Chapter VI. Refutation of the Argument in Defence of Fate

Is there not now an end of all doubt in your judgement, that there was nothing divine at all in the responses of the gods? For how could the divine ever speak falsely, being in nature most truthful, since surely the divine is truthful? And how could a good daemon ever deceive the inquirers by false statements? Or how could that which is ‘fettered’ by the course of the stars be superior to man?

Nay, a mortal man who paid any little regard to virtue would never lie, but would choose rather to reverence the truth; nor would he lay the blame of a lie upon any necessity of fate or course of the stars. But even if any one were to bring fire or sword against his body, to compel him to pervert the word of truth, yet even against this he would reply in freedom’s tone:

‘Come fire, come sword; Burn, and scorch up this flesh, and gorge thyself With my dark blood : for sooner shall the stars Sink down to earth, and earth rise up to heav’n, Than fawning word shall meet thee from my lips.’ [1]

But the deluding and deceitful daemon makes pretences and cajoles the senseless, in order that whenever he should fail of foretelling what was to come, he might provide himself an excuse for his blunder in fate.

So when the daemon had by his oracular answers made everything depend on fate, and had taken away the freedom arising from self-determined action, and subjugated this also to necessity, see into what a deadly pit of evil doctrines he has plunged those who believe him.

For if we must refer not only external events, but also the desires founded upon reason, to the stars and fate, and if human judgements are extorted by some inexorable necessity, there will be an end of your philosophy, an end also of religion: nor is there, as we thought, any praise of virtue for the good, nor any friendship with God, nor any worthy fruit of self-denying toils, if universal causation has been usurped by necessity and fate.

So then it is not right to blame those who offend in the affairs of life, nor yet the impious and the most infamous, nor even to admire the virtuous; but on this principle, as I said, there will be an end also of the great glory of philosophy, if it is made dependent not on voluntary study and discipline, but on necessity imposed by the stars.

See then into what an abyss of evil doctrines these wonderful gods have cast men down, and observe how this doctrine urges on and encourages to recklessness, and injustice, and countless other evils, bringing about an entire overthrow of the whole life.

If, for example, a man were at once to give credit to the marvellous responses of the gods, that truthfulness or falsehood, and the will to start upon an expedition or any other business, or the unwillingness to undertake such matters, was no work of ours but of inexorable fate, would he not choose to be careless and indolent in all matters that could not be performed without labour and pains and exertion on our own part?

For if he thought that this or that would take place by fate, whether we took trouble and care about it or not, would he not certainly wish to choose the easier course, and give himself, up to carelessness, since the result to be attained would be brought to pass by fate and necessity?

Hence one may hear the multitude say, This will be accomplished, if it is destined for me, and why need I give myself trouble?

For if he who set out on an expedition, did this not from his own choice, but from being driven by external necessity, so also evidently would the man who set himself to robbery and plundering graves and all other practices whether impious and lawless or orderly and prudent: for this would be a consequence of the doctrine of fate.

How then would the man who believed that he was undertaking these practices not of his own will, but under external necessity, be likely to give heed to one who admonished him and taught him not to give himself over abjectly to the practices before mentioned?

For he would say to his monitor, as has been said by some before our time, Why, sir, do you admonish me? For this of course does not rest with me, to change my purpose, since fate has determined it beforehand. What need then to exert myself for things which I shall not be able even to desire, unless this also is my destiny. And if it is so destined, I shall desire it even without your teaching, being led thereto by fate. Why then do you trouble yourself to no purpose? But if you mean to say that your exhortation and teaching is also brought about by necessity, to exhort and persuade me thus, yet even in this case what need to be so earnest? For the exhortation is idle and useless. Since if it is so fated, I shall be diligent; and if it is not so fated, the result will be that we both take trouble in vain.

Must not the man who holds this opinion rather give up indolently and say to himself, Come, let me not care to toil, nor trouble myself to no purpose: for that which, is fated will of necessity come to pass? But if a man is diligent about anything, or teaches or encourages himself or another, either to obey or to disobey, and to sin or not to sin, and to rebuke sinners, and to praise them that do well, is it not clearly proved that he has left us the reality of our power and free-will, and simply attaches to it the name of fate; just as if any one were to call by the name of evil that natural goodness, by the presence of which the living being is best governed?

In the same way (since we plainly feel ourselves compelled by no external cause in chastening our sons, and scourging our domestics when they have done amiss, and in wishing or not wishing this or that, but feel that we make such movements quite independently by our own power) he would be wrong who said that these things are done according to fate, with a view to paralyse our own exertions and the exhortations and admonitions given to others, which we see to be the chief sources of success in human affairs.

