750. De Natura Deorum I by Cicero

750.  De Natura Deorum I  by Cicero.

This is a most fascinating book.  I can not urge the importance enough of reading this.  Both atheists and devoutly religious people should immerse themselves in these pages.

Cicero begins:

The most obscure and difficult investigation is into that of the nature of the Gods.  This investigation is essential for the acquisition of knowledge and for properly guiding religion.  

Some say that there are Gods, some are not sure and some say that there are none at all.  Besides these views there are many questions at play here:  what part do Gods play in this world?  If Gods have no care for humans, should piety, reverence and religion be given to the Gods?  This poses an even bigger problem.  If piety, reverence and religion are removed, how will the partnership of society, good faith and justice continue?  If Gods do not exist, upon what is good faith or justice based?

There are those who think that the Gods play a direct part in the lives of humans.  Carneades attacked religion so vigorously that this caused many to desire to find the truth.

Many have expressed surprise at the amount of time and effort I have written and published, particularly using a philosophy which calls all held near and dear into question.  Well, I have been interested in philosophy my whole life.  The essence of philosophy pertains to a guide for life.  This is even evident in my speeches, in fact my whole public and private life.

But why so much writing?  With one person in charge of the state, I owed it to my countrymen to reveal philosophy.  

The idea in this work is to avoid saying ”because the master says so.”  (Cicero was very much opposed to dogma.)

I prefer the Academic system of arguing for and against all philosophical systems.  This is more difficult which is the reason it is avoided.  I do not claim success in this approach, but I have tried.  Academics are often accused of denying the existence of truth.  There are truths, but because false concepts are so similar to truths, it is difficult and risky to give assent to any view.  But out of a list of probabilities some present a stronger argument.  These I follow.  (Thus for Cicero, learning never ends.)

So in this work, various views will be presented.  If all of these different systems agree, then the Academics will look foolish, indeed.  However, the reader will find a wide disagreement.  This should give pause to anyone who thinks that they have it all figured out.

(Cicero meets C. Aurelius Cotta at Cotta’s house.  He finds there C. Velleius, Q. Lucilius Balbus  discussing in an exhedra in a garden.  Each represent a different system:  Epicurean, Stoic and Academic.  The topic of discussion is the nature of the Gods.

Velleius presents the Epicurean view. He begins:

I will not discuss the silly ideas of those who conceive a builder of the universe or a world endowed with mind.  No one can seriously defend the idea that the physical world is everlasting.

Why did God wait so long to create a world?  Why did He adorn the world?  What pleasure would it bring?  What life is that of God?  Why is part of the earth inhabited and much else is not?

(All concepts of the other philosophical systems are evaluated in terms of corporeal means.  As there are nothing else but objects. He spends much time refuting those philosophical systems which discourage attempts to imagine the shape or appearance of God.)

There are many criticisms of Zeno.  He proposes that the law of nature is divine.  This is in charge of directing people to right behavior and preventing the opposite.  How can law be alive?  We want God to be a living being.  (Why?  What advantage does Epicurus gain from this line of thinking?)  In another place, Zeno says that pure air is God.  This is silly for such a God could never be present before us.  In other books Zeno says reason is divine.  He says that stars, months, seasons are divine and that Juno, Jupiter are not Gods.

So what is the Epicurean view of the nature of the Gods?  Gods exist because all people have the concept of God, because this idea is imprinted on the human mind.  Gods exist because of an innate sense of these exists.  All people conceive of Gods with human form but reason also reinforces this.  And no wonder, what could be more beautiful than the human form?  

We perceive God in the mind not by physical perception but a notion of God comes to us via a constant stream of atoms from God to us.

Atoms are infinite, so are the number of Gods.  Infinity is important to Epicureans.  It allows the creation and destruction of mortals, immortals and matter.  Everything is thus in a constant state of flux.

What is the life of the Gods?  Nothing is more blessed nor more abundant in all things.  God does nothing, is not busy and rejoices in virtue and wisdom.  God knows that he will always be with the greatest and eternal pleasures. 

