The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius is a very important book in the sense that it deepens humans’ understanding of the seemingly chaotic world. Understanding the book, I believe, very much depends on understanding the conditions under which Boethius wrote the book. Once a member of a prestigious family and high social class, Boethius was accused to be a traitor by the Emperor Theodoric. He was viciously tortured and he was awaiting his execution. Thus it is a surprise that he wrote a book about understanding concepts such as good, evil, necessity, provision and fate.
What’s most interesting about the book is that it focuses on a question that is part of our daily life still in the 21st century: Why do “good” people suffer when “evil” people prosper? When reading the book for the first time (this is my personal response), what Boethius discussed seemed not to address the issue. The discussion on provision and fate is one of those parts of the reading when I wondered how this is related to the question. However, as I read through the piece, I’ve noticed that the conclusions reached in each section built on each other. The section on provision is there to make the reader understand that what’s happening in our life is not arbitrary or chaotic. All of it is part of the unchanging provision of the divine mind. Fate, on the other hand, is a human perception of the changing and seemingly chaotic future. Therefore, the discussion of evil and good follows this discussion smoothly. When Boethius (as Lady Philosophy) says that what evil do to the good men aid good men to reach virtues, he show that even the evil behavior of humans are part of the provision and the unchanging order.
The part of the reading that I enjoyed and thought about the most was the part on defining eternity. Until reading the book, I had considered being eternal as having an infinite future. However, according to Boethius, eternity is about the past and the present as much as it is about the future. The divine mind is eternal and it is beyond time; it perceives the past and the future as one present moment. It follows from here that provision is unchanging. Since eternity is yesterday and tomorrow condensed into a single moment, it will not change. Change only happens when time “flows”. But eternity, and therefore the divine mind, is above changes and time.
Boethius made me understand the difference between Fate and Providence. Providence is the view of the divine God, which is unchangeable. It is the plan of divine mind, and sets the rules and orders things to happen. Fate on the other hand is the subject to Providence, it is the changing course of events according to Providence. It is the taking into action of the Providence plan percieved by humans who are effected and changed.
The world order is created according to the divine plan- Providence- and Fate alows the unbreakable chains of events to happen. Everything has a reason which leads to Good and this government is necessary for keeping order. So no matter how things seem unreasonable, unfair or unneccessarily evil, we should understand that everything is according to the Divine plan, everything in fact has a reason but we just can’t concieve it. The plan leads to Good, not evil.
Sometimes, we might think that world is unfair, but human mind isn’t capable of judging good and evil soul. I understand that the sufferings people go through are God’s plan to try people’s strengths and lead them to shelter in virtue. There is no such thing as Chance and evil is nothing but a limited conception of human mind of a greater concept leading to good. Providence is the ruler of everything and evil belongs to its plan.
Providence and Free will are seen as conflicting ideas, but after reading Boethius I completely understood the difference between them. God can see things in the future, because he exists out of the dimension of time; he doesn’t have a future or past, so our future is a present instant to him. The fact that he can foresee what will happen before our present time doesn’t imply that our destiny is predetermined and that we have no control over it. Everything we do is out of our free will. God’s foreknowledge simply means that things will happen according to our free will but only God can see that it will happen before it happens in our concept of time. Providence is only God’s knowledge, whish has no effect on our actions. It is like this: I know that in 1453 Istanbul was conquered. Istanbul was conquered because of Fatih Sultan Mehmet’s plan, not because I now know it happened. I know it, because Sultan Mehmet has by free will conquered it. The God foresees the events that occurs because of our free will, he can only foresee it because he doesn’t exist in a notion of time.
- The reason that makes Boethius think about philosophy is persecution to him by Theoderic and his forces. What made the situation appear even more unjust to Boethius was that he was convicted for a crime that he had not committed. Due to the unjust persecution that he underwent, Boethius questioned the defects of the order of the universe. He was preoccupied with the question why, good people like him were suffering, and evil people like Theoderic were still alive, enjoying his might. Based on this question, he wrote “The Consolation of Philosophy”, where the figure of Lady Philosophy answers his questions about the order of the universe. -One of the main questions of Boethius was "if the future is predestined, do we make our own choices?", on which we've discussed in religion classes for many years and haven't come to a conclusion yet.
- What I understand from the definitions of the notions "Providence" and "Fate" is:
- Providence is the way that all objects are governed by a divine power. However providence exists in the medium of divinity, in which there is no time concept and all objects are united. So it is more difficult for us to perceive it.
- Fate is the same thing when it is transformed into the real world. So it includes time, order and a specific object.
- The orbit imagery in the second paragraph implies that only non-divine things can be subject to Fate. The divine creatures which are in the center of the Providence (such as god, angels) cannot be transformed to the medium of Fate. I think that explains why we can't see the god, or sense it in any way.
- I found the ideas of Lady Philosophy interesting, where she says that the concepts of good and evil are relative, and we cannot precisely judge people about whether they are good or evil, therefore it is normal for us to complain why evil prospers and good suffers.
- Those misjudgments reveal one more difference between providence and fate. Providence can see and identify every inner conflict and condition of people, such as good or bad. However, fate fails that.
- Another interpretation that can be made by last paragraph is, providence is the ideal order that was produced only by the divine power, where there is no evil and no defect. However, when providence is converted into fate, in other words when the "free will" of people is involved in the order of universe, deficiencies and injustice occur.
- I really had a hard time understanding the concept of foreknowledge. What I concluded is, that foreknowledge does not have a direct effect on whether something will happen, or not. Foreknowledge, even if it exists, is a passive feeling that only shows whether something will happen or not, by necessity, in other words, by the chain of reasons that cause the thing.
- I also understood that the concept of eternity must be perceived through the rules of Providence, instead of Fate.
Theoderic invaded rome Theoderic was from roman church. He put Boethius in prison because he was negotiating with eastern church. Boethius questioned why god would let bad things happen to good people. Or why would he create evil. Providence is the divine view of the god. It's everything. Fate is inferior to that it the things happening in a way. Goodness can differ from people to people god can decide on that. Evil doesn't exist says Philosophy. Foreknowledge exists because of necessity. god sees past present and future somewhat from above. He knows everything that'S going to occur either it's necessary or not. god sees future things that are results of human free will. ( sorry for not taking great notes. but I didn't quite get what' going on things contradict.)
Being a successful and good man, it must have been hard for Boethius to be accused by the ruler and sentenced to death. From this perspective, it is interesting to read his approach on justice, fortune and the idea of “good vs. evil”. In prison, Boethius questions his religious faith and the reason behind that injustice he faces. I believe it is one of the main concepts of religion, in almost all of them, which needs clarification. The idea of Fate and providence is hard to internalize by people and the exploration of these concepts, understanding the divine mind would definitely strengthen the basis of the divinity. The distinction is apparently made between these two concepts: fate is the one which sustains the connections between the actions and has control over individual changeabls, while Providence is placed as the underlying control which sustains the unchangeable causation of acts. Providence is the timeless, eternal concept which provides the base for fate to control the mortals, and the summation of fate is the element of providence. Therefore, providence belongs to the divine mind which is pure, simple, but cannot be fully understood by the incapable human mind. I found especially two points interesting for me in this text. The first one is that, according to these definitions, always the justice wins, even we understand it or not. Even if the person thinks a particular occurring is not fair, it doesn’t mean that he is right and what happened is not the right thing to happen. In a way, this understanding gives the person another perspective on issues. However, what it actually does is to lead the people to an unquestionable acceptance. The teaching says whatever happens in the world, or to you, even if you don’t see its advantage, is the best possible happening to reach the highest good. This might cause the person to question his/her beliefs one more time and also would strengthen the authority of the divine mind. The other thing is how this understanding of providence and mind of god leaves an open gate for everyone. The text mentions two types of people first; the ones who can bear the sufferings and the ones who cannot; then it says these two types are treated according to their power to endure. For both of them, the level of suffering aims to take them up to the highest good. Also, even if you are an evil person, when you face with the same evil behaviors, you understand the harm that you cause and eventually turn to good in the end. So according to all these explanations, everyone would be able to find power to endure the adversity and everyone would have the chance to become good in the end. The text gives convincing explanations about fate, but also leaves an open end by saying it is not possible for human mind to totally perceive this concept. Also, by not limiting the independence of God by time, it creates space for the mortals to have self-determination for their mundane choices. The God is elevated to the highest level and taken out from “the changeable time”, and leaving it to fate. (I don’t think I fully understood every idea in the text, but it raised question marks in my mind and deepened my view on fate and justice, which I believe is a good start.)