Moreover this doctrine would overthrow laws, which are made for the sake of their usefulness to man. For what need is there to command or forbid those who are constrained by a necessity of a different kind? Nor will it be right to punish offenders, since for the same reason they have done no wrong, nor to award honours to the doers of the noblest deeds, though these customs of reward and punishment have severally been a chief cause of checking injustice and of readiness to do good.

But further, this opinion would overthrow piety towards the deity, if, fettered as we are by the necessities of fate, neither God Himself, nor the ministers of these oracular gods give us any help either in answer to our prayers or for our piety.

And would it not be most shameless and impudent to say that we are moved like lifeless puppets pulled by strings this way and that by some external power, to will of necessity to do this or that, and to choose other things against our will? For we plainly feel ourselves desiring this or that by our own impulse and motion, and again we take ourselves to task for carelessness, and feel that we succeed or not from this cause, and suffer no compulsion from any external source, but choose some things by voluntary determination, and shun and decline others of our own deliberate purpose.

So evident therefore is the argument for free-will that, in the same way as the feeling of pain and pleasure, and seeing and hearing this or that, is perceived not by reasoning but by actual sensation, so we consciously feel ourselves moving of ourselves and of our own purpose, and choosing some things and rejecting others; thus the freedom and independence of the rational and intelligent nature in us is in any case justly to be acknowledged.

And although the mass of mankind are perplexed by countless things happening to us contrary to our purpose, we must in this case distinguish the nature of the circumstances in which we are placed, and take into consideration the law by which things not in our own power come to pass. For thus the cause of these events also will be attributed to no irrational fate, but to another law, dependent on the providence of the universe. Let us then examine the problem carefully.

That both the existence and the government of all things depend as a whole on the providence of God, the statutes of true religion plainly declare.

But then the several events being caused according to their particular kind, some by habit, some by nature, some by impulse and impression, and others by reasoning and our own judgement and purpose, and some again produced according to a primary law, and others according to effects contingent upon the primary occurrences, render the arrangement of the whole complex and intricate, the author of the universe having allotted to each class of beings a proper and distinct constitution of nature.

Though it would be difficult, therefore, for any one to examine fully the principle of all the rest, yet that of freewill he may more easily learn in the following manner. Man is not a thing of one simple kind, nor consisting of one nature only, but is composed of two opposites, body and soul, the former attached contingently as an instrument to the soul, but the intelligent essence subsisting in accordance with its primary law, and of these the one is irrational and the other rational, and the one perishable but the other imperishable, and the one mortal but the other immortal; so that we have a body of the same kind as brute beasts, but a soul akin to the rational and immortal nature. In this case then surely it is natural, that this double product, inasmuch as it partakes of a double nature, should regulate its life in a twofold and diverse manner, at one time serving the bodily nature, and at another welcoming with the diviner part its proper liberty. Thus the same man is both a slave and free, having had such a combination of soul and body allotted to him by God, for reasons known to Himself.

If therefore any one were to subject the natural functions either of the body or of the soul to necessity as their cause, calling it ‘fate,’ he would miss the proper name. For if there were some irresistible necessity of fate, and if many of the functions which by nature belong to the body and the soul are thereby impeded, and if ten thousand other external things combine by some accident in attaching themselves contrary to nature to both soul and body, how can fate and nature be the same thing?

For if they say that fate is unalterable, and that nothing d can happen contrary to it (because necessity is inexorable), and if, as I said, many things happen both to soul and body contrary to their natural functions, a man would not use right names, if he said that fate and nature are the same.

So then of our inward experiences part must depend upon reasoning and the choice that is in our own power, such as are the natural functions of the soul, and part on the nature of the body, and another part must be incidental to them, I mean to soul and body, but effects due by nature to others: yet no one could rightly detach either the free-will of the soul, or the natural action of the body, nor yet the contingency of external things from Him who is their Author.

For God Himself, the God of the universe, has been shown to be the Creator both of things in our own power and of things dependent on nature, and of things accidental. For the declaration of the divine Scripture, ‘He spake, and they were made: he commanded and they were created,’ [2] must be understood universally of all things.

