This discussion, which is edited from our Garden of Epicurus FB group discussion on the Gods, is a follow-up to similar discussions from previous years. You may read Dialogues on the Epicurean Gods, the essay For there ARE Gods and Principal Doctrine 1: On the Utility of the Epicurean Gods to be appraised of the controversies. You may instead watch this short video, which summarizes the matter.
This is the second Dialogue on the Epicurean Gods that we at SoFE edit for publication, in order to further clarify our ideas about the subject for the benefit of present and future students.
Second Dialogue on the Epicurean Gods
Alan. Unfortunately, even recently, and in spite of progress in the study of Epicurean philosophy, Epicurus has still been stubbornly regarded as an atheist: yet anyone who believes this has not taken Epicurus’s texts into consideration and refuses to recognize the decisive role that theology plays in Epicurus’ system. Those who think Epicurus was an atheist would do well to meditate carefully on a passage in Philodemus’ De pietate, where, making due allowance for its apologetic purpose, the philosopher from Gadara furnishes an important piece of information:
“those who eliminate the divine from existing things (tōn ontōn) Epicurus reproached for their complete madness, as in Book 12 (sc. of On Nature) he reproaches Prodicus, Diagoras, and Critias among others, saying that they rave like lunatics, and he likens them to Bacchant revelers, admonishing them not to trouble or disturb us.” – Oxford Handbook of Epicurus and Epicureanism, Theology
Hiram. It’s curious that he compares them negatively to the Dionysian revelers, because the word he used for his ambassadors was “kathegemones” (=guides), and the priests of Dionysus (at least in the city of Pergamon) were also known as Kathegemones. It seems like he wanted the Epicurean Guides to model themselves, in some way, after Dionysian priests. It seems from this quote that the type of “guiding” that these priests did was very different from the mysteries of the Maenads.
We should ask ourselves: Why would Epicurus choose to name his representatives after Guides of a mystery religion? In what way is the role of the Epicurean Guides supposed to be similar to that of the Dionysian guides (even if in other ways the cult of Dionysus is worthy of objection)?
Alan. That’s an interesting question. I’ll let you know if the Oxford Handbook has any insight on it. There is a portion of the theology chapter on the topic of ‘Epicurean priests’.
Marcus. Yes, there were Epicurean priests! Ancient polytheism was no monolith.
Hiram. I don’t have that book so look forward to your report on that. I’m very interested in what that chapter says.
Epicurus establishes, according to Philodemus’ Peri Eusebeias, a cognitive purity code (he says: “Believe anything of the gods so long as it doesn’t violate their incorruptibility and blessedness”), so the role of the “reformed” faith with Epicurean priests would have been, in part, to ensure that this doctrinal purity code was applied while carrying out whatever their religious techniques were.
Alan. Here’s what they have to offer:
“Epicurean Priests
Given this picture [of the intense Epicurean critique of providential order in the universe], and in view of the latter position in particular [that followers of Epicurus are exhorted to revere the traditional gods but stripped of their Homeric qualities], it will come as no surprise that there are attested (especially through epigraphy) Epicureans in priestly offices. We limit ourselves to noting: (1) Tiberius Claudius Lepidus (second century ce), an important representative of the Epicurean community in Amastris, a coastal city in Paphlagonia, who was priest and head of the College of Augustales in charge of the imperial cult (see the testimony of Lucian of Samosata in his Alexander or the False Prophet); and (2) Aurelius Belius Philippus, who in an inscription (dated to the time of Hadrian or a little later) appears as “priest (hiereus) and diadochus of the Epicureans in Apamea.” As one may readily imagine, the question is as delicate as it is controversial, and hence widely debated. One plausible answer—which takes account, on the one hand, of the blessed and incorruptible life that is led by the gods and, on the other hand, of the Epicurean rejection of any divine activity and, connected to this, their denial of providence and of prophecy—may be found in the idea that the gods are models or regulative ideals to which all people (but especially the sophoi, the wise “friends of the gods”: see the third passage of Philodemus, gathered under Usener 386) should (or at least try to) conform.