• Boethius thinks it is injustice that he is suffering; he didn’t deserve to be punished and tortured and he looks for an answer why. However it isn’t easy to understand it, because it can never be explained completely. • All the things that we think changeable come from the unchangeable mind of God. Providence is the divine mind; it sees everything all at once. Fate is the unfolding of those things seen by Providence when the right time comes. Even though they are different, one depends on the other: unfolding of fates one after another creates the unity of Providence. • All things are produced by an unchangeable order of causes by divine mind which has the control of changeable. When they come together these changeable things create unity. Everything is in order and directed towards good, even the evil men. • We don’t have the right to judge what is good, the human mind is not perfect and everybody has their own ideas about what is good and what is evil. We cannot know the inner condition of the person we judge, he might have reasons for his evil behavior and actually be a good person or he might seem good but hide his evilness inside. God is the only one who can really know one’s inner condition. He understands the things that human mind is not capable of understanding. • Providence gives suffering to the ones who would be ruined by too much prosperity and test with sufferings the ones who would strengthen their virtue and patience with that. • The evil can make evil men good. For divine mind all evils are good, because they are a part of the order and they might bring good. • The Divine Being is eternal; it embraces the future and the past in present. For Him everything happens only in a single, simple present (past, present, future - they together make the eternal present.). That is why his knowledge exists in eternal present, so the divine foreknowledge is not a foreknowledge of the future but knowledge of an unchanging present. • An event might seem unnecessary to us, but in God’s vision it is necessary. God sees future things that are the result of human free will; they were necessary because they were known by God, but still free will for us.
I will be examining the question of wheter humans are accountable for their actions, even though their moves are known before hand.
So before starting, let’s in few sentences go over the key concepts in the work of Boethius; which is written in agony and in his last moments of his life; Providence: The ultimate knowledge of God. Fate: The series of actions which eventually make the providence come true. Thus we can say that Fate is dependent on Providence.
We as the humans determine our fate; but still what is going to happen is known by the ultimate source of knowledge; Providence.
So, there are two kinds of actions in this world; the voluntary actions (the ones we decide to act) and the ones beyond our free will (earth travelling around the sun). We are actually free to choose wheter to eat a hotdog in 20 minutes break or not. It is an act of our free will. Thus we choose routes for our Fate. Providence only can see the acts of our free will before hand. Let’s give an example to make it more clear; let’s think that we know that our friend is going to talk to the girl he likes. In this case, let’s put ourselves in the place of God and our friend in the place of the humankind. We (as the God) don’t play a role on his act or effect his free-will. We just know that he is going to talk to the girl he likes. But still we foresee what he is going to do (which is talking to the girl). Therefore our knowledge is equilavent to the Providence whereas our friend’s actions are equilavent to the Fate. And Providence also covers the actions that are not covered by human actions (earth travelling around the sun).
As to sum up, Providence is knowing the actions of humans which are done by the human’s own free will and the ones beyond human choice.
So yes, we can clearly see and say that humans should get what they deserve only if they are actions of free will (voluntary actions). The rewarding&punishment might come in this world or up there, in the clouds or worse.. in the deep, dark, hot place which is down below..
As I read trough the Consolation of Boethius it influenced me a lot and made me think however I can basically sense the need of something divine. Instead of God itself he calls it Divine wisdom, Providence; which is eventually controlled by God. I will mainly focus on his book.
Well there is evil. It is all around the world. It does exist. It is a humans own choice to manipulate truth and banish reality. In the end we as humans tend to have a habit depending on self-insufficiency, “believing in what we want/need to”. Boethiues defines two drastic models that life depends on. Fate and Providence. Providence is a work of divine wisdom, seeing the bigger picture on what is actually going on. While fate is the change itself. Fate is the way how Providence sorts stuff out. Therefore it is absorbed by Providence, making Fate’s subject matter a subject matter of Providence as well. However from the perspective of mortal intellect, which is fate you can’t see the bigger picture. Hence Providence’s subject matter is not always Fate’s subject matter.
His contrast of order and disorder is where I agree with him. Disorder from a human’s perspective is personal chaos and only comprises his world. Individual disorders are parts of a common order. Since we don’t question more than we can see and understand we can’t get to see the common order.
However in order to maintain the order he states that evil are even for a truly good purpose in the bigger picture. Evil and good are individual perspectives creations. They are dependable and variable. So for Boethius’s statement we need a common evil and good. Such a definition and understanding doesn’t exist yet. He then connects this to divine wisdom and HUMAN’S LIMITED INTELLECT. Well why to believe we have limited intellect because we can’t find some answers for questions we ourselves make up. Do we really need to feel that there is an almighty that controls all in order to claim relief? Instead of questioning more we define it with something we make up so that we don’t have to question more. I personally think that his interpretation of good and evil might bring meaning to his unjust sufferings.
I do keep in mind that this work is written in a time when humankind’s personal development weren’t really solid. This is just my understanding of his work. I think it is insufficient. It is weak because it depends on God/Divine Wisdom. When you take it out it is mere nothing. So his argument was insightful, inspiring and above human standards for his time however it doesn't convince me or present a good understanding.
Boethius was caught between the eastern and western churches and he was blamed by Theoderic for treason. He was sent to prison, then to execution. However, Boethius wasn’t aware that the environment he would be in would cause him to think and settle his thoughts about faith. What Boethius thought was injustice and suffering, lead him to write the book “Consolation of Philosophy”. The environment he was in made him start questioning his faith.
Boethius firstly questioned why there was evil in this world. According to me, people are not born evil or good. Life experiences or the conditions that they are in are the things that shape a person’s characters. That is what makes a person good or bad. When I read through what Boethius wrote, it said that what humans might see as good may be evil and evil might be good. It agrees with my ideas. However, Boethius before he wrote those believed that Theoderic who behaved injusticely to him was evil. Through the days he live as a prisoner, he has the conclusion that We might not be able to judge a human being. There can be something good inside a man who behaves badly throughout his life.
Boethius also writes that God sends suffering to people who are strong enough to bear it. If you are a weak person and can not stand sufferings and likely to loose all your virtues if you suffer, God doesn’t make you suffer. That made sense to me. I started thinking about myself and if I’m living any difficulties in my life that would mean that I am strong enough to bear them.
Boethius also perfectly explained the difference between Providence and free will. I thought that if God knows what I will do, it is already destined and I can’t choose what to do next so, I don’t have free will. Boethius cleared all those confusions in my mind. It is true that God knows everything and God knows what I will do next. That is what’s called foreknowledge. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t have free will. I have my choices and I can choose to do whatever I want. It’s just that God already knows it. He would know what I would choose. However, because it is a divine knowledge, humans are not able to understand.
