Neoplatonic Virtue: Why a True God Cannot Choose | Reading Proclus’ On Providence

Proclus on Theodicy and Free Will: The Problem of Evil as Proof of Human Agency

Introduction – The Deeper Stakes of the Theodicy Problem

Instructor: Let’s go. Yeah, so we just started this question about theodicy, about why do bad things happen to good people, and we saw that there might be some, a deeper point here about whether what’s up to us, which here would be like virtue, has any real effect on the world. And if bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people, it seems that there might not be. And so there might be like this deeper point behind it.

But Proclus doesn’t really seem to catch on to that possible deeper argument. And his first thing is really that, look, this is about theodicy. Theodicy is not about determinism. So that might—and that was basically what he was saying in the previous paragraph. So now he’s going to continue his argument.

Proclus’s First Response – The Problem Presupposes Free Will (§54)

The Reductio Argument: Theodicy Requires Moral Responsibility

Instructor: Okay, 54. “I know, as I have said, that this problem was raised by our predecessors not to eliminate what depends on us, but rather to examine providence.” Right, that this problem, far from being an argument of the non-existence of what depends on us, is rather an argument for its existence. We may come to understand when we consider the following.

Okay, so he’s claiming that it’s—number one, this is, we just said, this is nothing to do with what depends on us. It has to do with providence. These two things are related somehow, but he doesn’t think about that. Right. Now, he thinks that it’s an argument for what depends on us.

Okay. “If we were not master of anything, if we had of ourselves no life of free choice, if good and evil did not come from us, but were produced from elsewhere, then it would no longer make sense to raise problems about the outcome of events, which are good or evil from external causes on the basis that they occur contrary to merit. For if human beings could not make themselves good and bad, it would not be necessary to recompense both the good and the bad for the respective way of living, nor would anything whatever be due to those who are not responsible for the life they have.”

Well, yeah, the question is based on that. That’s true. “Hence, if as they present, recompense with the good of fortune is contrary to merit, they must surely themselves be responsible for the lives for which they wish to obtain what they deserve, and the distribution of goods from the universe.”

For also in the case of all our external goods—so, and yeah, this is just a proof from the question.

Student: Exactly, exactly. That if you—evidence that bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. Well, that only makes sense if they’re responsible for their being good and bad, right? So, and they’re going to be responsible for—that’s the idea.

Instructor: Yeah, like obviously the whoever actually has the conclusion that you call it that there’s nothing depends on us, they actually think that. Right.

Student: Right, right. And if it goes back to the question like, oh, if you think nothing depends on us, then you don’t really have an account of why we’re responsible for things and therefore why we should be punished or rewarded. Right, we shouldn’t. That’s what they’re saying. And then—or isn’t it?

Instructor: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you can’t even read what happens to us as a punishment into a reward. That’s just the necessary consequences of the world. Right.

Extension: External Goods and Collaboration

Instructor: “For also in the case of all our external goods we do not require that they are—that there are recompenses and the things we receive from the universe, but in those goods we somehow collaborate. And if then what depends on us does not exist, we do not have anything from ourselves. But if this is the case, we also should not require compensates and things that come to us from elsewhere. And if so, we shall not complain about the distribution of outcomes contrary to merit.”

Yeah, that’s—I guess makes sense. You can’t complain.

Student: Yes.

Instructor: Right. And right, and then he will now deal with the issue of theodicy after this.

Transition from Force to Persuasion (§55)

Shifting from Reductio to Positive Argument

Instructor: Okay, now 55. “If then what depends on us does not exist, one should no longer examine how it is possible that contrary to merit good people fail to achieve their goals whereas bad people achieve them.”

Yeah, that’s true. “But assuming that what depends on us does exist”—because basically because the last thing is good people, that would be the point, right.

“But assuming that what depends on us does exist, and that providence dominates all things, we shall try to persuade”—yeah, but if there doesn’t exist and there’s also providence, we should try to persuade you after having used force by the following argument.

Digression: What Does “Force” Mean Here?

Instructor: Yeah, it’s interesting. So he calls the previous line of argument that he presented as using force. And unclear why that is.

Student: It’s a reductio ad absurdum. So in some sense, he is—I don’t know, is it? Or I mean, sometimes people will refer to an argument that’s very strong as something that’s force, right? And so maybe he’s using—that it’s like, oh, I was unfair just now. I used an argument that’s too strong. I don’t know. It’s a curious use of force.