Maintaining that the gods are models does not at all mean diminishing the role that they play, especially if we bear in mind that “conforming” in this world and to the extent possible to the blessed and perfect life of the gods is not an “ideal” undertaking, lacking any relation to reality. The conclusion to the Epistle to Menoeceus invites the addressee (who is simultaneously individual and general) to meditate on the central ethical issues in the letter; in this way it will be possible to avoid perturbation and to live like a god among men (hōs theos en anthrōpois), and thus to achieve in practice the highest realization of happiness (eudaimonia). We find the same idea expressed in the Epistle to Menoeceus also in Lucretius, where he affirms that it is not impossible, here and now, to lead a life like that of the gods (Lucr. DRN 3.322: dignam dis degere vitam).
The expression employed by Epicurus in the letter is quite strong and, if Epicurean theology has any meaning at all, it should be found just here in the conclusion to the Epistle to Menoeceus: to live like a god among men means to envision divinity not as something distant (although it is so, in fact, from a strictly physical and local point of view) and so insignificant, but rather as representing a practical possibility of realizing here and now the ideal of life proposed by Epicurus and of attaining happiness in a lasting way, enjoying in this life (the only one we have) pleasure (understood as the absence of pain: cf. Ep. Men. 131). Thus, the role played by the gods cannot be other than ethical, and it is significant that Epicurus very likely again justified this “function” in physical terms.”
Hiram. Ok, so this is only tangential: priests here is “hiereus”, and also these are priests outside of the Garden who happened to be Epicurean, not the “Kathegemones” that he instituted … except for Aurelius Belius Philippus.
Michael. For what it’s worth, Kathegemon is a pretty general word. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t have religious overtones generally.
Eileen. Lucretius often uses the gods’ names metaphorically so I’m not sure that we should assume a belief in literal gods. But even if we do, what is the relevance of gods that don’t pay any attention to humans? Who can’t be propitiated or angered by anything we say, do, fail to say, or fail to do? Functionally speaking, this outlook strikes me as no different from atheism.
Alan. You may also find an answer to your question in the Oxford Handbook.
“Clearly, one place where someone might push the Epicureans’ theory is on the question of why they are so confident that some of their views, for instance in atomism and in theology, are not similarly susceptible of multiple explanations. The threat to their atomist theology seems especially strong, as Seneca was to insist in defending the providential and teleological views of Stoicism. But Epicureans were adamant in maintaining their view of anthropomorphic gods that are physically incorruptible, live in a state of psychic blessedness, and have absolutely no concern for human beings. This latter claim opened them to the charge of atheism from early on, and along with their denial of the immortality of the soul, was a key reason why, unlike Aristotle and Plato, Epicureanism seems to have completely disappeared from the Islamic and Byzantine philosophical traditions. Interestingly, Epicurus held up the life of the gods as an ethical model in many areas of his philosophy (e.g. friendship) and insisted that mortals can aspire to similar states of untroubled blessedness, all the while emphasizing our mortality and the fact that after our deaths we will be nothing.”
And elsewhere:
“Alongside the passages from Cicero and Lucretius, we may add an important text of the middle Platonic philosopher Atticus, recorded by Eusebius of Caesarea (des Places fr. 3 p. 48.63–65, ap. Eus. PE 15.5.7 = Usener 385), who deemed the absence of providence in Aristotle more impious than the same doctrine in Epicurus. In this passage, Atticus writes that, according to Epicurus, human beings derive a benefit (onēsis) from the gods: their better emanations (beltionas aporrhoias) are accessory causes (or “co-causes”: paraitias) of many good things for those who partake of them. Atticus is right not to attribute to the Epicurean gods any “pure” or “absolute” causality—that would result in a patent contradiction with Epicurus’s philosophy—but to speak more modestly of “co-causes” or paraitiai, although in the Epicurean tradition itself there are not lacking those who regarded the divine nature as a cause. This is the case with the Epicurean Polyaenus (Tepedino Guerra fr. 29) who, in the first book of his On Philosophy (Peri philosophias), maintained, according to what Philodemus reports in the De pietate, that the divine nature (theia physis) is the perfect cause (autotelousan . . . aitian) for us (hēmin) of the greatest pleasures (hēdonōn tōn megistōn). In any case, Atticus reports that the better emanations of the gods (the reference is, of course, to the divine simulacra) are able to provide a benefit, that is, a profit directly bound up with that imperturbability that the gods enjoy eternally and which, for those who adopt the philosophy of Epicurus, is an actual and real possibility that they are called upon to realize in practice, if they wish to achieve a truly genuine and lasting happiness.
