[12]
Russell, 144
[13]
ibid
[14]
Russell, 139
[15]
Plato, 614-621
[16]
Aristotle, 986b18-27
[17] Aristotle, 1399b6-8
[18]
Aristotle, 1072b1-14
[19]
Russell, 168
[20]
Aristotle, 1072b30
[21]
Aristotle, 1074a
[22]
Russell, 244
[23]
Russell, 246
[24]
Russell, 246
[25]
Russell, 247
[26]
ibid
[27]
Russell, 214
[28]
Russell, 253
[29]
Russell, 254
[30]
Russell, 256
[31] Baltzly,
Dirk. "Stoicism." 20120. Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 19 June 2012.
.
[32]
Russell, 257
[33]
Russell, 254
[34]
Russell, 257
[35]
ibid
[36] Russell, 259
[37]
Russell, 261
[38] Epictetus.
Discourses. n.d.
.
[39]
ibid
[40]
ibid
[41]
ibid
[42] Aurelius,
Marcus. Meditations. Trans.
George Long. n.d. .
[43] Algra,
Keimpe. Cambridge Companion to
Hellenistic Philosophy. Cambridge, n.d. ; pg. 36
