649. THE NATURE OF THE GODS BY CICERO- summary

649.  THE NATURE OF THE GODS BY CICERO.    Each time I read this I am startled to see how modern scholars have missed an opportunity to savor the remarkable mind of Cicero.  Cicero sits as an observer as Aurelius Cotta shreds the Epicurean view that human form is in the image of the gods and that they exist in eternal bliss inactive and content.  Why then have arms or legs or power of speech?  What would they do?  What purpose?  Cotta concludes that Epicurus concocted this view to protect Epicureanism from the charge of atheism.  Then Lucilius Balbus presents the views of Stoicism.  The universe is so complex, nature and the design of the human body are so sophisticated that he can not accept the Epicurean view that the world around us is pure chance. What are the odds he asks?  To a Stoic, divinity pervades the entire universe.  He goes even further.  Stars, planets, truth, beauty are gods.  The Stoic list is almost endless.  Cotta with more care shreds this too.  If there are countless gods how can anything be denied as a god?  The flood gates are opened as a result.  How then can the essence of God be determined?  Gods in the Stoic view are directly involved in human life to the point that fate rules everything.  What good is reason is all is fated?  Reason to the Stoics is something shared with gods.  Then says Cotta we must also confess that reason has often been used by evil people to get what they want.  Maybe it would have been better for the gods never to have given reason to humans.  In the end Cicero says that he found the case of Balbus to be the stronger of the two.  It seems that Cicero views God as the force of Nature which orders the universe, not a random Nature but a Nature which humans must learn to live in harmony with.