On the basis of Atticus’s testimony and the other parallel sources, the veneration of the gods acquires an ethical value of the highest order, even as it coexists with the inactivity of the divine and the absence of providence. The simulacra of the gods, then, bring benefits, and thus to participate in prayers and in religious ceremonies (cf. Diog. Oen. fr. 19 II 6–11 Smith) means to “interiorize” in an effective way the (pleasurable) divine simulacra and to put into practice the commitment to become like a god among men.
In this sense, the gods are not only ethical models and regulative ideals, introduced by Epicurus solely in order to render his philosophical system consistent with his recognition of beings that are eternally and genuinely imperturbable. Epicurus’s gods also become figures highly relevant to our ethical life, playing a role that is at least indirectly active (although without any deliberate intention on their part), in virtue of the benefits that their simulacra bring us in practice on the not always easy road toward assimilation to god (homoiōsis theōi), which has a Platonic pedigree (cf. Theaet. 176a–b) but is totally of this world and bounded by the limits of this life. This is why, in Epicurus’s philosophy, veneration (sebasmos) of the gods is often confused with veneration of the Epicurean sages (at the head of the list are the kathēgēmones or andres of the Kepos: Epicurus, Metrodorus, Polyaenus, and Hermarchus), as happens, for example, in the anonymous treatise on ethical matters contained in P.Herc. 346.”
And another:
“Epicurus’s and the Epicureans’ interest in theology and their admission of the existence of divinities is indeed well attested in Epicurus’s own fragments and in Philodemus (On Gods 3, col. 10.34–38). Epicurus thinks that simulacra come to human beings from the divinities, composed by finest and subtlest atoms, which constitute a “quasi-body,” endowed with a “quasi-blood.” These simulacra come from the intermundia and can reach humans while they are awake and while they are asleep; thence comes the human notion of the divinities, a “clear” or “manifest” (ἐναργής) pre-notion.
Due to the fineness of those simulacra, human beings cannot grasp them by means of their sense-perception, but by a representative intuition of their mind (ἐπιβολὴ φανταστικὴ τῆς διανοίας). Pre-notions of the gods are common to all human beings, independently of their culture and race. Epicurus even produces a proof of the existence of the gods in Usener 352, preserved by Cicero ND 1.16.43, who translates πρόληψις by anticipatio: the very universality of these pre-notions of the divinities proves the existence of the gods.
Another way to arrive at the deities, according to Epicurus, is by inference: on the basis of the principle of isonomia or equivalence in the universe, human beings in the world(s) must correspond to the same number of divinities in the intermundia. The loss of atoms due to the continual emanation of simulacra is compensated by an uninterrupted inflow; this is why the deities are never destroyed (Cic. ND 1.19.50, 39.109): they push away destructive atoms (Arrighetti fr. 183). 28 The gods not only exist, according to Epicurus, but they are also models of happiness, and therefore they serve as ethical models for human beings.
However, since their perfect happiness rests on their ataraxia (Arrighetti fr. 184), 30 they cannot care for humans and their vicissitudes. Hence the Epicurean doctrine of the absence of providence and of teleology, as well as the denial of Fate and divination.”
Hiram. Some perspective: Epicurus always employed clarity in his speech, so when he says at the closing of Menoeceus that we will live like immortals among mortals, he must have placed before the eyes of his disciples the lifestyle and life state of these immortals, what their relations are like, what their blissful lives are like. He would not have used empty words. So this contemplative exercise has an ethical and educational utility. Regardless of an individual’s stance on either of the three interpretations of the Epicurean gods, a sincere student should not dismiss the intended utility and medicine of the First Doctrine, or his ethical education will be incomplete. (In LMenoeceus this is mentioned first among the elements of right living, so placing this before our eyes if of great importance).
Richard. Did Epicurus believe that he and his followers could become immortal?
Hiram. No. Epicurus taught his followers that immortality, for us, is neither natural nor necessary. So for example Philodemus said we should try to be harmless like the gods and imitate their blessedness “insofar as mortals are capable of doing so”. They’re just ethical models that point to the highest standard of living that is naturally available to sentient beings. We can also think of them as an early example of science fiction, since we don’t believe in the supernatural. Sometimes I think of religion as art, and gods / imagery in religion as poetry. In fact, the word for placing before the eyes in modern Greek (“visualization”) is optic-poeisia, which sounds like optical poetry.