Instructor: So this is no way. And he’s like contrasting that now with persuasion. It’s also interesting, however, that he’s like changing the subject. So force and persuasion aren’t the same thing. So the force was used to show that if you have this problem of evil, then you have to accept that there is free will. And now he’s going to answer the proper argument. He’s going to give an answer to the problem of evil. This is where it’s going to be a compressed thing, because Proclus has much longer texts about this. So it’s going to be compressed discussion.

Student: Maybe it’s because the idea is that it’s forced because he’s forced him out of his position, which is that free will doesn’t exist, right? Maybe that’s it.

Instructor: Okay.

Student: Okay, so let’s see what he says.

Instructor: Okay, something like arguing from the other person’s position is not really persuasion, like saying you’re dumb instead of—

Student: Yeah, well, it’s all right. So it’s more and more elaborate than your job.

The Proper Domain of Free Will – Internal vs. External

Free Will Collaborates, Does Not Rule Over External Events

Instructor: How’s that? “Did we not agree that what depends on us is not a force ruling over external events, but only collaborating with them?” That’s basically his theory. “If so, it is reasonable that it ranges what is internal according to its power, but not what is external.”

Oh, he got stuck. Since—oh gosh, what is this?

Student: Hello, I’m here. Can you not see me?

Instructor: Yeah, no, my computer froze. One second. Oh, it’s like it does this recently. I don’t know why.

Hello.

Student: So, oops, we’re back.

Invoking Epictetus: The Stoic Distinction Between What Is and Isn’t Up to Us

Instructor: “If so”—okay, so then this deck historic formulation. “I myself, when I consider”—okay, that’s what he says. “I myself, when I consider these problems, have great admiration for the noble Epictetus, who often exhorts us not to confuse what depends on us with what does not depend on us, and not to be in such a state with regard to things that do not depend on us as to believe they—”

[End of Chunk 1]

The Nature of Free Will: Proclus’s Critique of an Exalted Definition

The Stoic Answer to Providence: Further Elaborations

Instructor: You keep on getting blocked, I’m not sure. Oh, let me try changing networks, see if that helps. Give me one second. I will change networks here.

Okay, I’m on a different network. Let’s hope that this makes more sense. So anyway, Proclus confused the name Epictetus [the Stoic philosopher, former slave whose name literally means “acquired”] with an acquisition, but you can find it as a cute little detail, or we can find something, a kind of sad reflection about the reality of slavery in the ancient world.

But in any case, yeah, so if we turn to the other texts on providence, we’ll get a more detailed discussion of these issues. Here it’s as you said, it’s just the Stoic answer. So for instance, in *Ten Doubts on Providence*, it’ll discuss things also like a connected question, which was like why—well, about the late wrath of the gods. So why do punishments fall on descendants of like ancestors or founders of cities or kings? And also, he elsewhere discusses how, you know, these bad things that happen to us can have like educational value, or they can be used by the gods to bring out our evil or bring out our good. So he has like further ideas about this. But here he’s just really giving us the short answer because it just uses this concept of what depends on us.

Since I read the last paragraph of this, 55, I think we can move on to 56.

Student: Yeah, okay.

Theodore’s Definition of “What Depends on Us” (§56)

The Interlocutor’s Question and Definition

Instructor: So 56. Now next you ask what is this faculty that depends on us, a question you had better put at the beginning of your arguments and then raised problems against about it after the investigation. You define it as that which is by nothing dominated or mastered, but is, as you literally say, self-determined and self-activated. But if it is of such a nature, it is also absolutely incorruptible and supremely powerful and belongs only to the first Lord of all beings, of all beings, whereas what depends on us is no longer a characteristic of us.

Right. So we see here something that would have been, as Proclus says, it would have been useful for him to put this at the beginning of his text. He [Theodore, the interlocutor] has this very exalted view of what it is to be—of having something that is free, right, or that has something up to it.

Analysis of the Greek Terms

And it’s interesting, these two Greek [terms]—so the thing that, first off, that by which nothing is dominated and mastered. So this refers us back to formulations about virtue that we already find in like the Myth of Er [Plato’s *Republic*, Book X], right? That virtue has no master. And that has like these two meanings, right? On the one hand, that there’s no life that guarantees you’re going to be virtuous or going to be vicious. And also that the virtuous person, you know, they are not slave to anything. They’re not slave to any vices. And so they’re totally [free]. And of course, this is also something that is sometimes said of the gods.