So then if, at any time when we form certain purposes, other things happen contrary to our intention, we must remind ourselves, that this is owing, as we said, to that twofold and heterogeneous character of the combination in us, I mean of soul and body, in consequence of which the essence of the soul, which is of an intelligent and rational nature, in a body which is by nature childish, shares the position of an irrational being contrary to its own nature: and the mind, which is naturally wise, often in consequence of some accident becomes silly, from being distraught by excessive ailments, say, of the body.

Oftentimes too old age, having in the course of nature overtaken the body, deprives the understanding of the right judgements of its prime, by blunting the rational power of the intelligent soul contrary to nature.

Injuries again and pains and mutilations, which have happened to the body contrary to its nature, accidentally overcome the free-will of the soul, when it gives in to the pains because of its connexion with the body: so that an inevitable bond is found to have been thrown in the way of the freedom of the soul, at one time by the nature of the body, at another by accidents coming from without.

Nevertheless the power of our free-will has, as we said, reached such a pitch of courage and strength, as to dare in many cases to encounter and oppose the bodily nature and the accidents from without.

The bodily nature invites the man to amorous desire, but the soul having bridled the passion by sound reason becomes master of the bodily nature. And again the one, necessitating hunger and thirst and cold and feelings of this kind, invites to the remedies and satisfactions which are in accordance with nature; but the will being persuaded by sound reasons, and having voluntarily embraced certain ascetic counsels, by many days’ fasting and endurance beats off the natural desire of the body, choosing and preferring this course by excellence of reason.

Then again the one naturally delights in all pleasures, and in the easy movement of the body: but the will from a desire of virtue welcomes the life of labour and hardship.

But there are also some who have turned to evil, and ‘changed the natural use into that which is against nature, . . . men with men working unseemliness.’ [3]

Thus then reason does not give way in all things to nature, but conquers in many, as also it is conquered; and the man now leads, and now is himself led, so that in some cases even prematurely he hastens by violent hands to release himself from the body, whenever he judges life to be unprofitable for him. If then his whole contest were with the proper nature of the body only, this would be tolerable: but since God has planted his civil and social life in the midst of a multitude, so that he is made to pass his time among wild beasts and venomous reptiles, and amid fire and water and the surrounding air, and the perverted and diverse natures in all these, his conflict and resistance is naturally not only against his own bodily nature intimately connected with him, but also against the countless accidents from without, in the midst of which he who leads this mortal life must live, so that he has to hold out bravely against these also.

Ere now, for instance, many such and such kinds of food, and such and such temperatures of the atmosphere, and sudden frosts, and burning heats, and very many other things, though moving naturally according to certain laws proper to them, yet by falling accidentally upon us, have caused no common disturbance of our independence because of the connexion with the body; for our bodily nature cannot withstand the assaults from without, but is overpowered and conquered by the external circumstances which occur according to their proper nature.

Again, we pass our lives in company with a multitude of men who share the same nature with us, and, acting on their individual right, take away our independence by the free exercise of their own choice: therefore in this way again we shall naturally be subject to the purposes of others, when their independent power thus in a manner makes use of us, either against the body or in regard to the soul.

For as our bodily nature is often overpowered by things which assail it from without, so sometimes our will also, being disturbed by a thousand external wills, is induced by its own independent decision to give itself up to the external forces; and sometimes is rendered better, and sometimes worse: since bad company is apt to corrupt, just as on the contrary the intercourse of honourable men makes us better. For ‘evil communications corrupt good manners,’ [4] just as the company of the good saves and improves.

And though the rational faculty of the soul is carried this way and that by the arguments of those who encounter it from without, yet the proper virtue of the rational essence gains strength again, and proves its power to be truly divine and godlike, when by holding out against all external circumstances, and gaining the victory over them all by a free spirit, without abating aught of its own virtue, it is prepared for the study of philosophy. When however it is careless, it is affected by the evil with the worst results, just as also it is improved by careful attention from without.

What need after this to say, that ‘both fruitfulness and barrenness in souls and bodies’ [5] such as these, brought about by some accident in a manner proper to the government of the world and right and good for the whole, work a vast amount of disturbance of every kind to individual portions, and especially to our independence.

But over all existing things universally, both those that occur through us and our causation, and those that come accidentally from without, and those that are due to the operations of nature, there rules one almighty and all-powerful providence of God that extends through all, which also arranges most things by diviner laws inexpressible by us, guiding the whole in due obedience to the rein, and changing many even of natural consequences to suit the occasion, and working and co-operating with our wills, and at other times assigning their proper place to external circumstances.

When these things have been divided in this manner into three classes, those which depend on ourselves, those which take place according to natural law, and those which are accidental, and when all are summed up in one law which proceeds from the counsel of God, there will be no room for the doctrine of fate.