Richard. I couldn’t agree more. So, when he used the word ‘immortal’, he wasn’t literally saying, “We can be immortal”, he was using the word in a poetic, open-minded way, to invoke ideas. I would suggest that he could have been doing the same with the notion of ‘divine natural beings’. I’m not saying that he did; I don’t know. But I see no reason to be negative towards someone who sees it this way.
Hiram. If you read Peri Eusebeias by Philodemus (“On piety”) you see that their level of sophistication in speculating about extraterrestrial life is considerable. There, Metrodorus seems to have been entertaining an idea of a colonial organism being godlike and potentially immortal. Our theology is basically science fiction.
Alan. If we ground ourselves in historical context, all of the players who considered Epicurus an advocate of atheism were his detractors from neo-Platonism, Stoicism, and Christianity, etc. Nobody in this group minds if any of us today profess atheism. It is totally compatible with our expanded interpretation of Epicureanism that unshackles itself from the most dogmatic ancient version of itself. What doesn’t really seem up for debate, and what both the quoted scholars and the consensus here now support, is that an innocent/non-cynical/non-malicious, plain-faced reading of the Epicurean sources indicates that Epicurus wasn’t an atheist. “For gods there are, our knowledge of them is clear” are not the words of an atheist.
We can never know, as the above quote admits, what Epicurus’ secret thoughts were. However, there is a methodology, grounded in textual analysis and exegesis, for establishing what positions ancient authors held. All we have to characterize Epicurus’ beliefs are the texts, which incontrovertibly lead us to the conclusion that he believed in gods and wasn’t an atheist by the contemporary historical understanding of the word. (And, if I myself would say publicly “there are gods, our knowledge of them is clear” yet privately considered myself an atheist, in the sense of ‘there are no gods’, then someone would be correct to label me insincere.)
Now, if we want to argue that, using the modern understanding of the word ‘atheist’ as someone who rejects the God of traditional theism, Epicurus could effectively be an atheist, well, that’s possible but it would be an anachronistic characterization and we’d really just be debating semantics and the modern definition of atheism at that point (something Epicurus wouldn’t want us to waste our time doing, hence his proleptical definition of gods as ‘immortal and blessed beings’). If that still doesn’t clear up our misgivings then I would direct you to VS 62 and would request that we turn this conversation around for the sake of fostering good will.
Hiram. It is the official position of the SoFE that the atheist interpretation is one of the three acceptable opinions that we may hold today and still be part of the SoFE. But it’s another thing to say that Epicurus held this view secretly, which raises questions about his character and the character of his friends that we have no reason to raise based on what we know, particularly considering that Epicurus himself called several atheists, by name, Dionysian revelers, and had to defend himself from their insults and attacks. So we may be atheists, but we’re not historical revisionists. It’s possible to state that _Epicurus_ held the realist view and that _we_ hold the non-realist or atheist view.
Theodorus “the Godless” was not an atheist in the modern sense also, or even in the ancient sense (in spite of the epithet he was given), in fact he was more like Epicurus 🙂 and Epicurus’ theology is said to be based on Theodorus’ doctrines. This is why we should invest less passion in this subject, because our definitions of gods and of atheism are different from theirs back then. That’s why the founders used the definition of the gods rather than the word “gods” in Principal Doctrine 1: they trusted the definition more than the word, which would have been misinterpreted. In the Theodorus essay I say:
“Diogenes Laertius claims that Epicurus took most of what he said about the gods from Theodorus the Godless, who apparently wrote a scroll (lost to us) titled “On the Gods”. His later followers, the Theodorans, were known for their polemics and attacks on other philosophers.”
Richard. Out of curiosity, if Epicurus was alive now and still held to his position of ‘advanced natural beings’ elsewhere in the universe, would you call him an atheist?
Hiram. Yes. If he was alive today, his theology would be considered science fiction and/or astrobiology.
Richard. So, even though his naturalistic views haven’t changed, you wouldn’t see him as an atheist because he lived in the past?
Hiram. I’m not as concerned about adopting the atheist label as you seem to be, although I am one. Your question was a hypothetical, saying: “IF Epicurus lived TODAY”. If that had been the case, my opinion is that he would not have been calling his theory theology but astrobiology.
But since he lived 2,300 years ago, he called it theology, as speculation about alien life was not mainstream and seems to have been limited to the atomists. So he found the words in his culture and used them. Gods were the denizens of heaven (today it might be angels maybe, and in fact there are Christians who theorize that angels are our “big brothers” in other planets).
