Stoicism, the Gods, and External Control

 

This is an email message to the International Stoic Forum from Grant Sterling in response to a message from Gich Jones which is reproduced below.

G:

    If the Gods do not control the outcomes of our actions, then

they cannot rule the universe well and justly, and we cannot be

sure that the outcomes which actually occur are well-chosen, and

we will then reasonably be distressed when seemingly bad things

happen.  Hence, we cannot have eudaimonia if the gods do not control

everything that happens.

    But you should not say that the gods "assisted" the bank robber, as

if they merely give help to people in order to achieve their goals.

The gods decide if the best outcome for the universe is for the

bank to be robbed, the drowning child to be saved, etc.,  or not.  If it

is for the best, they make it happen.  If it isn't for the best, they make

something else happen.  The would-be bank robber or child-saver

is helpless.  The bank robber and the gods are not a team who jointly

produce an outcome--the bank robber wills to rob the bank, based on

his own (badly irrational) thoughts and desires.  The gods produce the

robbing of the bank (or not) based on their own goals, exemplifying

perfect reason.  If those results happen to fit the outcome the robber

desired, that doesn't mean that they have endorsed his irrational willing,

just as if the would-be child-rescuer fails it doesn't mean that the gods

have rejected his (possibly reasonable) willing.  The gods possess all

sorts of knowledge that we don't possess, and so they may have good reason

to bring about X even if we, given our limited understanding, have reason to

will not-X. 

    But you are puzzled as to why the gods would make humans with free will,

when they will need to intervene in response.  (By the way, the gods control

everything outside our will, so they control the tides and the orbiting of the

planets and so on.  It's not just the outcome of our actions that they control.)

The classic answer is the oft-repeated Stoic story of the dog and cart.  The

dog must go wherever the cart goes--it has no control whatsoever about its

destination.  But the dog does have the freedom to choose whether to go

willingly and happily, or to be dragged and miserable.  So, too, with us--the outcomes

are out of our control, but our eudaimonia is totally within our control.  And

that's an excellent arrangement--if our eudaimonia rested in externals, and externals

are out of our control, then no-one could attain eudaimonia except by colossally

good luck.  If eudaimonia rested in externals, and we were given control of externals,

then given our limited information we would make externals occur in conflicting and

inferior ways.  Instead, our eudaimonia is entirely in our control, and the world is

entirely in the control of the all-knowing and perfectly virtuous gods.

    Regards,

            GCS

On 1/12/22 7:31 AM, Gich Jones wrote:

Hello Grant,

I should not have introduced the magistrate into the discussion, it's not important for the point I was trying to make. I'll try again:

>>> Yes, I should use my will in ways that strive to "create the conditions" for some outcomes (the "preferred indifferents") to come about. But the gods decide whether they actually do come about--that's in their control, not mine.

This is your personal belief system, it's not in Epictetus.

You're saying that whether we hit the target or not depends completely on "the gods". So if a bank robber sets out to rob a bank and succeeds [he hit his target] this was because the gods assisted him. If a burglar decides to burgle a house and succeeds [he hit his target] this was because the gods assisted him. If a man tries to save a drowning child and fails [he did not hit his target] this was because the gods opposed him. Etc.

This constantly intervening God of yours makes no sense. I believe God is rational and had a reason, a purpose, for creating humankind. If, as a result of his creation, he found himself intervening in every second of the lives of each of the six billion people on earth as you describe, what could possibly be the reason for the creation?

Gich

[in haste]