display all the ideas for this combination of texts
15 ideas
9111 | God is not wise, but more-than-wise; God is not good, but more-than-good [William of Ockham] |
Full Idea: God is not wise, but more-than-wise; God is not good, but more-than-good. | |
From: William of Ockham (Reportatio [1330], III Q viii) | |
A reaction: [He is quoting 'Damascene'] I quote this for interest, but I very much doubt whether Damascene or William knew what it meant, and I certainly don't. There seems to have been a politically correct desire to invent super-powers for God. |
2645 | Why shouldn't the gods fear their own destruction? [Cicero] |
Full Idea: Why should the gods not be apprehensive of their own possible dissolution? | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.114) |
2627 | I wonder whether loss of reverence for the gods would mean the end of all virtue [Cicero] |
Full Idea: I do not know whether, if our reverence for the gods were lost, we should not also see the end of good faith, of human brotherhood, and even of justice itself, which is the keystone of all the virtues. | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.3) |
2651 | God doesn't obey the laws of nature; they are subject to the law of God [Cicero] |
Full Idea: God is not subject to obey the laws of nature. It is nature that is subject to the laws of God. | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], II.77) |
2634 | It seems clear to me that we have an innate idea of the divine [Cicero] |
Full Idea: Let us take it as agreed that we have a preconception or "an innate idea" (as I have called it) or a prior knowledge of the divine. | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.44) |
2636 | Many primitive people know nothing of the gods [Cicero] |
Full Idea: There must be many wild and primitive peoples who have no idea of the gods at all. | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.62) |
2647 | It is obvious from order that someone is in charge, as when we visit a gymnasium [Cicero] |
Full Idea: If one comes into a gymnasium and sees everything properly arranged and carried on in order, one does not imagine these arrangements to be accidental, but infers that there is someone in command whose orders are obeyed. | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], II.15) |
2650 | If a person cannot feel the power of God when looking at the stars, they are probably incapable of feeling [Cicero] |
Full Idea: If any man cannot feel the power of God when he looks upon the stars, then I doubt whether he is capable of any feeling at all. | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], II.55) |
2655 | If the barbarians of Britain saw a complex machine, they would be baffled, but would know it was designed [Cicero] |
Full Idea: If someone were to take the celestial globe of Posidonius and show it to the people of Britain, would a single one of those barbarians fail to see that it was the product of a conscious intelligence? | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], II.88) |
2656 | Chance is no more likely to create the world than spilling lots of letters is likely to create a famous poem [Cicero] |
Full Idea: If someone thinks chance made the world, he should also think that if an infinite number of the letters of the alphabet were shaken together and poured out on the ground it would be possible for them to spell out the whole 'Annals' of Ennius. | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], II.93) |
2657 | If everything with regular movement and order is divine, then recurrent illnesses must be divine [Cicero] |
Full Idea: Are we to find a divinity in every regular movement and in everything which happens in a constant order? If so, we shall have to say that tertian and quartan agues are divine because their course and recurrence is absolutely uniform. | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], III.24) |
2638 | Either the gods are identical, or one is more beautiful than another [Cicero] |
Full Idea: Are the gods all exactly the same? If not, then one must be more beautiful than another. | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.80) |
2635 | The gods are happy, so virtuous, so rational, so must have human shape [Cicero] |
Full Idea: We agree the gods are happy, and no happiness is possible without virtue: there is no virtue without reason: and reason is associated only with the human form: then it must follow that the gods themselves have human shape. | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.48) |
9112 | We could never form a concept of God's wisdom if we couldn't abstract it from creatures [William of Ockham] |
Full Idea: What we abstract is said to belong to perfection in so far as it can be predicated of God and can stand for Him. For if such a concept could not be abstracted from a creature, then in this life we could not arrive at a cognition of God's wisdom. | |
From: William of Ockham (Reportatio [1330], III Q viii) | |
A reaction: This seems to be the germ of an important argument. Without the ability to abstract from what is experienced, we would not be able to apply general concepts to things which are beyond experience. It is a key idea for empiricism. |
2641 | Why believe in gods if you have never seen them? [Cicero] |
Full Idea: Did you ever actually see a god? Then why do you believe that gods exist? | |
From: M. Tullius Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') [c.44 BCE], I.88) |