Matt. I usually stay away from the gods discussion, since that is what originally caused me depart from the Epicurean discussion groups a few years ago. This topic is probably one of the more divisive ones and often generates significant commentary … which amazing since so little is known about the fullness of Epicurus’s theology. The Epicurean gods, no matter how you slice it, are VERY different from most other deities whether Greek, Hindu, Northern European or Middle Eastern in their role and lack of administration. Someone coming from a modern Islamic or Hindu background (as an example) would find the ideas to be rather alien. It may have been an easier transition for the pagan believers of that era to accept Epicurus’s ideas as opposed to modern religions today that have very specific qualifications as to what a god is or is not.
Alan. The common thread among other religions’ ideation of divinity is in their willingness to intervene on behalf of humans and participate in their events. That is a commonality that you could easily draw between the Homeric gods of Olympus and the Hindu pantheon. (So the purified gods of Epicurus would likely have seemed as foreign to the Greeks as to Hindus if they could have heard his message). The error in all of these ‘religios’ would be that their assent to the idea of interventional gods ultimately results in paranoia and fear, preventing ataraxia. It seems established beyond a doubt (by consensus of academic scholars of Epicurus and by our own koinonia, or tradition of practitioners) though that the study and integration of theology was necessary for the moral development of followers of Epicureanism.
Matt. I very much agree. The issue of intervention is one of the lynchpin issues I think that really drove the wedge between the theology of Epicurus and the religions of the time. In many of these religions, God is known by his positive or cataphatic qualities and acts with energy, and is a causal agent. Whereas, EP’s divinities are not, even though they are “real” but hold no administration. This is why it is so difficult to convince a religious person who holds the truth of the divine to be one that god acts and is the cause, that EP’s gods are relevant.
For the pagan of that time, it probably was an easier transition. It wasn’t a terrible leap to see the gods as inaccessible role models that sacrifices were made to in the temple. The pious continued to be pious by making propitiations that may or may not ever be answered.
But for the zealous Christian, who believed Jesus was God incarnate and performed all that was written and testified about him, would find Epicurus’s position to be a dressed up form of atheism, from a deeply theological perspective. The Christians of the time would’ve found more similarities in Stoic and Neoplatonic concepts, and used their philosophical attacks on Epicurus as their own … though even Stoicism and Neoplatonism themselves weren’t safe or off-limits for condemnation from some apologists.
This is why the Al-Ghazalis and Tertullians railed against all forms of Greek philosophy, not just Epicureanism….in fact Epicurus wasn’t even the main person being attacked or even thought of.
Alan. My ultimate intended point here was just that we should not be afraid or intimidated by the anticipated difficulty of the discussions that attend and surround issues of divinity, especially in this group. Those with an open mind, who are soft rather than rigid, will be able to hear what is being said and evaluate for themselves the utility of its integration.
David. There are many who feel a genuine need for a god figure in their lives. When studying, what are often alien cultures and beliefs, they try desperately to weave a god figure into that which they are observing.
Alan. The projection of human frailties on the divine is one of the first errors made by the impious.
Hiram. But humans also project their strengths and faculties on the Gods, so Epicurus May have been saying “we should not force nature but gently persuade her” as in VS 21, and taming this tendency to extract ethical utility.
David. As a Taoist I can totally agree that we should not force nature, I can even go further and say the very idea of forcing “nature” is preposterous.
Alan. By what means they acquired the attributes of indestructibility and immortality, I do not know.
Michael. I’m not aware of anything on the creation of the divine. Demetrius Laco, in the treatise called “sulla forma del dio” (“On the Shape of God”) by its Italian editor, seems to try to explain their indestructibility and immortality as a result of their very fine atomic constitutions, but the text is badly damaged and it’s not clear how exactly that’s supposed to work.
Marcus. Based on everything I’ve read from ancient sources and scholars, it seems like the early Epicureans were never the victims of accusations of impiety and were more criticized for their hedonism. By the time of Philodemus and Cicero, Epicureans were being accused of atheism which led to philosophers like Philodemus to defend Epicurus’ piety as he does in On Piety.
I guess the relevant debate for modern Epicureans is less about the existence of the gods and more whether or not Epicurean religious practices today can be of any psychological benefit, as Epicurus thought. After all, Buddhist meditation is connected to all kinds of superstition and can still be beneficial to people. Could Epicurean exercises of contemplation of divine beings as models of perfection (even if imaginary) be of any use?