And then also the—these adjectives. So these are interesting. The translators have a note here. So yeah, this is interesting. So Proclus doesn’t use the first term anywhere else, but Damascius [Neoplatonic philosopher, successor to Proclus] uses the—and so pretty—

[*Transcript ends mid-sentence as chunk concludes*]

Proclus’s Critique of Theodore’s Definition: “What Depends on Us” as Choice (*Proairesis*)

Terminological Note: “Self-Determined” (*Autoperigraphos*)

Instructor: Translators have a note here. So yeah, this is interesting. Proclus doesn’t use the first term, *autoperigraphos* [self-determined/self-circumscribed], anywhere else, but Damascus uses it. *Perigraphein* is to draw a line around something, right? And Damascus uses it for something that contains its own self, right? And I think their translation of “self-determined” is good. So it would be something that determined its own boundaries.

“Self-activating” [*autokinēton*] is often used by Proclus, they point out, for the soul, right? But you can take this in a stronger way or in a weaker way. If it’s the idea that it doesn’t depend on anything else to go into an idea, then it wouldn’t be good for the soul, right? Because the soul is always—you know, even when it’s acting on its own and it’s knowing things from its own essence—it’s, as it were, turned towards *nous* [Intellect], right? It has as its cause *nous*, which is always in act, right? And so that would have to be what is truly self-activated.

In another sense, of course, the soul—because it changes itself—it is self-activated. It does bring its own energy, although it does that on the basis of other causes. But it appears that Theodore—we’ve seen that Theodore doesn’t have a very complicated, you know, Platonic metaphysics. And so for him it seems that it can only be said of the whole world, or you know, the cause of the whole world, which seems to be like this life that permeates the whole thing, as he’s mentioned in another passage. And so only that would be determining itself and activating itself.

And of course, given this very exalted notion of what depends on us, then I mean we can expect that what Proclus will do is that he’ll say, “Look, this is too exalted a definition. You define this improperly.” And so that’s what we expect to see here in the next paragraph, 57.

Student: Okay. But is it wrong, or is it just—

Instructor: Let’s see. Okay, let’s see.

Proclus’s Counter-Thesis (§57)

Instructor: “This definition is far from the concept of what depends on us that the ancient philosophers had in mind when they assigned this faculty to human souls. That is my thesis, but it is up to you to check whether what I say is true.”

“The ancients always take the expression ‘what depends on us’ as referring to the activity of choice, making us masters of choosing and avoiding either some good or its opposite.”

Choosing or avoiding a good or its opposite, right?

The Distinction Between Choice and Will

“For they did not identify choice and will. Choice and will is not the same thing. The will, they say, only regards the good, whereas choice is likewise of good and not-good things, just as opinion is also of what is not good. Therefore choice characterizes the soul, since choice is equally open to both, and it is appropriate to the intermediate nature which is moved towards both.”

So he’s saying choice is actually a lot lower thing than will.

Student: Will?

Instructor: Yes.

Student: And it’s not referring right now to the previous definitions of like self-mastery or whatever—self-activated?

Instructor: No, no.

Evidence from Ordinary Language

“Our ordinary way of speaking also bears witness to this. We praise the choices of some people and blame those of others. So obviously choice is something that can be blamed or praised. Evil, however, we say is wanted by nobody. And to those who choose it, evil seems to be a good. And even to those who choose it, it’s by this mistake that it seems to be a good. For no soul would knowingly choose evil, but would avoid it. Through ignorance, however, the soul is occupied by it. For though it has by nature a keen love of the good, it is unable to see where the good lies.”

The Elective Faculty (*Proairetikon*)

“Hence, because the soul has in its own being this ambivalent inclination—I mean towards good and evil—philosophers have called this faculty of the soul through which we are able to choose one thing over another the elective, right?”

Student: Right.

Instructor: And you could call it “the choosing” as well, I mean, because it’s—you see, choice is *proairesis*, and here “elective” is *proairetikon*, right?

So what depends on us means this ability to choose things, and we choose things in light of how things appear to us. What appears to us good, we choose, right? And what appears to us evil, we avoid. However, this is in light of a more basic willing of the good and avoidance of evil. So nobody wants evil, and everybody wants the good, right? And so evil—the will is, as it were, always directed towards the good. However, choice can sometimes choose evil things because it’s guided by a wrong opinion.

And so this is what he’s saying: that “what depends on us” refers to this power of choice. Here it’s kind of—I guess we can see a bit how this is not like what Theodore described, right? Because Theodore described this as this self-determining and self-energizing thing, whereas choosing clearly depends on other things here. It depends on opinion, and it depends on this prior drive to the good, right? So it is not a totally independent power.