Boethius, a successful man in both politics and personal life, asks the ultimate question that the chain of events in his life have risen: why am I like this? That question he seeks to answer, and he finds the answer in the Philosophy. The divergent nature of fate and Providence, however connected, suggests us that one should believe in Providence. Reading the first book, the following sentence looked and sounded so similar: “This is how things of the world are governed: all things are produced and affected by an unchangeable order of causes that originate in the unity and simplicity of the divine mind, and this unchangeable order of causes, because it never changes, controls the changeable things which would, without this governance, fall into chaos and disorder." This sentence sounded so similar to the analogy of “The lord is my Shepherd”. I think I can now connect these two analogies in one base, however different they might be, they sound similar. An interested point is how trustful they are to their god; they believe that all the evil in the world are committed for goodness and all of this evil is controlled by the god. “Nothing whatsoever is ever done or created for the sake of evil, which includes the actions of evil men, which also are directed towards the good even though their perverted and wretched wills do not conceive this.” So if someone does you evil, it is not because they are evil, but because they are overpowered by Providence and we are unable to understand that! We must not be held responsible for evils we commit, after all its Providence! The idea of evil man being in contradiction of their own ideas, crimes and lifestyles, might affect them and guide them into goodness looks promising to explain what I think where Providence seemed so unreal. Yes, evil man has inner contradictions, and yes, they might suffer from it, and yes that is a kind of punishment. But the biggest “yes” is: yes, they can be guided into good will, with the help of our good old “Shepherd”. Up until this point book has introduced me the basic idea of good versus evil. Why do good suffer when bad prospers? The answer to this question lies in the mere question itself, I believe. As Boethius argues, both evil and good man has prosperous times and suffering times, so in my view they are all equal in the end. So there is no “more” suffering of one of the other. The next interesting thing that caught my attention is the perception of the world by God, which is eternal-not like ours –non-eternal-. We are only glimpsing at what actually god perceives and sees. I believe, with this perception he is able to see things that are in present, but those things that give us certain details about the future. I think this is a great thinking in terms of understanding how we are predestined to things, or perhaps this is only an analogy for our human minds to understand how simple –within its complexity- God is. What makes this reading interesting is how it was written. You are being tortured everyday, body torn apart, and still you are trying to understand where you might have done wrong. Eventually, it seems like he finds no guilt in himself –which raises some questions in my mind- but he rather blames the power above him. I think this psychology is there in every human, when they need to feel good, as it is really hard to admit that you have done wrong. I think Fate, Providence are there to blame something other then themselves, and I started to suspect that Boethius might have done the same thing with himself.
Boethius,in his book The Consolation of Philosophy, question why evil exists in the world and why bad things happen to good people. First of all to understand the idea behind this book, it'll be helpful to have a little knowledge about Boethius's life. Boethius, a respectable man, was put into jail by the emperor because he was accused with treachery for negotiating with the Eastern Church. Boethius, who was a faithful man and a devoted Christian, had hard time understanding why the world was being unjust to him.
In the book there are two main concepts: providence and faith. Everything that belongs to the divinemind is providence. The things that are seen from the point of view of something that can change are Fate. For providence there is no issue of time. It views everything from beginning to infinity at the same time, yet for Fate the same concept does not apply. Fate is events unfolding in time, which means that something occurs during the period of time that it belongs to. Providence and Fate create a proper order together because the unfolding of Fate is actually hidden in Providence.
In "The Consolation of Philosophy", Boethius opposes the idea that everything is predestined. It doesn't mean that something happens because it is in Providence. Providence doesn't create a necessity, it is just a divine foreknowledge of what will happen.
Another message given in the book is we as humans don't have a perfect judgement, we don't know the Providence, so we can'T really know what is evil. The divine power has the ability to look from the greatest panaroma. Therefore only he can know what is the best for humans fo a longer period of time. We can only know about our own world anf that is actually what we all care about. We don't have a general perspective, so we perceive some events as chaos. However the divine power can see everything as a whole and in unity, so our apprehension of good and evil is very debatable.
The Consolation of Philosophy is a great collection of Boethius's ideas like a "collage" as it is said for such artwork compositions. His ideas about good, evil, necessity, provision and fate reminded me what we study in religion class this semester. Because in the Boethius' book we see a lot the "God factor" and also the "Chance factor" in people's lives as we discuss the same subject in religion class.
First of all, if we think that God is beyond the timeline which means God knows everything in the past, in the present and in the future, than why are we here? In other words, as Boethius says that there is "fate", so we are not responsible for the things we do on Earth. If this is the case, how can Boethius talk about the fate, the necessity and the good and the evil at the same time? It is the main paradox I see in the Consolation Philosophy, if Boethius focused on the consciousness of human-beings, it would be clearer. Because as people live their fates they don't have that much choice and when we go further with this idea we find out that the good's destiny is to be the good and the evil is not the one who chooses to be the bad by him/herself. So no one is responsible for any sin or merit commited. I remember the same issue is discussed in the lines of the poet Omar Khayyam who says that he is not afraid of commiting crime because it is his fate given by God and of course God is merciful.
Secondly, if people choose to be good or bad totally consciously with no any effect, than how can we explain the cases like the good does such evil things sometimes and the evil may behave in a good manner? Personally I belive that people who claim that they are "good" are generally the ones who are nothing but worse than the others. So what is the line between the good and the evil? Boethius explains this by saying only God knows who is good or not but than we don't have right to judge anybody: All these courts and the rules of countries are worthless and this kind of idea brings anarchism. And more than that, the writing tells us Boethius as a person who has lots of good manners and being in prison is not fair for him. How can we know that Boethius is a good person?
As a result, such issues are hard to understand and The Consolation of Philosophy is a helpful tool for the whole humanity to go one step forward.
The Consolation of Philosophy, in my opinion is a kind of a self relieving gadget for Boethius. I think he needed something like this in order to comfort his thoughts and prevent himself turning away from Christianity and the God. Also the whole idea reminded me of "The Sense of Injustice" from Botton's Consolation of Philosophy. But really I think it was to answer the questions that cannot be answered in a "logical" way and at the same time find a reason for his situation. I believe his reasoning can be considered successful according to his state when he was writing the book.
When I thought about the meanings of Providence and Fate after reading the examples too; Providence is the plan and Fate is the action. Also one thing that interested me was his idea about being close to the center or not. I do not know if these concepts were defined in those times but the idea of being close to the center means being more organised and being farther away leads to more confusion, chaos is a pretty universal and a valid determination.
Another idea that interested me was about his explanation in being evil is not really evil has a good perspective too. Because really there are times where we think we are fully right, guiltless and nice but when we look at the event from someone else's point of view we may be the most evil person in the world. I think through this way we get a perspective or a chance to be objective in some occasions. There is evil in the world because it is a part of the planned balance which avoid chaos. Also how could we define good if there was no evil?
The idea of free will is also present under the divine knowledge of God and presence of Providence. Things are "planned" to be there. And God sees everything the past, the present and the future. He/she has no limits in any sense but he just sees them, watches them. At this point free will comes in. He knows what you will do, yes, but he does not make you do them, you do your actions according to your free will. God is a spectator of your free will based actions.
What I admired the most about Boethius was he could try to be objective as possible despite the position he was in at the point he wrote the book. Also even though the text is very old apart from the religious background we can learn many general concepts of todays world too.
:D The text made me excited - because it makes sense! (I wasn't expecting it to make sense) Well... it makes sense in its own reality. Just as it makes sense in the Star Wars universe that Obi-Wan can do the Jedi mind trick.
