Chapter V. The Same Against the Same, as at Variance With Moses and Plato; in the Discourse On Providence

AGAIN, whereas Moses and the Hebrew prophets, and Plato moreover in agreement with them on this point, have very clearly treated the doctrine of the universal providence, Aristotle stays the divine power at the moon, and marks off the remaining portions of the world from God’s government: and on this ground also he is refuted by the aforesaid author, who discusses the matter as follows: [1]

‘Whereas, further, the most important and essential of the things that contribute to happiness is the belief in providence, which more than aught else guides human life aright, unless at least we are to remain ignorant

“Whether by justice or by crooked wiles Mankind from earth may scale the lofty height,” [2]

Plato makes all things connected with God, and dependent on God, for he says that “He, holding the beginning and the middle and the end of all things, passes onward in a straight course to the accomplishment of His purpose.” [3] And again he says, that “He is good, and goodness can never have any jealousy of anything. And being free from jealousy, He makes all things as good as possible, bringing them out of disorder into order.” [4]And while He cares for all things, and orders all as well as possible, He has taken thought for mankind also.’

And after a few words:

‘Thus speaks Plato. But he who puts aside this divine nature, and cuts off the soul’s hope of hereafter, and destroys reverence before superior Beings in the present life, what communion has he with Plato? Or how could he exhort men to what Plato desires, and confirm his sayings? For on the contrary he surely would appear as the helper and ally of those who wish to do injustice. For every one who is human and constrained by human desires, if he despise the gods and think they are nothing to him, inasmuch as in life he dwells far away from them, and after death exists no more, will come prepared to gratify his lusts.

‘For it is not impossible to feel assurance of being undetected in wrong-doing, if indeed it be necessary to avoid detection by men: it is not necessary, however, on every occasion even to seek to avoid detection, where a man has power to overmaster those who have discovered him. So the disbelief in providence is a ready way to wrong-doing.

‘For a very worthy person indeed is he, who after holding out pleasure to us as a good, and granting us security from the gods, still thinks to provide a plan to prevent wrong-doing. He acts like a physician who, having neglected to give help while the sick man was yet alive, attempts after death to devise certain contrivances for curing the dead man.

‘In a similar manner to him the Peripatetic acts. For it is not so much the eagerness for the pleasure, as the disbelief that the deity cares, that encourages wrong-doing. What then, some one may say, do you put Aristotle in the same class with Epicurus?

‘Why certainly, at least in relation to the point before us. For what difference does it make to us, whether you banish deity from the world and leave us no communion therewith, or shut up the gods in the world and remove them from all share in the affairs of earth? For in both cases the indifference of the gods towards men is equal, and equal also the security of wrong-doers from fear of the gods. And as to our deriving any benefit from them while they remain in heaven, in the first place this is common also to things without reason or life, and further, in this way, even according to Epicurus, men get help from the gods, ‘They say, for instance, that the better emanations from them become the causes of great blessings to those who partake of them. But neither Epicurus nor Aristotle can rightly be reckoned on the side of providence. For if according to Epicurus providence disappears, although the gods according to him employ the utmost solicitude for the preservation of their own goods, so must providence disappear according to Aristotle also, even if the heavenly motions are arranged in a certain order and array.

‘For we seek a providence that has an interest for us, and in such that man has no share who has admitted that neither daemons, nor heroes, nor any souls at all can live on hereafter.

‘But therein Epicurus, in my judgement, seems to have acted more modestly: for as if he despaired of the gods being able to abstain from the care of mankind if they came in contact with them, he transferred them, as it were, to a foreign country, and settled them somewhere outside the world, excusing them from the charge of inhumanity by the removal, and by their separation from all things.

‘But this our super-excellent discoverer of nature, and accurate judge of things divine, after putting human affairs under the very eyes of the gods yet left them uncared for and unregarded, being administered by some force of nature, and not by divine reason. Wherefore he himself cannot fairly escape that other charge which some imagine against Epicurus, that it was not according to his judgement, but through fear of men, that he allotted room in the universe to the gods, just like a spectator’s place in a theatre.

‘And they regard it as a proof of. the man’s opinion, that he deprived the gods of their activity towards us, from which alone a just confidence in their existence was likely to be derived. For this same thing is done by Aristotle also; for by his both putting them far off and giving over the proof to sight only, an operation too feeble to judge of things at so great a distance, it may readily be thought that from shame he admits the existence of gods there.

‘For as he neither left anything outside the world, nor gave his gods access to things on earth, he was compelled either to confess himself altogether an atheist, or to preserve the appearance of allowing gods to remain, by banishing his gods to some such place as that. But Epicurus, by excusing the higher powers from diligent care because of the want of communication, seems to throw a decent veil over his disbelief in the gods.’

Such are the remarks of Atticus against Aristotle’s repudiation of the doctrine of providence. The same author further adds to what has been quoted the following remarks, aiming at the same philosopher’s unwillingness to admit that the world was created.