Michael. I think not just the religious practices, however they’re understood, but also the community around them is important: if nothing else, church services and Epicurean feasts on the 20th are both social, communal gatherings. There’s importance in that as well.
It certainly seems that for Epicureans, the gods did serve mostly as an ideal, that’s true. But it also doesn’t mean that they didn’t exist. We have an awful lot of description from Philodemus about them (e.g. they speak Greek to each other, are friends, and have no desire to commit adultery) and Demetrius Laco seems to tie himself into knots trying to explain the physics of their bodily constitutions. (A die-hard believer in the “thought-construct school” could dismiss that as later Epicureans misunderstanding Epicurus, but that seems pretty difficult to me.)
Alan. To add more context to this conversation, the text in the Handbook after the Philodemus quote continues:
“The passage in Philodemus constitutes a further argument against the hypothesis that the Epicurean gods were projections or mental constructs: it would be illogical and indeed inconsistent to treat the gods as thought constructs and at the same time reproach atheists for their denial of the real existence of divinities.”
So it seems that the ancient Epicureans would have rejected the atheist and idealist interpretations and instead insisted on the realist interpretation.
For a treatment of how the Epicureans justified their knowledge of the gods (remember the letter to Menoeceus: “For the gods exist (theoi men gar eisin): our knowledge of them is evident (enargēs gar autōn estin hē gnōsis)”), let’s examine this passage from the Handbook:
“Epicurus’s and the Epicureans’ interest in theology and their admission of the existence of divinities is indeed well attested in Epicurus’s own fragments and in Philodemus (On Gods 3, col. 10.34–38). Epicurus thinks that simulacra come to human beings from the divinities, composed by finest and subtlest atoms, which constitute a “quasi-body,” endowed with a “quasi-blood.” These simulacra come from the intermundia and can reach humans while they are awake and while they are asleep; thence comes the human notion of the divinities, a “clear” or “manifest” (ἐναργής) pre-notion. Due to the fineness of those simulacra, human beings cannot grasp them by means of their sense-perception, but by a representative intuition of their mind (ἐπιβολὴ φανταστικὴ τῆς διανοίας). Pre-notions of the gods are common to all human beings, independently of their culture and race. Epicurus even produces a proof of the existence of the gods in Usener 352, preserved by Cicero ND 1.16.43, who translates πρόληψις by anticipatio: the very universality of these pre-notions of the divinities proves the existence of the gods. Another way to arrive at the deities, according to Epicurus, is by inference: on the basis of the principle of isonomia or equivalence in the universe, human beings in the world(s) must correspond to the same number of divinities in the intermundia. The loss of atoms due to the continual emanation of simulacra is compensated by an uninterrupted inflow; this is why the deities are never destroyed (Cic. ND 1.19.50, 39.109): they push away destructive atoms (Arrighetti fr. 183). The gods not only exist, according to Epicurus, but they are also models of happiness, and therefore they serve as ethical models for human beings. However, since their perfect happiness rests on their ataraxia (Arrighetti fr. 184), they cannot care for humans and their vicissitudes. Hence the Epicurean doctrine of the absence of providence and of teleology, as well as the denial of Fate and divination.”
So there are three arguments outlined in support of the real and clear existence of divinities, in descending order of importance:
1) The self-evidence (enargeia) of the simulacra or eidola that emanate from the quasi-bodies of the divine in the metakosmia, striking us while awake or sleeping. The atoms of their emanations are so fine as to be imperceptible to our senses, but graspable only in prolepsis.
2) An appeal to the universality of the prolepsis of divinity (is this not similar to the argumentum ad populum?)
3) The isonomic (iso=equal, nomos=law) argument, a kind of analogical inference based on the tendency of nature to produce uniformity. Isonomic arguments are also how the atomists justified the innumerable worlds doctrine.
… Would you reword the Letter to Menoeceus (the only complete work on ethics remaining in Epicurus’ own words) or just not accept the treatment of the gods contained in it?
Richard. I would place it in the context of the time. “Our knowledge of them is evident” seems a direct contradiction of Epicurus’s position about knowledge.