The first part is Boethius' life. Important parts there: He was a Christian, lived in Theoderic’s time in Rome, was sent to prison by Theoderic, suffered and died there. His ultimate question: Why do good people suffer and evil people (like Theoderic) prosper? (How does God let this happen?)
1-Divine direction: “Fortune” is an illusion. Everything goes in a certain direction (i.e. divine direction), towards the higher good. 2- Providence: Is God’s point of view (or God’s knowledge). It means knowing everything and contains all the simple rules that govern our universe. Providence is unchangeable, unified, simple. God knows the events and their order. 3- Fate: Is how things happen (the occurrence of events...). It is dependant on Providence.
Good and Evil: We think that the world is chaotic and unordered; that’s an illusion. The human knowledge is limited, we don’t understand that Providence sets rules for things and makes them go in the divine direction (fate being all that is happening as things go in the divine direction). We may think of something as “evil”, “unjust”... but they are serving a “higher good”. = Evil does not exist. If God lets some evil acts, He does this to lead a person, a group of people, etc... to a higher good. So therefore, it’s not actually evil. It’s a part of the Providence (=it must be good).
4- Distinction between divine and human judgment: The human is not capable of judging correctly as God does. What we think as evil may happen (a) because it may strengthen a virtuous man’s faith (b) because otherwise, the evil man causes a worse situation (c) because it is needless to let the evil man suffer (not helping anyone/anything go in the divine direction).... Conclusion: “Evil” for us is not evil for God. It is a result of Providence and happens for a reason (a “good” reason).
5- Foreknowledge: God’s knowledge of our future. 6- Predestination: If God knows the future, it is predestined. So how can we be kept responsible for our acts, be punished or rewarded for our vices and virtues? asks Boethius. 7- Necessity: Necessity is redefined as the happenings that are not subject to free will (e.g. sun rises, humans die...). God can have the foreknowledge of things that are not necessary – the fact that they are foreknown doesn’t make that necessary (or destined, actually, in another word) 8- Time for humans: Is present. Past has passed and future has not happened yet. We live only present. Time for God: God is eternal and has a different perception of time. It is “unified time” in a single, unchanging present. Future for humans is actually present for God.
God does not decide on things that are not necessary; but He sees them and knows them as we would know our present time. The example of “walking man” clears the confusions, in my opinion – (it did in my case). We see a walking man and the rising sun at the same time. Sun’s rise is necessary (God set it); but man’s walking is voluntary (not decided by God). God sees both in His present. 9- Free will: So we have free will; we are able (allowed) to do voluntary acts. Those acts are not necessarily “necessities”!
Conclusion: God’s judgment is then just and logical; because we have free will and can decide how we will behave. Our choices and decisions will be known to God, (because we will choose, decide, and conduct them in His present). He then has the ability to judge justly – because He is outside of time and is only judging what He sees in present.
Note to the class and to JS: If you haven’t done it yet – read WATCHMEN! (I remembered Watchmen while reading Boethius, because Watchmen (using a God-like character who has a unified notion of time and can create matter) plays around Boethius’ idea that God has Providence (where everything is unified and unchangeable, future is past and both are present…), but that this does not mean that free will cannot exist.
There are two questions on Boethius’ mind that leads to the existence of his book “The Consolation of Philosophy” One is about the concept of evil and the other is about free will. In the book, Boethius uses a figurative Lady Philosophy to answer his questions, which I think reveals the reason why he actually writes this book, to me it is to comfort himself. Sometimes, people just cannot coordinate their thoughts and writing about them would be the answer because everything looks so much in order.
In order to explain the concept of evil, Boethius uses two other concepts, Providence and Fate. I think, those concepts are really important to human lives but they’re about a totally different question and Boethius still would make sense without mentioning them. According to him, we cannot group people as good or bad because in real life they would be like less good and less bad, the idea in which that I am totally agree with him. Boethius continues saying that it is God who can know the inner position of a man and human perception can fail. It may be true but this statement shows that it is just the inner feelings of people that matters, which is injustice to me. Do we count a man as evil, if he is a bad person inside but just to show off for example helps the others a lot? According to Boethius yes, but to me the answer is no.
The concepts of Providence and Fate are self-explanatory as Providence being the divine thought and Fate being the coming to existence part. Boethius also brings the question of freewill to a simple explanation. Stating that what we live doesn’t consist of only necessities and only the necessities part of life is subject to God, the rest of it is the creation of our freewill and God is the observer. However, since he is divine he can foreknowledge things also. In our religion, the concept of Providence is so similar but not the concept of freewill. Our religion says that God gives you a mind to think and freewill to make your choices but because it is him who gives you that mind and freewill (because he is the creator) he can foreknowledge what you will choose and knows is before you’re born. The idea that is common in two views is the fact that there are some things that are necessities such as being born and dying and human have no freewill on those.
The book Boethius wrote ‘The Consolation of a Philosophy’ help me understand the difference between Providence and Fate, between the divine mind and the series of actions that make the Providence come true. When Boethius wrote his book, he was suffering, he was living his last days in jail. He wrote his notes in agony. The actions we make are of two types; the ones we make from our own will and the ones beyond our own will. Providence is the plan of divine mind, which we aren’t capable of control whereas Fate is affected by the actions we are capable of carrying out. Therefore, Fate is subject to Providence. God created the world such that everything has a reason leading to Good. Since humans can’t judge everything correctly, what seems to be wrong to us might be just and right. We can’t say that humans are capable of judging things correctly since one may appreciate an action whereas the other may loathe. The human mind is limited compared to the divine mind. The justice always win since everything is directed to the Good. When one who experienced poverty gets rich, even if that’s a bad person will try hard not to lose his wealth, behaving in a good way. He will become a good person. In short, one can change the Fate but not the Providence.
The problems occur after each other. There’s no period of time when one has no problems. The series of events occurring in life have reasons which are the representations of God’s mind, no one can change the causes. The divine mind, God’s mind is ‘Providence’, which is unchangeable. When the divine mind sets its reasons into actions, it is called ‘Fate’, which is changeable by us, humans. Providence puts things into order. The divine mind, Providence doesn’t belong to a certain time, it is all over the time. It can foresee everything. Fate, on the other hand belongs to the present, the moment we live in. It can’t foresee what will happen. Fate depends on Providence since Providence makes Fate happen in time. Fate is the series of actions that have their source from the unchangeable Providence. Thus, we say that the order of events is unchangeable too. Without this unchangeable order of events, all would be chaotic. All of the events are directed to the Good, the divine mind, God. Since humans are not perfect, their judgments can’t be perfect either. If human judgment was perfect, then there wouldn’t be a need for jury in trials. The idea of only one person would be enough in order to punish or forgive a victim for his/her actions. One shouldn’t judge another from his/her appearance to be good or bad since our mind is limited with Fate whereas Providence can see the inner conditions of the person. This is what we do very frequently: judging people through their appearance. I doubt if one would like to be friends at first with a person who has very old clothes. Till the day we have glasses that show us the inner conditions of the person, we shouldn’t judge one till we know him/her. The day when there will be an earthquake is known by Providence since Providence can see the events that aren’t unfolded yet. But us, humans are limited with Fate, which prevents us from seeing the future, the time of an earthquake. If we were capable of foreseeing, then the damages of the earthquake of 1999 in Turkey would be much less since the precautions would be taken.