Thus we shall have found that the source of evil, about which many have doubted, has place in nothing natural, neither in bodies, nor in spiritual substances, much less in things that occur accidentally from without: it will be found, I say, solely in the self-determined motion of the soul, and in this, not when following the course of nature it walks in the straight road, but when it departs from the king’s highway, and turns by its own decision into the course contrary to nature, being its own master.

For the soul having obtained this excellent gift from God is free and master of itself, having assumed the determination of its own motion: but the divine law united with it by nature, like a beacon and a star, calls to it with a voice from within and says, ‘Thou shalt walk in the king’s highway, thou shalt not turn aside to the right hand nor to the left,’ teaching us that ‘the king’s highway’ is the path in accordance with right reason. [6]

For the Creator of all implanted in every soul this natural law as a helper and defender in its actions; and while by His law He showed it the right way, by the self-determined freedom bestowed on it He declared the choice of the better course to be deserving of praise and approbation, and of greater honours and rewards for its good deeds, because it performed them not under compulsion but by its own independent decision, though it had the power of choosing the opposite: so that, on the other hand, that soul which chose the worst acts was deserving of blame and punishment, as having ‘proprio motu’ transgressed the law of nature, and given birth to a source and fount of wickedness, and used itself basely not from any external necessity but of free determination and judgement. ‘The chooser then is answerable, God is not to blame.’ [7] For God made neither nature nor yet the substance of the soul evil: since a good Being may not create anything but what is good. Everything, then, that is according to nature is good: and every rational soul possesses by nature the good gift of free-will, which has been given for choosing what is good.

But when it acts wickedly, it is not nature that should be blamed: since evil comes to it not by nature but against nature, being a matter of choice but not an effect of nature. For when one who had power to choose the good, instead of choosing this, voluntarily rejected the better part and claimed the worse, what room for excuse could be left to him after becoming the cause of his own disease, and disregarding the innate law which was, as it were, his preserver and healer?

The man then who pays no regard to all these considerations, but thinks everything dependent upon necessity and the course of the stars, and asserts that the causes of the perversity of men’s offences proceed not from us but from the power that moves all things----must he not be introducing an unholy and impious argument?

For if either he should suppose the course of the world to be automatic and undesigned, he would be convicted at once as an atheist, besides being blind to the all-wise harmony and arrangement of the universe revolving in its eternal motion with beauty and order. If on the other hand he shall confess that God’s providence is the guiding and moving force which presides over all and administers all by a law of perfect wisdom, even thus he will not have escaped from the absurdity of impiety; since as to the sins committed among men he acquits the offenders of having committed any of their wrong deeds of their own determination, but attributes the cause of the evils to the general providence, miscalling it necessity and fate, and saying that it is the cause of all the foul and infamous deeds and cruelty and bloodguiltiness among men.

And who could be more impious than the man who represents the God of the universe, the very Maker and Creator of this world, as by compulsion forcing one man, who is unwilling to commit an impiety, to do so, and to be an atheist of necessity, and a blasphemer against God Himself; and forcing another, whom He constituted by nature a male, to bear the woman’s part contrary to nature, not of his own will but under compulsion from Him; and a third to become a murderer not of his own determination but driven by a necessity from God; so that he cannot reasonably blame the offenders, but must either believe that these are no sins at all, or declare God to be the author of all evils?

For whether God Himself, being present with all things, and seeing all and hearing all, compels men to act thus, or Himself constituted the course of the universe and the motion of the stars such as we see it, to effect and to compel such actions, He who arranged such an instrument, and contrived the net for ensnaring the prey, must Himself be also the one to blame for those who are caught therein.

Whether therefore by Himself alone, or else by some necessity contrived by Himself, He entangles the unwilling in these evils. Himself and no other must be the author of all evil; and it could no longer be justly said that man was prone to sin, but the doer thereof was God. And what statement could be more impious than this?

He then who brings in fate, directly thrusts out God and God’s providence, just as he who makes God ruler over all must overthrow the argument concerning fate. For either God and fate must be the same thing, or different the one from the other: the same thing, however, they cannot be.

For if they say that fate is a certain chain of causes which has come down unbroken and unchanged from the course of the heavenly bodies, must there not be prior to fate the corporeal elements out of which even the heavenly bodies are composed, and of which heavenly bodies one would naturally say that fate is some accidental conjunction?