Jason. Inference carries great weight in the pleasure principle. We only study nature to decrease fears about the unknown. It is easy to reject gods wholecloth today with the effective separation of church and state. Religion is a private matter. Not so in Epicurus’ time. One was expected to participate in public ritual or face exile. There is little existential motivation to square one’s disbelief in the supernatural with continued participation in public worship today if you are a naturalist.
If we start from first principles and explore the universe in our minds, as we know Epicurus did in the descriptions we have of his volumes On Nature, we might arrive at the same sort of conclusion that Carl Sagan did. Superior beings must live in the universe and to call them superior to humans they must have none of our vices and all of our virtues. Take this as close to perfection as you can conceive in a material universe and you have natural gods, the only creatures worthy of the name in a material universe. Carl Sagan was a huge advocate of adding a contact mandate to SETI because he believed that any alien race capable of contacting us MUST be superior to us in just about every way. He’s the reason for the golden plates on the Voyager probes.
Epicurus arrived at their “existence” the same way we arrive at the existence of aliens today. Given the vastness of space and time, it is a certainty that they exist. A universe without them would be preposterous. If we maximalize an alien race’s bliss, they would appear god-like to us as Epicureans and would be worthy of admiration. Admiration of the good is a pleasant activity and can have a blissful effect on the one who practices it regularly.
Richard. Carl Sagan also thought that it was possible that we are the only intelligent life in the universe, as we could be the first or the last. We just don’t know. We have no knowledge of such a species.
Alan. Jason, this is an excellent rendering of the isonomic argument for the existence of gods, a line a reasoning Epicurus himself likely used. The way you present it makes it sound more compelling than at first it seemed (in the Handbook, they only presented it as inferred by analogy that because there are so many humans, there also must be so many gods, which I think doesn’t bring the full force of the atomistic cosmology to bear on the subject.) In an infinite universe with unlimited arrangements of matter within, we can conceive of such arrangements as would produce beings sufficiently advanced from us as to be indistinguishable from the divine, to put a spin on Clarke’s aphorism.
Jason. And you have extended it beautifully with your twist on Clarke. A worthy addition to the modern meleta on the gods.
The Epicurean method of multiple explanations lands squarely on pleasure as the end and aim. It pleases me more to think that humanity is not alone in the universe. It pleases me more to say that the supernaturalists are hurting themselves in their confusion and the only creature worthy of adoration is that which is actually possible, material beings who have shucked off their vices and live like sages. A race of people whose choices and avoidances have led them to perpetual bliss.
Supernatural gods don’t exist. Epicurus was explicit that belief in them is impious. We don’t have his book On Gods but we can take a stab at what it might have contained given the fragments we have available to us. Our arguments might not be convincing but I’m certain Epicurus’ were, given how widely they were adopted, even into the priesthood of Herod’s temple.
Michael. As for your two, an argument from the consensus omnium (“Agreement of everyone”) and one from the prolepsis can look awfully similar, even though only the second really has probative force for Epicureans. But if everyone believes something, there’s likely to be some kernel of truth in it somewhere.
(Dirk Obbink (yes that Dirk Obbink) has an article in Oxford Studies in…1992? 1992-ish?…about arguments from the consensus omnium in Epicureanism and other schools.)
Alan. To be clear, are you saying that there is a distinction between a consensus omnium with regards to divine prolepses and the informal fallacy of argumentum ad populum? If we are relying on an appeal to a universal consensus to establish the real existence of something, it seems to be a rather weak argument (at least by the standards of empirical evidence that we are accustomed to employing in other areas of investigation).
Michael. No, I’m saying that the consensus omnium, in its pure form, simply is an argumentum ad populum, but that because of the way the prolepsis works (i.e. that it is universal, at least within a culture), it takes some careful phrasing or interpretation to tell an appeal to the prolepsis from an appeal to a consensus omnium. An appeal to a prolepsis is, after all, an appeal to something that *everyone* has in their head (a belief or idea or something like that, depending on what you take a prolepsis to be).
Jason. Dirk’s article is really quite good reading and clears up a LOT of misconceptions about Epicurean prolepses of the gods. Thanks for the cite , Michael. Cicero is the cause of a lot of confusion for earnest learners. Philodemus was right to condemn the lawyers.
Michael. Yeah, there’s a reason he’s had the career he’s had.
We have to use Cicero carefully: he’s usually polemical, and he’s usually writing for Roman beginners as well, whom he hopes will graduate to reading the originals in Greek. But he does have a good eye and sometimes lands a criticism or preserves a point of doctrine we wouldn’t otherwise know about.
Richard. So it’s possible to believe in more advanced life forms elsewhere in the universe AND be an atheist, right?
Alan. Yes, sure. You can reasonably hold both views.
Hiram. At SoFE we accept all three interpretations as legitimate. The founders were realists, but today Epicurean theology falls in the realm of Sci fi and speculation about astrobiology.
It is one thing to say Epicurus believed in the realist interpretation … it is a different thing to say that we believe in the same interpretation. We can have the second or third view while recognizing he adheres to the first. What we at SoFE are saying is that all three could be justified as reasonable by reasonable people.
Richard. If he saw ‘gods’ as another natural species somewhere else in the universe, was he really talking about ‘gods’ as most people would understand the word, or is he just redefining them as a get-out-clause for any accusation of heresy?
Hiram. This is an accusation–that he was insincere–made by anti-Epicureans, that we do not endorse.
If you read Epicurus’ sermon “Against the use of empty words” (or watch our youtube video on it) you’ll see that the Epicureans (like the Confucians) have a method of redefining words according to the study of nature, so that the words would be as closely aligned with the objects of our investigation as was empirically possible. THIS method was used by the first Epicureans with regards to the gods.
So the gods of supernaturalism became natural beings, the most blissful beings in the cosmos that the Epicureans were able to imagine based on their methods of studying the non-evident based on that which is available empirically.
If you read the wording of the first Principal Doctrine, you will find that the words used by the founders are not “the gods” but “blissful and immortal beings”–they use the Epicurean DEFINITION of the word “gods” instead of the word, which I think accentuates the fact that they trusted their DEFINITION of the word more than the word itself. They didn’t trust that the word accurately conveyed what they meant, so they used instead the definition. This was an ongoing issue with this and many other words, as we see in “Against empty words”. I think this attests to the fact that part of the way in which Epicurean theology came about was by attempting to apply their rules on redefinition of words according to nature to the word “gods”, so as to demystify the word and purge it from its supernatural trappings. If you consider this, you’ll begin to see some of the value that some of us see in this Doctrine.
Richard. Why would it be a problem for Epicurus to be an atheist? It all points to him not believing in ‘gods’ as most theists would define them. Why is that an issue?
Hiram. Epicurus was saying these ARE the real gods, the only gods that nature may produce. There was a _legitimate_ interest in the question of what is the life form with the highest quality of life in the cosmos, because this points to the highest ethical model achievable naturally.
Alan. Why does one have to believe in supernatural deities to be a polytheist?
As Hiram just explained, to cut the ambiguity away, Epicurus appeals directly to the proleptic intuition about the nature of the divine, giving them three essential attributes: that it is a zōion or a living entity, incorruptible (aphtharsia), and blessed (makariotēs) (which is even higher than eudaimonia).
It seems you are walking closely by Posidonius’ anti-Epicurean argument, explained in the Handbook:
“According to Posidonius, Epicurus was an atheist because at bottom he did not believe in the existence of the gods; if Epicurus allowed that the gods existed, he did so solely for the sake of convenience, that is, to deflect hostility and in particular the accusation of atheism from himself. It is obvious that Posidonius’s testimony is polemical and malicious in respect to Epicurus; but Posidonius expresses in nuce the basic features of Epicurus’s bad reputation in matters of theology, which, as we have said, were to cast a long shadow well beyond the chronological limits of the ancient world. It is obviously impossible to determine whether Epicurus, the “coryphaeus of atheism,” as Clement of Alexandria dubbed him (Strom. 1.1), was at heart an atheist; nevertheless, it is certain that, basing ourselves on what his texts say, Epicurus believed firmly and with conviction in the existence of the gods.”
The consensus is that upon taking the Epicurean texts innocently and sincerely, the only possible reasonable conclusion was that Epicurus did believe the gods to be real. Any suggested secret convictions or deception could cast into doubt the sincerity of Epicurus’ entire salvific project.
*
Closing on an intellectually humble note, we share a quote by the Guide Philodemus of Gadara from his scroll On Piety:
“It would be fitting to describe all men as impious, inasmuch as no one has been prolific in finding convincing demonstrations for the existence of the gods” – Philodemus of Gadara
Further Reading:
Dialogues on the Epicurean Gods
Principal Doctrine 1: On the Utility of the Epicurean Gods