Our God is happy.  The Stoic God is always toiling.  If the world is God, then rest is impossible, since the world constantly spins.  Unless there is rest, there is no blessed existence.

Nos autem beatam vitam in animi securitate et in omnium vacatione munerum ponimus. 

However, we place the good life in the securitate of the mind and in the absence of burdens.

According to Epicurus, nature produced the universe, thus there is no need for a designer nor God creator.  Nature easily produces countless worlds.  There is no need for God creator, when we accept that the universe is infinite.  There is no need for bellows or an anvil.  To Epicurus any alternative requires an all powerful God who interfere in our lives.  This introduces a fatal necessity and introduces the necessity of fate.

At this point Cotta replies with his usual calm to Velleius. He says that Crassus felt that Velleius was very knowledgeable of Epicureanism.  Cotta mentions that Philo suggested he learn of Epicureanism from Zeno (a different Zeno from the one who defended Stoicism).  Philo suggested this because he felt that the best way to learn arguments against Epicureanism are best developed by hearing arguments from its best representative.  But Cotta is upset that someone with Velleius’ ability would fall prey to such a silly system.Cotta prefers not to give his own views but instead refute what others contend.

Cotta:  So does God exist?  There is the story of Simonides.  Hero asked Simonides about this and Simonides asked for a day to think about it.  Then when asked the next day for his answer, he said that he needed two days, then 4, etc.  Hero finally asked what his opinion was.  “Well, Hiero, the more I think about it, the more obscure it becomes.”  But your argument, Velleius, seems weak in places.

You say that God exists.  Fine.  Where are they?  How do they live?  Are they atoms?  Are these atoms all shapes and sizes?  Willy nilly, you say, these produce all that we see?  Where is the truth of Epicureanism?

I grant, says Cotta, that there are little atoms. And that these make up all things.  So how does this help us to seek the nature of the Gods?  If Gods are atoms, they are not eternal.  If atoms once did not exist, neither did the Gods.  So where do you find God, an eternal and happy God?  You say that God has a body, sort of, blood, sort of.  This is a weak argument.  You say that atoms were all falling downward.  Of course this can not explain objects.  So you say that one atom swerved and this caused atoms to bump about and form what we see.

Epicurus rejects dialectic because dialectic states that something is or is not.  But Epicurus rejected this.  How does this apply?  Archesilas said that all sense perceptions were false which were perceived by the senses.  Zeno said that some were false and others not.  Epicurus feared that if one sense perception was wrong, all could be.  Thus Epicurus saw  and others were not.  But Epicurus rejected this.  Epicurus said that all sense perceptions were messengers of truth.  He had to because all there is are atoms.

Thus in the case of the Gods, he avoided these consisting of lumps of atoms which may decay, thus he said that they have bodies, but not bodies and blood but not blood.

It is interesting that Epicurus bragged that he never had a teacher.  This is easy to believe since his arguments are not well constructed.  Epicurus claimed that he was self taught, yet his philosophy is very similar to that of Democritus’.  So explain to me this sort of body/blood thing. If their system is something only you can understand, do you not think it strange that words can not explain your thoughts?

Gods you say have human form because these forms (1) are imprinted on our minds and (2) nothing is more beautiful than the human form and (3) only the human form can have an intellect.  But it makes sense that humans who admire the human form would depict Gods in the human form.  But how is this proof of the nature of the Gods?

So what do Gods look like?  Do any have blemishes?  Is one prettier than another?

Epicurus either knew what he was doing when he spoke in foggy terms about the bodies and blood of the Gods, or he simply failed to express himself very well due to poor ability.  But he surely seems to be clear when he wants to be.  He surely believes in Gods, because he fears death and Gods which oddly he says he fears not at all.  

Cotta points out that since the senses are the road to truth, how can Epicurus believe in God, for no one has ever seen him.  Cotta’s point is that there is more to knowledge that what we can taste, smell, feel, see and hear.

Cotta:  It is incorrect to say that the Gods have human form instead it is people who have the form of the Gods.  For the Gods always existed, these are eternal as you have said.  You claim nothing happened by reason in the nature of things , so how did humans purely by chance with atoms flying about here and there happen to create the human form just like that of the Gods?