23 comments:
The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius is a very important book in the sense that it deepens humans’ understanding of the seemingly chaotic world. Understanding the book, I believe, very much depends on understanding the conditions under which Boethius wrote the book. Once a member of a prestigious family and high social class, Boethius was accused to be a traitor by the Emperor Theodoric. He was viciously tortured and he was awaiting his execution. Thus it is a surprise that he wrote a book about understanding concepts such as good, evil, necessity, provision and fate.
What’s most interesting about the book is that it focuses on a question that is part of our daily life still in the 21st century: Why do “good” people suffer when “evil” people prosper? When reading the book for the first time (this is my personal response), what Boethius discussed seemed not to address the issue. The discussion on provision and fate is one of those parts of the reading when I wondered how this is related to the question. However, as I read through the piece, I’ve noticed that the conclusions reached in each section built on each other. The section on provision is there to make the reader understand that what’s happening in our life is not arbitrary or chaotic. All of it is part of the unchanging provision of the divine mind. Fate, on the other hand, is a human perception of the changing and seemingly chaotic future. Therefore, the discussion of evil and good follows this discussion smoothly. When Boethius (as Lady Philosophy) says that what evil do to the good men aid good men to reach virtues, he show that even the evil behavior of humans are part of the provision and the unchanging order.
The part of the reading that I enjoyed and thought about the most was the part on defining eternity. Until reading the book, I had considered being eternal as having an infinite future. However, according to Boethius, eternity is about the past and the present as much as it is about the future. The divine mind is eternal and it is beyond time; it perceives the past and the future as one present moment. It follows from here that provision is unchanging. Since eternity is yesterday and tomorrow condensed into a single moment, it will not change. Change only happens when time “flows”. But eternity, and therefore the divine mind, is above changes and time.
Boethius made me understand the difference between Fate and Providence. Providence is the view of the divine God, which is unchangeable. It is the plan of divine mind, and sets the rules and orders things to happen. Fate on the other hand is the subject to Providence, it is the changing course of events according to Providence. It is the taking into action of the Providence plan percieved by humans who are effected and changed.
The world order is created according to the divine plan- Providence- and Fate alows the unbreakable chains of events to happen. Everything has a reason which leads to Good and this government is necessary for keeping order. So no matter how things seem unreasonable, unfair or unneccessarily evil, we should understand that everything is according to the Divine plan, everything in fact has a reason but we just can’t concieve it. The plan leads to Good, not evil.
Sometimes, we might think that world is unfair, but human mind isn’t capable of judging good and evil soul. I understand that the sufferings people go through are God’s plan to try people’s strengths and lead them to shelter in virtue. There is no such thing as Chance and evil is nothing but a limited conception of human mind of a greater concept leading to good. Providence is the ruler of everything and evil belongs to its plan.
Providence and Free will are seen as conflicting ideas, but after reading Boethius I completely understood the difference between them. God can see things in the future, because he exists out of the dimension of time; he doesn’t have a future or past, so our future is a present instant to him. The fact that he can foresee what will happen before our present time doesn’t imply that our destiny is predetermined and that we have no control over it. Everything we do is out of our free will. God’s foreknowledge simply means that things will happen according to our free will but only God can see that it will happen before it happens in our concept of time. Providence is only God’s knowledge, whish has no effect on our actions. It is like this: I know that in 1453 Istanbul was conquered. Istanbul was conquered because of Fatih Sultan Mehmet’s plan, not because I now know it happened. I know it, because Sultan Mehmet has by free will conquered it. The God foresees the events that occurs because of our free will, he can only foresee it because he doesn’t exist in a notion of time.
- The reason that makes Boethius think about philosophy is persecution to him by Theoderic and his forces. What made the situation appear even more unjust to Boethius was that he was convicted for a crime that he had not committed. Due to the unjust persecution that he underwent, Boethius questioned the defects of the order of the universe. He was preoccupied with the question why, good people like him were suffering, and evil people like Theoderic were still alive, enjoying his might. Based on this question, he wrote “The Consolation of Philosophy”, where the figure of Lady Philosophy answers his questions about the order of the universe.
-One of the main questions of Boethius was "if the future is predestined, do we make our own choices?", on which we've discussed in religion classes for many years and haven't come to a conclusion yet.
- What I understand from the definitions of the notions "Providence" and "Fate" is:
- Providence is the way that all objects are governed by a divine power. However providence exists in the medium of divinity, in which there is no time concept and all objects are united. So it is more difficult for us to perceive it.
- Fate is the same thing when it is transformed into the real world. So it includes time, order and a specific object.
- The orbit imagery in the second paragraph implies that only non-divine things can be subject to Fate. The divine creatures which are in the center of the Providence (such as god, angels) cannot be transformed to the medium of Fate. I think that explains why we can't see the god, or sense it in any way.
- I found the ideas of Lady Philosophy interesting, where she says that the concepts of good and evil are relative, and we cannot precisely judge people about whether they are good or evil, therefore it is normal for us to complain why evil prospers and good suffers.
- Those misjudgments reveal one more difference between providence and fate. Providence can see and identify every inner conflict and condition of people, such as good or bad. However, fate fails that.
- Another interpretation that can be made by last paragraph is, providence is the ideal order that was produced only by the divine power, where there is no evil and no defect. However, when providence is converted into fate, in other words when the "free will" of people is involved in the order of universe, deficiencies and injustice occur.
- I really had a hard time understanding the concept of foreknowledge. What I concluded is, that foreknowledge does not have a direct effect on whether something will happen, or not. Foreknowledge, even if it exists, is a passive feeling that only shows whether something will happen or not, by necessity, in other words, by the chain of reasons that cause the thing.
- I also understood that the concept of eternity must be perceived through the rules of Providence, instead of Fate.
Theoderic invaded rome
Theoderic was from roman church. He put Boethius in prison because he was negotiating with eastern church.
Boethius questioned why god would let bad things happen to good people. Or why would he create evil.
Providence is the divine view of the god. It's everything. Fate is inferior to that it the things happening in a way.
Goodness can differ from people to people god can decide on that.
Evil doesn't exist says Philosophy.
Foreknowledge exists because of necessity.
god sees past present and future somewhat from above. He knows everything that'S going to occur either it's necessary or not.
god sees future things that are results of human free will.
( sorry for not taking great notes. but I didn't quite get what' going on things contradict.)
Being a successful and good man, it must have been hard for Boethius to be accused by the ruler and sentenced to death. From this perspective, it is interesting to read his approach on justice, fortune and the idea of “good vs. evil”. In prison, Boethius questions his religious faith and the reason behind that injustice he faces. I believe it is one of the main concepts of religion, in almost all of them, which needs clarification. The idea of Fate and providence is hard to internalize by people and the exploration of these concepts, understanding the divine mind would definitely strengthen the basis of the divinity.
The distinction is apparently made between these two concepts: fate is the one which sustains the connections between the actions and has control over individual changeabls, while Providence is placed as the underlying control which sustains the unchangeable causation of acts. Providence is the timeless, eternal concept which provides the base for fate to control the mortals, and the summation of fate is the element of providence. Therefore, providence belongs to the divine mind which is pure, simple, but cannot be fully understood by the incapable human mind.
I found especially two points interesting for me in this text. The first one is that, according to these definitions, always the justice wins, even we understand it or not. Even if the person thinks a particular occurring is not fair, it doesn’t mean that he is right and what happened is not the right thing to happen. In a way, this understanding gives the person another perspective on issues. However, what it actually does is to lead the people to an unquestionable acceptance. The teaching says whatever happens in the world, or to you, even if you don’t see its advantage, is the best possible happening to reach the highest good. This might cause the person to question his/her beliefs one more time and also would strengthen the authority of the divine mind.
