Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Letters to Antoine Arnauld' and 'Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts


6 ideas

28. God / A. Divine Nature / 3. Divine Perfections
Stoics say that God the creator is the perfection of all animals [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Stoics say that God is an animal immortal, rational, perfect, and intellectual in his happiness, unsusceptible of any kind of evil, having a foreknowledge of the world; however, he is not the figure of a man, and is the creator of the universe.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.1.72
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / a. Divine morality
The origin of justice can only be in Zeus, and in nature [Chrysippus]
     Full Idea: One can find no other starting point or origin for justice except the one derived from Zeus and that derived from the common nature; for everything like this must have that starting point, if we are going to say anything at all about good and bad things.
     From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1035c
     A reaction: [in lost 'On Gods' bk 3] This appears to offer two starting points, in the mind of Zeus, and in nature, though since nature is presumed to be rational the two may run together. Is Zeus the embodiment, or the unconscious source, or the maker of decrees?
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / d. God decrees morality
The source of all justice is Zeus and the universal nature [Chrysippus]
     Full Idea: It is not possible to discover any other beginning of justice or any source for it other than that from Zeus and from the universal nature.
     From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE], fr 326), quoted by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1035c
     A reaction: If the source is 'universal nature', that could agree with Plato, but if the source is Zeus, then stoicism is a religion rather than a philosophy.
Stoics teach that law is identical with right reason, which is the will of Zeus [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Stoics teach that common law is identical with that right reason which pervades everything, being the same with Zeus, who is the regulator and chief manager of all existing things.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.1.53
28. God / B. Proving God / 3. Proofs of Evidence / e. Miracles
Everything, even miracles, belongs to order [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Everything, even miracles, belongs to order.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.07.4/14 X)
     A reaction: This is very reminiscent of Plato, for whom there was no more deeply held belief than that the cosmos is essentially orderly. Coincidences are a nice problem, if they are events with no cause.
Miracles are extraordinary operations by God, but are nevertheless part of his design [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Miracles, or the extraordinary operations of God, none the less belong within the general order; they are in conformity with the principal designs of God, and consequently are included in the notion of this universe, which is the result of those designs.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.05)
     A reaction: Some philosophers just make up things to suit themselves. What possible grounds can he have for claiming this? At best this is tautological, saying that, by definition, if anything at all happens, it must be part of God's design. Move on to Hume…