On the Greeks and Romans
Cicero's De Fato
Observations
Observation 1
I've taught some Greeks and Romans. Haha. Obviously, I am not talking about having Greek or Italian students. I have taught Sophocles and Homer and Virgil and others. But I teach them from a literary perspective - how do we critically interact with these texts. Being philosophically minded, I do approach them with philosophy in mind, but I have not studied the actual philosophy intensely. My first foray into the Greeks from a philosophy standpoint is a lecture given by Remo Bodei, who taught philosophy at UCLA. Yes, he was a German philosopher guy, but he was a very well-respected philosopher in general, and already, I'm hooked.
I was trying to read about fate, and so I sought out lectures on Cicero's De Fato, and right out of the bat, I learned...what the Stoics thought.
Not what I expected from a lecture on Cicero, but cool.
This line though is so comparable to so much of how Christian theologians address the blind spots in human's understanding of their experiences.
The Stoics claimed that "Fate is the fruit of our ignorance."
Sound familiar?
I listened to countless sermons where a preacher glibly declared that "we see but through a mirror dimly" as if that exonerated God from subjecting us to pain.
I will address that later, when I talk about Job, but even where well-intentioned, this declaration that a loving God has somehow determined to discipline us through pain is cold comfort in the middle of things. (Hint: the solution is not in the philosophy or the theology, but again - the Job chapter.)
Still, doesn't it seem at least a little compelling to think that even though we are suffering in something, that's not the end of the story? That suffering doesn't have the final word?
Maybe that is what the pastors are trying to tell us with Romans 8:28. Not that God fatalistically determines us to suffering, but that He promises that it will not be the end of the story. I've watched from the other side of suffering where somehow, like through rapids and treacherous waters, I have come through to the other side and am better at navigating. Did that mean that God determined me to this, like some kind of growth?
Is it any better to think that there is no meaning at all in suffering?
I think it's a little early for me to declare anything at this point, seeing as I have only listened to a portion of one lecture before being shoved down a rabbit trail by my unforgivingly curious brain.
But rest assured I will attempt to stick with the topic long enough to understand it before I try to make too many assertions.
If you're interested, here is the link to Dr. Bodei's lecture. It is rather clumsily translated in a live setting, so not the smoothest of experiences, but if you like this sort of thing, it's worth the listen.
"God works all things to the good of those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose." Romans 8:28
Observation 2
It's funny, because in researching Cicero, I've found out that most people study him for his political and forensic work, but the dude has some philosophy chops.
In fact, his De Fata is one of the first and
"In nostra potestate." (It's in our power.)
I love when a Christian dilemma that has divided Christian thought turns out to be just a human dilemma, and Christianity is a potential answer - not an unsatisfying fraud that uses the God of the gaps.
Apparently, Cicero had a pretty intense belief that our actions weren't fatalistically determined. The question was pretty highly debated among the Greek philosophical schools - including the Epicureans and the Stoics..
A Stoic, Chrysippus, formulated an answer that Cicero called "the lazy argument." The argument that Cicero called lazy involved claiming that there was something inherent in people that made them behave a certain way, and when they bumped into anything else, they acted in accordance with their shape. He used a famous argument using a cylinder. If a cylinder is bumped, it will roll.
"Chrysippus uses the analogy of a stone cylinder rolling down a slope. The cylinder’s rolling down the slope may require an initial shove. But that initial shove only triggers the motion, and the primary cause of the motion is the cylinder’s own shape and “rollability”. (1)
Cicero kind of thinks this is nonsense. It doesn't explain free will. It just sets the determinism at a different level - the "nature" of the agent being acted upon instead of some vast force of determinism.
Aristotle basically thought that character determined action, but character could be sculpted and directed by reason - that it wasn't fixed by the nature of the individual.