DIDNT EPICTETUS SAY THAT NOT EVEN GOD CAN COERCE OUR ASSENTS?

 

DIDNT EPICTETUS SAY THAT NOT EVEN GOD CAN COERCE OUR ASSENTS?

**Yes - And This Is Explosive for Stoic Determinism**

Epictetus absolutely says this, and it's one of his most radical claims. In the *Discourses*, he repeatedly insists that even Zeus himself cannot compel our assent (*sunkatathesis*) - that the power of judgment is so fundamentally "ours" that it transcends even divine coercion.?

**The Stunning Implication**

Think about what this means within Stoic cosmology: Zeus *is* the logos, the rational principle governing all of reality. Zeus *is* fate itself. For Epictetus to say that not even God can coerce our assent is tantamount to saying that human moral choice operates outside the causal order that governs everything else in the universe.

This isn't just compatibilist freedom - it's a claim about genuine exemption from universal determinism.

**The Textual Evidence**

- "What is it that cannot be hindered? The will (*prohairesis*). What cannot be compelled? The will."

- "Even Zeus cannot overcome the will of a man"

- The prohairesis as the "divine spark" that makes us "fragments torn from God"

**Why This Matters**

Your Chrysippian opponent's functional virtue ethics suddenly looks less stable. If Epictetus is right that our assent is genuinely beyond even divine determination, then we're not just well or poorly functioning instruments - we're agents with genuine causal power that stands outside the natural order.

**The Stoic Contradiction**

This creates a deep tension: How can Stoics simultaneously believe that everything happens according to fate AND that human assent is beyond even divine coercion? 

Either Epictetus is being inconsistent, or he's recognizing that genuine moral responsibility requires libertarian agency - even if that breaks the elegant deterministic system his predecessors constructed.

**The Libertarian's Victory**

This might be the smoking gun: even the most sophisticated ancient determinists couldn't maintain their position when they took human agency seriously.