So why do Epicureans mock someone who does not view God as with human form?  What if God is such that hands and feet are unnecessary?  Why would Gods need human body parts?

It just seems that the Epicureans have nothing to learn from anyone but their own accepted views.  Thus Epicurus and others mock anyone who disagrees as worthless.

Why would God need limbs?  Why speech?  Why can not the sun be a God or the Earth?

If the Gods are superior to humans in all else, why are we equal in body?  It seems that in virtue we come closer to God than in our human form.  In a way humans look alike but actually with a careful look we are actually quite different from each other.  If Gods look like a human, another may claim that reason can only exist in a human.  There appears to be no argument why God would need limbs, heart, head, neck, etc.  If reason is the common link, none of these are needed.  Epicurus condemns those who observe the wonders of the earth, sky, see heavenly bodies and suspect that some divine nature brought all of this about and guides it.  Maybe this view, divine nature, is wrong, but yours simply says- we have in our minds certain notion of Gods imprinted on our minds.

Your God does nothing.  There are birds which do more than your Gods, when they eat snakes.

Epicurus must love children who think that doing nothing is the end all.  For in this they imitate your concept of God.  Every animal seeks what is suitable to its nature- what do your Gods seek?  For what purpose does he exercise his mind?  How is he happy?  Eternal?

According to your system God has nothing solid, is occupied only in thought- so what difference does it make, if we think of God as a hippocentaur?  If our perception of God is due to constant stream of images are you saying that when I enter a place where someone did something that that image comes to me and that is the reason I can “see” them?  And from this you say that I am to understand that God is eternal and happy?  Because an image occurs to me of some event in the past, this is proof that God is eternal and happy?

(If knowledge of something is personal, how can there be a shared image of the exact same thing?)

So to visualize God as an object, your system fails.  What about happiness?  Can God be happy without virtue?  Nope.  Virtue requires activity and your God does nothing.  What is the life of God?  You say a supply of good things with no evil mixed in.  What good things?  Pleasure?  But pleasure of the mind requires a body.

(Cotta is demonstrating his immense grasp of a system with which he disagrees.)

Cotta:  Epicurus destroys religion for there is not point in worship, for the Gods do not care, do nothing.

You say that images are produced by a constant stream of atoms.  So how then explain objects which do not exist?  Why would people owe piety to the Gods, if Gods do nothing and have no care for our lives?  What would replace the sense of duty and obligation of human to human, if the Gods are meaningless?

Epicurus claims freedom from superstition- yes, but only by making the Gods powerless.  What Epicureans do is destroy superstition by making Gods powerless but this also destroys religious practices. Your argument is that wise people invented the Gods in order to get people to be good.  But what about those people whom reason may not reach?  Do they not need another way to reach goodness- religion?  

Prodicus felt that those things which benefit humans were considered Gods.  What religious practice does Epicureanism leave?

In your view all things are matter.  So what is this object you call God?  If all matter is temporary, how can there be any image of God?

Epicurus grants that the nature of the Gods is best and outstanding, yet denies their favor/service/kindness toward humans.  If God lacks goodness and kindness to humans, then in God there is no love, nor affection for anything.  For example the Stoics believe that all wise people are friends- even though they may not know each other but they know each other via their love of virtue, kindness and good will.  These you classify as weaknesses.  Do you think that humans are kind because they are weak?  Does this natural affection between good people reflect the natural affection of Gods for all things good?

Are we driven by kindness and generosity to associate with each other or is this done by need alone?  If by need alone, we will only be generous or kind only in so far as it would be to our advantage.  The Stoic idea reaches outward to others, Epicureanism reaches to self.  We evaluate fields of a farm by the profit these bring.  But dearness and friendship and love are voluntary.

How can there be a complete understanding of the human experience solely through matter?  Posedonius suggests that Epicurus really did not believe in the Gods at all and only came up with this idea about Gods to avoid criticism.

The huge problem with Epicureanism is this:  there is only one way to the truth.