A2 Religious Studies- Attributes of God (Philosophy) and Boethius


Dates: 475 AD- 525 AD

Now if thy mental eye conducted be

From light to light as I resound their frame,

The eighth well worth attention thou wilt see.

The soul who pointed out the world's dark ways,

To all who listen, its deceits unfolding.

Beneath in Cieldauro lies the frame

Whence it was driven; from woe and exile to

This fair abode of peace and bliss it came.^{[21]- Dante's  Divine Comedy}

Who was the guy? An Italian poet/philosopher/ translator and politician from noble birth
What did he do? Whilst in prison for treason, Boethius wrote the 'Consolation of Philosophy':

• Boethius despairs :-o
• Lady Philosophy comes to him in a dream and consoles him...
• The book then shows the dialogue between them- Boethius the questioner and Lady Philosopher the mouthpiece for his views
• Then obviously ends with a poem (translated firstly by 6th century King Alfred, then Chaucer's Boece...
  Where lewid men might lere wit,
  Whoso that woulde translaten it.)

Book V

Develops the relationship between foreknowledge and free will.
He explore the idea that whatever God foreknows is something that must happen= whatever must happen does not happen freely= If God foreknows everything we do- we never act freely

• Super confusing
• Here's a quote that may put it in simpler terms

"There seems to be a hopeless conflict between divine foreknowledge of all things and freedom of the human will. For if God sees everything in advance and cannot be deceived in any way, whatever his providence foresees will happen, must happen."


Boethius then goes on to say that if you fools think God's predictions might not happen, then you are confused.

 

"The outcome of something known in advance must necessarily take place"

 

Then comes the first problem

If God has foreknowledge of everything, and if everything that God has foreknowledge of is certain... humans have no free will!! In Boethius' terms:

"There can be no freedom in human decisions, since the divine mind, foreseeing everything without possibility of error, determines and forces the outcome of everything that is to happen

 

DUH!

Problems abounding!

 

• No human action is ever free!
• No good action should be rewarded!
• No bad action should be punished (*cough* get out of jail free card *cough*)!
• No action can be described as 'good'
• No action can be described as 'bad'

etc. etc...

 

But then Lady Philosophy enters in all her glory. And has a solution!

At first, she gives lovely poetic and musical answers which Boethius laments sound nice, but only console him temporarily
 
Lady Philosophy replies with indignant sass that:
 “None of this is meant to be a cure for your condition, but simply a kind of application to help soothe a grief still resistant to treatment. When the time comes, I will apply something calculated to penetrate deep inside.”

In short, here comes the tough stuff. Be prepared...

 

You can have God's foreknowledge and human free will, fool!

 

Humans are confused and don't understand the difference between God and humans, and humans and prawns...Yes prawns...

Humans are able to understand things that prawns cannot. Example: humans can drive a car through reason and prawns, not to our knowledge anyway, cannot...

Likewise God's reasons and abilities are so above our own that we cannot put limits on his foreknowledge.

Lady Philosophy: God's foreknowledge and our free will just shows God's eternal nature

 

• We are inside time and bound by it, whereas God exists outside time and is free from it

 

"Only that which comprehends the whole plentitude of endless life endless life together, from which no future thing nor any past thing is absent, can justly be called eternal"

 

 

Boethius makes a critical distinction:

1. Conditional necessity- if you knew someone walking down the street at the moment= would have to be doing so at that moment
2. Simple necessity- necessary due to things involved- not God's knowledge of it.

Conditional necessity does noes not involve simple necessity.

 

 

A man walking forward is necessarily walking forward but is not necesitated to walk forward.

God's knowledge imposes only conditional necessity. He knows an act will take place= must take place but humans can act out of their own nature necessarily!

 

The absence of simple necessity allows for free will. An act can be free even though God knows it will happen. This means that free will and foreknowledge are compatible:

• human free will is secure!!
• rewards can be applied!= just
• punishments can be applied!= just

BREAKDOWN:

1. WHAT YOU KNOW DEPENDS ON YOUR NATURE

2. ETERNITY AND TIMELESSNESS PART OF GOD'S NATURE

3. IF YOU SEE ANOTHER HUMAN BEHAVING/ DOING AN ACTION= NOT FORCED INTO ACTION

4. THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SIMPLE AND CONDITIONAL NECESSITY

 

Man seeing something present before him does not make the thing necessary

 

 

God seeing something as present does not make the thing necessary either

BUT: God can know that something will take place and also know that it will not take place by necessity

          God foreshadows something= can't be any other way and in that case happens by necessity.

 

Perhaps in other ways, it could be seen that he changes roles from a mystic (simple necessity) and an observer (conditional necessity) but he is both at once.

 

"The same future event is necessary with respect to God's knowledge of it, but free and undetermined if considered in it's own nature". That's a wrap, Boethius.

 



Critical views;

• Joel Relihan (1993, 187–194; 2007)= Consolation should be understood ironically as an account of the insufficiency of Philosophy to provide consolation, by contrast with Christian faith.
 
• Peter Geach (1916- ) uses the analogy of playing chess with a grand master. Although you are free to make a move where ever you like, the grandmaster will ultimately win the game!

Question!


• ‘Boethius was successful in his argument that God rewards and punishes justly.’
  Discuss.

Mark scheme says:

 

AO1

• Candidates may begin by placing this particular aspect of beliefs about God within the general discussion about God’s attributes, briefly discussing the context of believing in a God who is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent.

• Others may begin by exploring the Boethian understanding of the nature of divine knowledge, exploring what he meant when he said that God’s knowledge was eternal. They may perhaps unpack the meaning of eternal knowledge being the ‘simultaneous possession of boundless life, which is made clearer by comparison with temporal things’.

• They may also discuss the distinction Boethius makes between two kinds of necessity,namely the simple kind and the conditional kind. This may lead them to explore what he meant by the difference being located in the addition of the condition
 
• They may also explain the way that Boethius is keen to point out that while God may know

  about an act eternally, if we look at the nature of the act in itself it is entirely free. It is for

  this reason that Boethius comes to the conclusion that God can justly reward and punish.

AO2

 

• In their assessment candidates may evaluate the extent to which Boethius in his attempt to
  solve the problem of a good God knowing what we are going to do and not influencing
  these actions in any way still being able to reward and punish ends up describing a God
  who can barely be accepted as a Christian God
• They may for example explore the consequences of a God who is so deist and uninvolved in His creation being the same God who Christians believe became incarnate to save mankind from their sins.
• Others may argue that having solved this issue in this way Boethius raised legitimate questions about the accepted Christian understanding of God

• :-)