The other thing is how this understanding of providence and mind of god leaves an open gate for everyone. The text mentions two types of people first; the ones who can bear the sufferings and the ones who cannot; then it says these two types are treated according to their power to endure. For both of them, the level of suffering aims to take them up to the highest good. Also, even if you are an evil person, when you face with the same evil behaviors, you understand the harm that you cause and eventually turn to good in the end. So according to all these explanations, everyone would be able to find power to endure the adversity and everyone would have the chance to become good in the end. The text gives convincing explanations about fate, but also leaves an open end by saying it is not possible for human mind to totally perceive this concept.
Also, by not limiting the independence of God by time, it creates space for the mortals to have self-determination for their mundane choices. The God is elevated to the highest level and taken out from “the changeable time”, and leaving it to fate. (I don’t think I fully understood every idea in the text, but it raised question marks in my mind and deepened my view on fate and justice, which I believe is a good start.)
• Boethius thinks it is injustice that he is suffering; he didn’t deserve to be punished and tortured and he looks for an answer why. However it isn’t easy to understand it, because it can never be explained completely.
• All the things that we think changeable come from the unchangeable mind of God. Providence is the divine mind; it sees everything all at once. Fate is the unfolding of those things seen by Providence when the right time comes. Even though they are different, one depends on the other: unfolding of fates one after another creates the unity of Providence.
• All things are produced by an unchangeable order of causes by divine mind which has the control of changeable. When they come together these changeable things create unity. Everything is in order and directed towards good, even the evil men.
• We don’t have the right to judge what is good, the human mind is not perfect and everybody has their own ideas about what is good and what is evil. We cannot know the inner condition of the person we judge, he might have reasons for his evil behavior and actually be a good person or he might seem good but hide his evilness inside. God is the only one who can really know one’s inner condition. He understands the things that human mind is not capable of understanding.
• Providence gives suffering to the ones who would be ruined by too much prosperity and test with sufferings the ones who would strengthen their virtue and patience with that.
• The evil can make evil men good. For divine mind all evils are good, because they are a part of the order and they might bring good.
• The Divine Being is eternal; it embraces the future and the past in present. For Him everything happens only in a single, simple present (past, present, future - they together make the eternal present.). That is why his knowledge exists in eternal present, so the divine foreknowledge is not a foreknowledge of the future but knowledge of an unchanging present.
• An event might seem unnecessary to us, but in God’s vision it is necessary. God sees future things that are the result of human free will; they were necessary because they were known by God, but still free will for us.
I will be examining the question of wheter humans are accountable for their actions, even though their moves are known before hand.
So before starting, let’s in few sentences go over the key concepts in the work of Boethius; which is written in agony and in his last moments of his life;
Providence: The ultimate knowledge of God.
Fate: The series of actions which eventually make the providence come true.
Thus we can say that Fate is dependent on Providence.
We as the humans determine our fate; but still what is going to happen is known by the ultimate source of knowledge; Providence.
So, there are two kinds of actions in this world; the voluntary actions (the ones we decide to act) and the ones beyond our free will (earth travelling around the sun). We are actually free to choose wheter to eat a hotdog in 20 minutes break or not. It is an act of our free will. Thus we choose routes for our Fate. Providence only can see the acts of our free will before hand. Let’s give an example to make it more clear; let’s think that we know that our friend is going to talk to the girl he likes. In this case, let’s put ourselves in the place of God and our friend in the place of the humankind. We (as the God) don’t play a role on his act or effect his free-will. We just know that he is going to talk to the girl he likes. But still we foresee what he is going to do (which is talking to the girl). Therefore our knowledge is equilavent to the Providence whereas our friend’s actions are equilavent to the Fate. And Providence also covers the actions that are not covered by human actions (earth travelling around the sun).
As to sum up, Providence is knowing the actions of humans which are done by the human’s own free will and the ones beyond human choice.
So yes, we can clearly see and say that humans should get what they deserve only if they are actions of free will (voluntary actions). The rewarding&punishment might come in this world or up there, in the clouds or worse.. in the deep, dark, hot place which is down below..
Buser Şay
“How terrible the need of God” Theodore Roethke
As I read trough the Consolation of Boethius it influenced me a lot and made me think however I can basically sense the need of something divine. Instead of God itself he calls it Divine wisdom, Providence; which is eventually controlled by God. I will mainly focus on his book.
Well there is evil. It is all around the world. It does exist. It is a humans own choice to manipulate truth and banish reality. In the end we as humans tend to have a habit depending on self-insufficiency, “believing in what we want/need to”. Boethiues defines two drastic models that life depends on. Fate and Providence. Providence is a work of divine wisdom, seeing the bigger picture on what is actually going on. While fate is the change itself. Fate is the way how Providence sorts stuff out. Therefore it is absorbed by Providence, making Fate’s subject matter a subject matter of Providence as well. However from the perspective of mortal intellect, which is fate you can’t see the bigger picture. Hence Providence’s subject matter is not always Fate’s subject matter.
His contrast of order and disorder is where I agree with him. Disorder from a human’s perspective is personal chaos and only comprises his world. Individual disorders are parts of a common order. Since we don’t question more than we can see and understand we can’t get to see the common order.
However in order to maintain the order he states that evil are even for a truly good purpose in the bigger picture. Evil and good are individual perspectives creations. They are dependable and variable. So for Boethius’s statement we need a common evil and good. Such a definition and understanding doesn’t exist yet. He then connects this to divine wisdom and HUMAN’S LIMITED INTELLECT. Well why to believe we have limited intellect because we can’t find some answers for questions we ourselves make up. Do we really need to feel that there is an almighty that controls all in order to claim relief? Instead of questioning more we define it with something we make up so that we don’t have to question more. I personally think that his interpretation of good and evil might bring meaning to his unjust sufferings.
I do keep in mind that this work is written in a time when humankind’s personal development weren’t really solid. This is just my understanding of his work. I think it is insufficient. It is weak because it depends on God/Divine Wisdom. When you take it out it is mere nothing. So his argument was insightful, inspiring and above human standards for his time however it doesn't convince me or present a good understanding.
(This is only an introduction to my argument)
Boethius was caught between the eastern and western churches and he was blamed by Theoderic for treason. He was sent to prison, then to execution. However, Boethius wasn’t aware that the environment he would be in would cause him to think and settle his thoughts about faith. What Boethius thought was injustice and suffering, lead him to write the book “Consolation of Philosophy”. The environment he was in made him start questioning his faith.
Boethius firstly questioned why there was evil in this world. According to me, people are not born evil or good. Life experiences or the conditions that they are in are the things that shape a person’s characters. That is what makes a person good or bad. When I read through what Boethius wrote, it said that what humans might see as good may be evil and evil might be good. It agrees with my ideas. However, Boethius before he wrote those believed that Theoderic who behaved injusticely to him was evil. Through the days he live as a prisoner, he has the conclusion that We might not be able to judge a human being. There can be something good inside a man who behaves badly throughout his life.
Boethius also writes that God sends suffering to people who are strong enough to bear it. If you are a weak person and can not stand sufferings and likely to loose all your virtues if you suffer, God doesn’t make you suffer. That made sense to me. I started thinking about myself and if I’m living any difficulties in my life that would mean that I am strong enough to bear them.
Boethius also perfectly explained the difference between Providence and free will. I thought that if God knows what I will do, it is already destined and I can’t choose what to do next so, I don’t have free will. Boethius cleared all those confusions in my mind. It is true that God knows everything and God knows what I will do next. That is what’s called foreknowledge. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t have free will. I have my choices and I can choose to do whatever I want. It’s just that God already knows it. He would know what I would choose. However, because it is a divine knowledge, humans are not able to understand.
Boethius, a successful man in both politics and personal life, asks the ultimate question that the chain of events in his life have risen: why am I like this? That question he seeks to answer, and he finds the answer in the Philosophy. The divergent nature of fate and Providence, however connected, suggests us that one should believe in Providence. Reading the first book, the following sentence looked and sounded so similar: “This is how things of the world are governed: all things are produced and affected by an unchangeable order of causes that originate in the unity and simplicity of the divine mind, and this unchangeable order of causes, because it never changes, controls the changeable things which would, without this governance, fall into chaos and disorder." This sentence sounded so similar to the analogy of “The lord is my Shepherd”. I think I can now connect these two analogies in one base, however different they might be, they sound similar. An interested point is how trustful they are to their god; they believe that all the evil in the world are committed for goodness and all of this evil is controlled by the god. “Nothing whatsoever is ever done or created for the sake of evil, which includes the actions of evil men, which also are directed towards the good even though their perverted and wretched wills do not conceive this.” So if someone does you evil, it is not because they are evil, but because they are overpowered by Providence and we are unable to understand that! We must not be held responsible for evils we commit, after all its Providence!
The idea of evil man being in contradiction of their own ideas, crimes and lifestyles, might affect them and guide them into goodness looks promising to explain what I think where Providence seemed so unreal. Yes, evil man has inner contradictions, and yes, they might suffer from it, and yes that is a kind of punishment. But the biggest “yes” is: yes, they can be guided into good will, with the help of our good old “Shepherd”.
Up until this point book has introduced me the basic idea of good versus evil. Why do good suffer when bad prospers? The answer to this question lies in the mere question itself, I believe. As Boethius argues, both evil and good man has prosperous times and suffering times, so in my view they are all equal in the end. So there is no “more” suffering of one of the other.
The next interesting thing that caught my attention is the perception of the world by God, which is eternal-not like ours –non-eternal-. We are only glimpsing at what actually god perceives and sees. I believe, with this perception he is able to see things that are in present, but those things that give us certain details about the future. I think this is a great thinking in terms of understanding how we are predestined to things, or perhaps this is only an analogy for our human minds to understand how simple –within its complexity- God is.
What makes this reading interesting is how it was written. You are being tortured everyday, body torn apart, and still you are trying to understand where you might have done wrong. Eventually, it seems like he finds no guilt in himself –which raises some questions in my mind- but he rather blames the power above him. I think this psychology is there in every human, when they need to feel good, as it is really hard to admit that you have done wrong. I think Fate, Providence are there to blame something other then themselves, and I started to suspect that Boethius might have done the same thing with himself.
Boethius,in his book The Consolation of Philosophy, question why evil exists in the world and why bad things happen to good people. First of all to understand the idea behind this book, it'll be helpful to have a little knowledge about Boethius's life. Boethius, a respectable man, was put into jail by the emperor because he was accused with treachery for negotiating with the Eastern Church. Boethius, who was a faithful man and a devoted Christian, had hard time understanding why the world was being unjust to him.
In the book there are two main concepts: providence and faith. Everything that belongs to the divinemind is providence. The things that are seen from the point of view of something that can change are Fate. For providence there is no issue of time. It views everything from beginning to infinity at the same time, yet for Fate the same concept does not apply. Fate is events unfolding in time, which means that something occurs during the period of time that it belongs to. Providence and Fate create a proper order together because the unfolding of Fate is actually hidden in Providence.
In "The Consolation of Philosophy", Boethius opposes the idea that everything is predestined. It doesn't mean that something happens because it is in Providence. Providence doesn't create a necessity, it is just a divine foreknowledge of what will happen.
Another message given in the book is we as humans don't have a perfect judgement, we don't know the Providence, so we can'T really know what is evil. The divine power has the ability to look from the greatest panaroma. Therefore only he can know what is the best for humans fo a longer period of time. We can only know about our own world anf that is actually what we all care about. We don't have a general perspective, so we perceive some events as chaos. However the divine power can see everything as a whole and in unity, so our apprehension of good and evil is very debatable.
The Consolation of Philosophy is a great collection of Boethius's ideas like a "collage" as it is said for such artwork compositions. His ideas about good, evil, necessity, provision and fate reminded me what we study in religion class this semester. Because in the Boethius' book we see a lot the "God factor" and also the "Chance factor" in people's lives as we discuss the same subject in religion class.
First of all, if we think that God is beyond the timeline which means God knows everything in the past, in the present and in the future, than why are we here? In other words, as Boethius says that there is "fate", so we are not responsible for the things we do on Earth. If this is the case, how can Boethius talk about the fate, the necessity and the good and the evil at the same time? It is the main paradox I see in the Consolation Philosophy, if Boethius focused on the consciousness of human-beings, it would be clearer. Because as people live their fates they don't have that much choice and when we go further with this idea we find out that the good's destiny is to be the good and the evil is not the one who chooses to be the bad by him/herself. So no one is responsible for any sin or merit commited. I remember the same issue is discussed in the lines of the poet Omar Khayyam who says that he is not afraid of commiting crime because it is his fate given by God and of course God is merciful.
Secondly, if people choose to be good or bad totally consciously with no any effect, than how can we explain the cases like the good does such evil things sometimes and the evil may behave in a good manner? Personally I belive that people who claim that they are "good" are generally the ones who are nothing but worse than the others. So what is the line between the good and the evil? Boethius explains this by saying only God knows who is good or not but than we don't have right to judge anybody: All these courts and the rules of countries are worthless and this kind of idea brings anarchism. And more than that, the writing tells us Boethius as a person who has lots of good manners and being in prison is not fair for him. How can we know that Boethius is a good person?
As a result, such issues are hard to understand and The Consolation of Philosophy is a helpful tool for the whole humanity to go one step forward.
The Consolation of Philosophy, in my opinion is a kind of a self relieving gadget for Boethius. I think he needed something like this in order to comfort his thoughts and prevent himself turning away from Christianity and the God. Also the whole idea reminded me of "The Sense of Injustice" from Botton's Consolation of Philosophy. But really I think it was to answer the questions that cannot be answered in a "logical" way and at the same time find a reason for his situation. I believe his reasoning can be considered successful according to his state when he was writing the book.
When I thought about the meanings of Providence and Fate after reading the examples too; Providence is the plan and Fate is the action. Also one thing that interested me was his idea about being close to the center or not. I do not know if these concepts were defined in those times but the idea of being close to the center means being more organised and being farther away leads to more confusion, chaos is a pretty universal and a valid determination.
Another idea that interested me was about his explanation in being evil is not really evil has a good perspective too. Because really there are times where we think we are fully right, guiltless and nice but when we look at the event from someone else's point of view we may be the most evil person in the world. I think through this way we get a perspective or a chance to be objective in some occasions. There is evil in the world because it is a part of the planned balance which avoid chaos. Also how could we define good if there was no evil?
The idea of free will is also present under the divine knowledge of God and presence of Providence. Things are "planned" to be there. And God sees everything the past, the present and the future. He/she has no limits in any sense but he just sees them, watches them. At this point free will comes in. He knows what you will do, yes, but he does not make you do them, you do your actions according to your free will. God is a spectator of your free will based actions.
What I admired the most about Boethius was he could try to be objective as possible despite the position he was in at the point he wrote the book. Also even though the text is very old apart from the religious background we can learn many general concepts of todays world too.
:D
The text made me excited - because it makes sense! (I wasn't expecting it to make sense) Well... it makes sense in its own reality. Just as it makes sense in the Star Wars universe that Obi-Wan can do the Jedi mind trick.
The first part is Boethius' life. Important parts there: He was a Christian, lived in Theoderic’s time in Rome, was sent to prison by Theoderic, suffered and died there. His ultimate question: Why do good people suffer and evil people (like Theoderic) prosper? (How does God let this happen?)
1-Divine direction: “Fortune” is an illusion. Everything goes in a certain direction (i.e. divine direction), towards the higher good.
2- Providence: Is God’s point of view (or God’s knowledge). It means knowing everything and contains all the simple rules that govern our universe. Providence is unchangeable, unified, simple. God knows the events and their order.
3- Fate: Is how things happen (the occurrence of events...). It is dependant on Providence.
Good and Evil: We think that the world is chaotic and unordered; that’s an illusion. The human knowledge is limited, we don’t understand that Providence sets rules for things and makes them go in the divine direction (fate being all that is happening as things go in the divine direction). We may think of something as “evil”, “unjust”... but they are serving a “higher good”.
= Evil does not exist. If God lets some evil acts, He does this to lead a person, a group of people, etc... to a higher good. So therefore, it’s not actually evil. It’s a part of the Providence (=it must be good).
4- Distinction between divine and human judgment: The human is not capable of judging correctly as God does. What we think as evil may happen (a) because it may strengthen a virtuous man’s faith (b) because otherwise, the evil man causes a worse situation (c) because it is needless to let the evil man suffer (not helping anyone/anything go in the divine direction)....
Conclusion: “Evil” for us is not evil for God. It is a result of Providence and happens for a reason (a “good” reason).
5- Foreknowledge: God’s knowledge of our future.
6- Predestination: If God knows the future, it is predestined. So how can we be kept responsible for our acts, be punished or rewarded for our vices and virtues? asks Boethius.
7- Necessity: Necessity is redefined as the happenings that are not subject to free will (e.g. sun rises, humans die...). God can have the foreknowledge of things that are not necessary – the fact that they are foreknown doesn’t make that necessary (or destined, actually, in another word)
8- Time for humans: Is present. Past has passed and future has not happened yet. We live only present. Time for God: God is eternal and has a different perception of time. It is “unified time” in a single, unchanging present. Future for humans is actually present for God.
God does not decide on things that are not necessary; but He sees them and knows them as we would know our present time. The example of “walking man” clears the confusions, in my opinion – (it did in my case). We see a walking man and the rising sun at the same time. Sun’s rise is necessary (God set it); but man’s walking is voluntary (not decided by God). God sees both in His present.
9- Free will: So we have free will; we are able (allowed) to do voluntary acts. Those acts are not necessarily “necessities”!
Conclusion: God’s judgment is then just and logical; because we have free will and can decide how we will behave. Our choices and decisions will be known to God, (because we will choose, decide, and conduct them in His present). He then has the ability to judge justly – because He is outside of time and is only judging what He sees in present.
Note to the class and to JS: If you haven’t done it yet – read WATCHMEN! (I remembered Watchmen while reading Boethius, because Watchmen (using a God-like character who has a unified notion of time and can create matter) plays around Boethius’ idea that God has Providence (where everything is unified and unchangeable, future is past and both are present…), but that this does not mean that free will cannot exist.
"How terrible the need of God"
= Kofi Annan =
There are two questions on Boethius’ mind that leads to the existence of his book “The Consolation of Philosophy” One is about the concept of evil and the other is about free will. In the book, Boethius uses a figurative Lady Philosophy to answer his questions, which I think reveals the reason why he actually writes this book, to me it is to comfort himself. Sometimes, people just cannot coordinate their thoughts and writing about them would be the answer because everything looks so much in order.
In order to explain the concept of evil, Boethius uses two other concepts, Providence and Fate. I think, those concepts are really important to human lives but they’re about a totally different question and Boethius still would make sense without mentioning them. According to him, we cannot group people as good or bad because in real life they would be like less good and less bad, the idea in which that I am totally agree with him. Boethius continues saying that it is God who can know the inner position of a man and human perception can fail. It may be true but this statement shows that it is just the inner feelings of people that matters, which is injustice to me. Do we count a man as evil, if he is a bad person inside but just to show off for example helps the others a lot? According to Boethius yes, but to me the answer is no.
The concepts of Providence and Fate are self-explanatory as Providence being the divine thought and Fate being the coming to existence part. Boethius also brings the question of freewill to a simple explanation. Stating that what we live doesn’t consist of only necessities and only the necessities part of life is subject to God, the rest of it is the creation of our freewill and God is the observer. However, since he is divine he can foreknowledge things also. In our religion, the concept of Providence is so similar but not the concept of freewill. Our religion says that God gives you a mind to think and freewill to make your choices but because it is him who gives you that mind and freewill (because he is the creator) he can foreknowledge what you will choose and knows is before you’re born. The idea that is common in two views is the fact that there are some things that are necessities such as being born and dying and human have no freewill on those.
The book Boethius wrote ‘The Consolation of a Philosophy’ help me understand the difference between Providence and Fate, between the divine mind and the series of actions that make the Providence come true.
When Boethius wrote his book, he was suffering, he was living his last days in jail. He wrote his notes in agony.
The actions we make are of two types; the ones we make from our own will and the ones beyond our own will. Providence is the plan of divine mind, which we aren’t capable of control whereas Fate is affected by the actions we are capable of carrying out. Therefore, Fate is subject to Providence.
God created the world such that everything has a reason leading to Good. Since humans can’t judge everything correctly, what seems to be wrong to us might be just and right. We can’t say that humans are capable of judging things correctly since one may appreciate an action whereas the other may loathe. The human mind is limited compared to the divine mind.
The justice always win since everything is directed to the Good. When one who experienced poverty gets rich, even if that’s a bad person will try hard not to lose his wealth, behaving in a good way. He will become a good person.
In short, one can change the Fate but not the Providence.
and yes berkecan, Kofi Annan was the Shepherd.
The problems occur after each other. There’s no period of time when one has no problems.
The series of events occurring in life have reasons which are the representations of God’s mind, no one can change the causes. The divine mind, God’s mind is ‘Providence’, which is unchangeable. When the divine mind sets its reasons into actions, it is called ‘Fate’, which is changeable by us, humans. Providence puts things into order.
The divine mind, Providence doesn’t belong to a certain time, it is all over the time. It can foresee everything. Fate, on the other hand belongs to the present, the moment we live in. It can’t foresee what will happen. Fate depends on Providence since Providence makes Fate happen in time.
Fate is the series of actions that have their source from the unchangeable Providence. Thus, we say that the order of events is unchangeable too. Without this unchangeable order of events, all would be chaotic. All of the events are directed to the Good, the divine mind, God.
Since humans are not perfect, their judgments can’t be perfect either. If human judgment was perfect, then there wouldn’t be a need for jury in trials. The idea of only one person would be enough in order to punish or forgive a victim for his/her actions.
One shouldn’t judge another from his/her appearance to be good or bad since our mind is limited with Fate whereas Providence can see the inner conditions of the person. This is what we do very frequently: judging people through their appearance. I doubt if one would like to be friends at first with a person who has very old clothes. Till the day we have glasses that show us the inner conditions of the person, we shouldn’t judge one till we know him/her.
The day when there will be an earthquake is known by Providence since Providence can see the events that aren’t unfolded yet. But us, humans are limited with Fate, which prevents us from seeing the future, the time of an earthquake. If we were capable of foreseeing, then the damages of the earthquake of 1999 in Turkey would be much less since the precautions would be taken.
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