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The manner in which Cicero addresses himself to the task of refuting
the Stoics, shows that he did not think he could effect anything
against them in argument unless he had first demolished divination.
And this he attempts to accomplish by denying that there is any
knowledge of future things, and maintains with all his might that there
is no such knowledge either in God or man, and that there is no
prediction of events. Thus he both denies the foreknowledge of God,
and attempts by vain arguments, and by opposing to himself certain
oracles very easy to be refuted, to overthrow all prophecy, even such
as is clearer than the light (though even these oracles are not refuted
by him).
But, in refuting these conjectures of the mathematicians, his
argument is triumphant, because truly these are such as destroy and
refute themselves. Nevertheless, they are far more tolerable who
assert the fatal influence of the stars than they who deny the
foreknowledge of future events. For, to confess that God exists,
and at the same time to deny that He has foreknowledge of future
things, is the most manifest folly. This Cicero himself saw, and
therefore attempted to assert the doctrine embodied in the words of
Scripture, "The feel hath said in his heart, There is no God."
That, however, he did not do in his own person, for he saw how
odious and offensive such an opinion would be; and therefore, in his
book on the nature of the gods, he makes Cotta dispute concerning this
against the Stoics, and preferred to give his own opinion in favor of
Lucilius Balbus, to whom he assigned the defence of the Stoical
position, rather than in favor of Cotta, who maintained that no
divinity exists. However, in his book on divination, he in his own
person most openly opposes the doctrine of the prescience of future
things. But all this he seems to do in order that he may not grant the
doctrine of fate, and by so doing destroy free will. For he thinks
that, the knowledge of future things being once conceded, fate follows
as so necessary a consequence that it cannot be denied.
But, let these perplexing debatings and disputations of the
philosophers go on as they may, we, in order that we may confess the
most high and true God Himself, do confess His will, supreme
power, and prescience. Neither let us be afraid lest, after all, we
do not do by will that which we do by will, because He, whose
foreknowledge is infallible, foreknew that we would do it. It was
this which Cicero was afraid of, and therefore opposed foreknowledge.
The Stoics also maintained that all things do not come to pass by
necessity, although they contended that all things happen according to
destiny. What is it, then, that Cicero feared in the prescience of
future things? Doubtless it was this, that if all future things have
been foreknown, they will happen in the order in which they have been
foreknown; and if they come to pass in this order, there is a certain
order of things foreknown by God; and if a certain order of things,
then a certain order of causes, for nothing can happen which is not
preceded by some efficient cause. But if there is a certain order of
causes according to which everything happens which does happen, then by
fate, says he, all things happen which do happen. But if this be
so, then is there nothing in our own power, and there is no such thing
as freedom of will; and if we grant that, says he, the whole economy
of human life is subverted. In vain are laws enacted. In vain are
reproaches, praises, chidings, exhortations had recourse to; and
there is no justice whatever in the appointment of rewards for the
good, and punishments for the wicked. And that consequences so
disgraceful, and absurd, and pernicious to humanity may not follow,
Cicero chooses to reject the foreknowledge of future things, and shuts
up the religious mind to this alternative, to make choice between two
things, either that something is in our own power, or that there is
foreknowledge, both of which cannot be true; but if the one is
affirmed, the other is thereby denied. He therefore, like a truly
great and wise man, and one who consulted very much and very skillfully
for the good of humanity, of those two chose the freedom of the will,
to confirm which he denied the foreknowledge of future things; and
thus, wishing to make men free he makes them sacrilegious. But the
religious mind chooses both, confesses both, and maintains both by the
faith of piety. But how so? says Cicero; for the knowledge of
future things being granted, there follows a chain of consequences
which ends in this, that there can be nothing depending on our own free
wills. And further, if there is anything depending on our wills, we
must go backwards by the same steps of reasoning till we arrive at the
conclusion that there is no foreknowledge of future things. For we go
backwards through all the steps in the following order:, If there is
free will, all things do not happen according to fate; if all things
do not happen according to fate, there is not a certain order of
causes; and if there is not a certain order of causes, neither is
there a certain order of things foreknown by God, for things cannot
come to pass except they are preceded by efficient causes, but, if
there is no fixed and certain order of causes fore-known by God, all
things cannot be said to happen according as He foreknew that they
would happen. And further, if it is not true that all things happen
just as they have been foreknown by Him, there is not, says he, in
God any foreknowledge of future events.