But how could that which is accidental to the elements be the same thing with the God who is over all, if indeed the elements are considered lifeless and irrational in their proper nature, while God apart from bodies is essential life and wisdom, bestowing the benefit of His creative work both upon the particular elements and on the arrangement of the universe?

God, therefore, and fate are not the same thing. But then if they are different, which is the stronger? Why, nothing is nobler, nothing more mighty than God. Therefore He will conquer and prevail over the bad; else, by yielding to fate when it does evil, He would draw the blame upon Himself, because being able to restrain the evil-working necessity He did not restrain it, but let it loose for the ruin and destruction of all things; or rather He wrought this Himself, if He is to be represented as Maker and Creator of all things even of fate itself.

But supposing Him to take no account of the administration of the world, there would again rise up the atheists’ voice, against which we ought to shut our ears, since the Divine providence and power display themselves manifestly both in the universal effects of perfect wisdom and skill, and in the indubitable evidences in ourselves of the free and self-governing power of the rational soul.

For in accordance with this power, though ten thousand obstacles from without by some accident oppose both the body’s nature and the independent efforts of our will, nevertheless the freedom of virtue in the soul holds out against all, showing that the choice of the good, so far as in us lies, is irresistible and invincible.

And this the present time of our Saviour’s teaching has proved by actual facts. For to show that these are not mere sounds and empty words, you have the opportunity of witnessing the conflict of the godly, and of observing those who by voluntary choice have accepted the sufferings of the contest for religion: sufferings of which countless multitudes both of Greeks and Barbarians throughout the whole world inhabited by man have given proof, by gladly enduring all bodily outrages, and going through every kind of torture with a cheerful countenance, and finally accepting with a glad welcome the release of the soul from the body in many various forms.

Yet surely in this case no reason would permit us to name fate as the cause. For where, pray, did the course of the stars ever in the world’s history bring forth such champions of piety? Or at what time before our Saviour’s teaching was sown broadcast among all men, has human life exhibited such a conflict throughout the whole world inhabited by man?

Or where has all time produced a school of doctrines such as these, able to overthrow superstitious error, and to teach all men, both Greeks and Barbarians, the knowledge of the One God over all?

And to whom among the celebrated sages of all time, Barbarian or Greek, was there ever vouchsafed such a fate as this, to make the doctrine proposed by him give light to the whole world, and be known even to the ends of the earth, and to win the reputation of a God among those devoted to him?

But if these things were not in the beginning, nor have ever happened, nor been heard of, then the cause of them was not a chain of causes and a necessity. For there would have been nothing to hinder others also from receiving long ago the same nativity and fate by the same revolution and cycle of the stars.

From what kind of fate then has our Saviour God appeared and been proclaimed throughout the whole world, while those who were of old esteemed gods among both Greeks and Barbarians have been overthrown, and not otherwise overthrown than by the teaching of the new God?

And what sort of fate announced to all men that God is the Creator of all things, and compelled them to affirm that there is no such thing as fate? And how did fate force men both to say and to think that fate itself does not exist? And what of those who for the sake of our Saviour’s pious teaching have for a long time past endured all kinds of conflicts, and are even yet carrying on the struggle?

They found therefore one and the same destiny, to be brought into subjection under one system and doctrine, and to display one mind and will, and the same virtue of soul, to accept one and the same kind of life, to love the same doctrine, and to endure contentedly the same sufferings for their steadfast piety.

But what sound reason would allow us to say this, that young and old together, of every age, and of either sex, men of barbarous nature, slaves and free, learned and uneducated, not born in a corner of the earth nor under these same stars with us, but throughout the whole world inhabited by man, have been forced by a necessity of fate to prefer a certain doctrine to all the customs of their forefathers, and to welcome death for the religion of the One God over all, and to be thoroughly instructed in the teaching concerning the immortality of the soul, and to prefer a philosophy that consists not in words but in deeds?

For these are the things that even a blind man could clearly see to be the proper effects of no necessity, but of learning and instruction, being manifest proofs of voluntary purpose and free-will.

There would be countless other arguments to prove the proposition, most of which I shall omit, and for my part be contented with what I have stated; but I will leave you to consider your own reading of your venerable philosophers, that so you may learn how much wiser and better than your oracular deities was the man who convicted their wonderful responses of falsehood, and castigated the Pythian god himself for his answers concerning fate. So listen again to him who entitled his own writing, ‘The detection of impostors,’ and note with what a fine vigorous spirit he corrects the error of the multitude, and indeed of Apollo himself, by what he writes as follows word for word: