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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed)' and 'fragments/reports'

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6 ideas

28. God / A. Divine Nature / 2. Divine Nature

7815	Early Stoics called the logos 'god', meaning not a being, but the principle of the universe [Stoic school]
	Full Idea: Logos was also called 'god' or 'Zeus' by the early Stoics, but they did not think of this deity as a separate being, but as a principle of organization of things. As the soul is the principle of an individual life, so 'god' is the soul of the universe.
	From: Stoic school (fragments/reports [c.200 BCE]), quoted by A.C. Grayling - What is Good? Ch.3
	A reaction: This sounds not too far from Spinoza's pantheism. Interestingly, the Stoics were making God more impersonal, and it is Jesus who reverts to the much more popularly appealing personal image.

28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / d. God decrees morality

12570	The finite and dependent should obey the supreme and infinite [Locke]
	Full Idea: It is certain that the inferior, finite and dependent is under an obligation to obey the supreme and infinite.
	From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 4.13.03)
	A reaction: Locke's liberal politics has gradually helped to undermine this view. Once an inferior and dependent person owns some property, they acquire rights and do not have to submit to anyone in that respect. Modern people would defy God if they met Him.

28. God / B. Proving God / 1. Proof of God

12565	God has given us no innate idea of himself [Locke]
	Full Idea: God has given us no innate idea of himself.
	From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 4.10.01)
	A reaction: This is rejection of Descartes' 'Trademark Argument' (Idea 2274). It is consistent with Locke's general assault on all innate ideas, as you might expect from an empiricist.

28. God / B. Proving God / 3. Proofs of Evidence / a. Cosmological Proof

12566	We exist, so there is Being, which requires eternal being [Locke]
	Full Idea: Everyone's certain knowledge assures him that he is something that actually exists. ...Therefore there is some real Being, and since non-entity cannot produce any real being, it is an evident demonstration that from Eternity there has been something.
	From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 4.10.03)
	A reaction: This is a cosmological proof, deriving God as a necessary precondition from the observation that something exists. It is similar to, but not as good as, Aquinas's Third Way (Idea 1431).

28. God / B. Proving God / 3. Proofs of Evidence / e. Miracles

12571	If miracles aim at producing belief, it is plausible that their events are very unusual [Locke]
	Full Idea: Where such supernatural events are suitable to ends aim'd at by him who has the power to change the course of nature, they may be fitter to procure belief by how much more they are beyond or contrary to ordinary observation.
	From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 4.16.13)
	A reaction: On this occasion there is flat disagreement with Hume, who produced a famous objection to the whole idea of miracles. Locke is struggling here, since he is defending events which are totally contrary to the rest of his epistemology.

28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 2. Pantheism

6038	Stoics say god is matter, or an inseparable quality of it, or is the power within it [Stoic school, by Chalcidius]
	Full Idea: The Stoics say that god is that which matter is or that god is the inseparable quality of matter and that he moves through matter just as semen moves through the genital organs.
	From: report of Stoic school (fragments/reports [c.200 BCE]) by Chalcidius - Commentary on Plato's 'Timaeus' 294
	A reaction: This actually offers three different theories - of identity, of supervenience, and of omnipresence. It certainly seems close to pantheism. Such theories invite Ockham's Razor, which would shift talk to 'nature', and leave out 'god'.