Now, against the sacrilegious and impious darings of reason, we
assert both that God knows all things before they come to pass, and
that we do by our free will whatsoever we know and feel to be done by us
only because we will it. But that all things come to pass by fate, we
do not say; nay we affirm that nothing comes to pass by fate; for we
demonstrate that the name of fate, as it is wont to be used by those
who speak of fate, meaning thereby the position of the stars at the
time of each one's conception or birth, is an unmeaning word, for
astrology itself is a delusion. But an order of causes in which the
highest efficiency is attributed to the will of God, we neither deny
nor do we designate it by the name of fate, unless, perhaps, we may
understand fate to mean that which is spoken, deriving it from fari,
to speak; for we cannot deny that it is written in the sacred
Scriptures, "God hath spoken once; these two things have I heard,
that power belongeth unto God. Also unto Thee, O God, belongeth
mercy: for Thou wilt render unto every man according to his works."
Now the expression, "Once hath He spoken," is to be understood as
meaning "immovably," that is, unchangeably hath He spoken,
inasmuch as He knows unchangeably all things which shall be, and all
things which He will do. We might, then, use the word fate in the
sense it bears when derived from fari, to speak, had it not already
come to be understood in another sense, into which I am unwilling that
the hearts of men should unconsciously slide. But it does not follow
that, though there is for God a certain order of all causes, there
must therefore be nothing depending on the free exercise of our own
wills, for our wills themselves are included in that order of causes
which is certain to God, and is embraced by His foreknowledge, for
human wills are also causes of human actions; and He who foreknew all
the causes of things would certainly among those causes not have been
ignorant of our wills. For even that very concession which Cicero
himself makes is enough to refute him in this argument. For what does
it help him to say that nothing takes place without a cause, but that
every cause is not fatal, there being a fortuitous cause, a natural
cause, and a voluntary cause? It is sufficient that he confesses that
whatever happens must be preceded by a cause. For we say that those
causes which are called fortuitous are not a mere name for the absence
of causes, but are only latent, and we attribute them either to the
will of the true God, or to that of spirits of some kind or other.
And as to natural causes, we by no means separate them from the will
of Him who is the author and framer of all nature. But now as to
voluntary causes. They are referable either to God, or to angels,
or to men, or to animals of whatever description, if indeed those
instinctive movements of animals devoid of reason, by which, in
accordance with their own nature, they seek or shun various things,
are to be called wills. And when I speak of the wills of angels, I
mean either the wills of good angels, whom we call the angels of God,
or of the wicked angels, whom we call the angels of the devil, or
demons. Also by the wills of men I mean the wills either of the good
or of the wicked. And from this we conclude that there are no
efficient causes of all things which come to pass unless voluntary
causes, that is, such as belong to that nature which is the spirit of
life. For the air or wind is called spirit, but, inasmuch as it is a
body, it is not the spirit of life. The spirit of life, therefore,
which quickens all things, and is the creator of every body, and of
every created spirit, is God Himself, the uncreated spirit. In
His supreme will resides the power which acts on the wills of all
created spirits, helping the good, judging the evil, controlling
all, granting power to some, not granting it to others. For, as He
is the creator of all natures, so also is He the bestower of all
powers, not of all wills; for wicked wills are not from Him, being
contrary to nature, which is from Him. As to bodies, they are more
subject to wills: some to our wills, by which I mean the wills of all
living mortal creatures, but more to the wills of men than of beasts.
But all of them are most of all subject to the will of God, to whom
all wills also are subject, since they have no power except what He
has bestowed upon them. The cause of things, therefore, which makes
but is made, is God; but all other causes both make and are made.
Such are all created spirits, and especially the rational. Material
causes, therefore, which may rather be said to be made than to make,
are not to be reckoned among efficient causes, because they can only do
what the wills of spirits do by them. How, then, does an order of
causes which is certain to the foreknowledge of God necessitate that
there should be nothing which is dependent on our wills, when our wills
themselves have a very important place in the order of causes?
Cicero, then, contends with those who call this order of causes
fatal, or rather designate this order itself by the name of fate; to
which we have an abhorrence, especially on account of the word, which
men have become accustomed to understand as meaning what is not true.
But, whereas he denies that the order of all causes is most certain,
and perfectly clear to the prescience of God, we detest his opinion
more than the Stoics do. For he either denies that God exists,
which, indeed, in an assumed personage, he has labored to do, in his
book De Natura Deorum, or if he confesses that He exists, but
denies that He is prescient of future things, what is that but just
"the fool saying in his heart there is no God?" For one who is not
prescient of all future things is not God. Wherefore our wills also
have just so much power as God willed and foreknew that they should
have; and therefore whatever power they have, they have it within most
certain limits; and whatever they are to do, they are most assuredly
to do, for He whose foreknowledge is infallible foreknew that they
would have the power to do it, and would do it. Wherefore, if I
should choose to apply the name of fate to anything at all, I should
rather say that fate belongs to the weaker of two parties, will to the
stronger, who has the other in his power, than that the freedom of our
will is excluded by that order of causes, which, by an unusual
application of the word peculiar to themselves, the Stoics call
Fate.
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