Boethius - Russell

(Originally written November 14, 2006 in Book 7)

Poor Book VII! How unfortunate to be the course of History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell. You both have been neglected of so long. For months have you been sitting idly.

The History will further sit, waiting for its pages to be read. But alas, Book VII will once again feel the touch of ink upon its pages. Rejoice! Rejoice! The time has come!

Classics of Philosophy 2nd Edition
Louis Pojman

Boethius
-480 - 524 AD
-Roman patrician, consul of Rome and minister to the Ostrogoth King Theodoric
-Last of the Roman philosophers
-1st of the scholastic theologians

Boethius was falsely accused of treason, imprisoned and then bludgeoned to death

Wow! I'm excited to read him now! Thanks Louis!

The Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius' greatest work was written while he was in prison.

Philosophy is articulated as a beautiful woman by Boethius. The woman heals his ailing soul. She leads him from lonely despair to an understanding and resignation of Providence.

Philosophy, to Boethius, was an explanation of how chance and free will can be reconciled with divine foreknowledge.

The Consolation of Philosophy

1. Philosophy discusses the nature of chance

The question of Providence is bound up in many questions.

Chance, as the outcome of random action produced by no sequence of causes, does not exist.

God keeps everything in order, so random chance is impossible.

Chance, is true as defined by Aristotle. Whenever an intentional act causes an unintentional result, chance or accident has occurred.

"Chance therefore may be defined as an unexpected result from the coincidence of certain causes is matter done for some other purpose" (Pojman, 448).

2. Philosophy asserts the Existence of Free Will

Free will is necessary for reasoning nature. Since there is reasoning nature, there is free will.

Reason brings desire and refuse. Reason allows judgments. If there are judgments then objects must be desirable and refuse-able

Freedom is not equal in all beings. Heavenly will is uncorrupted and thus have the power to effect their desire.

Human wills are corrupted. The more they are in contemplation of the divine will, the more they are free to effect their desires.

Men become slaves to their vices and the more entrapped in their vices the more of a slave they become to their own freedom.

3. Boethius cannot reconcile God's foreknowledge with Human Free Will

There is an incompatibility between God's foreknowledge and man's free will. If God knows man's actions and his desires then they are necessary and thus, there is no free will.

Is God's foreknowledge the cause of necessary future events or is necessary future events the cause of God's foreknowledge?

Knowledge is unmixed with falsity.

How does God know future things if they are uncertain? If he has only opinion he is not God, which is impious and absurd.

If there is no free will, punishments and rewards are in vain.

Prayer is rendered useless in the loss of free will.

4. Philosophy tries to show how foreknowledge and free will may be reconciled

Step-by-step reasoning will never illuminate what foreknowledge is. It has failed over and over again and will continue to fail.

Knowledge of things presently occurring does not cause those things known to be necessary. Foreknowledge works this way too.

5. Philosophy discusses the various grades of cognition

Knowledge occurs by the comprehender's comprehension, not by the force of what the knowledge is of. I know 'A' because I comprehend 'A', not because 'A' exists.

The senses consider a thing as it appears.

The imagination considers a thing without relation to that thing's body.

The reason contemplates the universal aspects of a thing as it investigates the particular thing.

Insight goes further than reason and contemplates the idea of that certain thing.

Hierarchy of faculties:
Insight (highest)
Reason
Imagination
Senses (lowest)

The higher faculty always uses the lower faculties, but lower faculties can never use higher ones.

6. Philosophy discusses the difference between human reason and divine insight

The more faculties a being has the higher its cognitive ability.

Sense - non-moving animals
Imagination - Moving animals
Reason - man alone
Insight - God alone

The senses must yield to imagination. Both of these must yield to reason. And reason must yield to insight.

Reason cannot grasp foreknowledge; only insight can. Thus, since only God has insight, man cannot grasp foreknowledge.

7. Philosophy explains that God's insight views all things in their eternal design, while human reason can see them only from a temporal view point

God is eternal. "Eternity is the complete possession of an endless life enjoyed as one simultaneous whole" (Pojman, 452).

Temporal existence is grasping shifting moments.

Even if time were infinite it would not be eternal because it is an infinite succession of moments.

An eternal being could behold infinity all at once because infinitude does not encompass eternity. Eternity encompasses infinitude.

God is eternal while the universe is perpetual.

God's foreknowledge then exists in eternity, which is non-temporal. Foreknowledge occurs to him as present so really it is merely a present knowledge of a temporal thing. It appears as foreknowledge to us because we are temporal beings.

God's foreknowledge does not make things necessary to happen, but when any action of man's is examined in its own nature it is free and unrestrained.

There are two kinds of necessity:
1) Simple
2) Conditional

Simple necessity is things happen because they are necessary

Conditional necessity is things, if they are happening, are necessarily happening.

God's foreknowledge makes things conditionally necessary. He sees things happening, thus they are necessarily happening.

Thus, because the necessity that God's foreknowledge puts on man's actions is a conditional one. Man's free will is true and responsibility remains in tact.