And so if “what depends on us” refers to this, then it’s clear how Theodore’s opinion is wrong.

Verification Against the Ancients

When he says before—”that is my thesis, but it’s up to you to check whether what I say is true”—I think that he’s saying you have to check against the ancients. So you have to check against the other authors who discuss this, that this is what they have in mind, right? And not your definition of the self-activating, unmastered thing.

Student: Okay.

Instructor: Right. There might be some sense in which the soul is self-activating or something, but that’s nothing to do with the question of choice.

Student: Right, yeah. And it won’t be self-activating in this way that Theodore has described, that connects self-activation with being totally self-determined and not dominated or mastered by anything else.

Instructor: Mm-hmm, right.

Discussion: Choice and the Soul’s Capacity for Error

Instructor: Section 58 will give us a new definition. Okay, so but for now—

Student: This choice is like—it’s somehow bad? Like the fact that souls have “what depends on them,” and this in the way he claims is meant by the ancients, is really like—because of them being bad? Like because of them being able to make mistakes about what is good? Like because of opinion and the whole—like being in between the two things and all of that?

Instructor: Yeah, yeah. And it’s about them being able to make mistakes about opinion. We saw last time there’s like a possible qualification to this within Proclus’s larger metaphysics, which is that, yeah, so this is about making mistakes about what’s good for the soul, for itself. But ultimately, if it’s choosing something that’s bad for it, this is ultimately going to be good for the world in one way or another. It’s going to be realizing some value, right?

Student: Mm-hmm, right. Okay.

Student: All right. But it’s just like—something like the actual choice is up to us. But in the sense that if you think—if you isolate this, like choosing between the inclination to what’s really good or towards what is not good—that is like self—there needs to be like a self-determined or something like that, like an independent source for that and this all. Just that both—all of these things are not self-determined, like what seems to us good, or the things that are good, and all of that.

Instructor: [Section continues in next chunk]

Locating Choice Among the Faculties of the Soul

The Internalization of Reason in Trained Irrational Powers

Instructor: Right, right. So I think those are, as it were, those are irrational powers that have been taught or modified so that they regularly produce the right effect. You depend on reason. It’s that thing that we saw in the scale of virtues that, you know, when you’re learning, you have the reason outside you and it’s molding you, but then you internalize this reason. So it’s that process.

Student: Right.

Determining Whether Choice Is a Rational or Irrational Faculty

Instructor: Right, okay. So therefore now, choice. Which one is choice? If there’s like a faculty of choice—which is already a weird way to see it, I don’t know—choice must also be situated in one of these, but it is not irrational. Or we all agree that irrational beings live without choice. Okay?

Like, to be something like, to have your actions ascribed to you requires some kind of rational soul or something like that. You, because choice—I think because when we say choice in the “what is up to you” sense would mean something like that you also have some kind of reason for doing it, right? Otherwise it’s like, yeah, maybe a cat—or I don’t know if cats are rational—but maybe a cat can choose which way to go, but it doesn’t give reasons for it. So it’s not like a choice, it’s just, I don’t know, something different.

Student: Yeah, it’s just somehow reacting to its environment, right? Without having a choice about how that environment impacts it, or something like that. Without having an influence on how the environment impacts it.

Instructor: Yeah. So the irrational beings, they live without choice. Hence it must be a rational faculty.

Choice as an Appetitive Rather Than Cognitive Faculty

Instructor: Now, every rational faculty is either cognitive or appetitive, as is also every irrational faculty. Okay? If choice is that which it is said to be—i.e., choice and desire—it must be some appetite. So choice cannot be the sort of recognition, like cognitive recognition of something, basically, because choice has to do with good and not with true, something like that, right?

Student: Right, yeah. Choice makes you want something, or choice is choosing to want something, but as a good, not as something that is recognized as true.

Instructor: So it’s an appetite.

Student: Well, but…

Identifying Which Type of Appetite Choice Represents

Instructor: Now, every appetite either regards only that which is truly good, or that which is seemingly good, or both. Now, we cannot say that choice regards only what is truly good, for otherwise it would never be right to criticize it. Or only the apparent good, for otherwise it would not deserve frequent praise. Hence it, there’s a faculty related to both, right?

Student: And I guess the what is, what regards only the truly good, that would be the will. And what would have a relation to only the apparent good, that would be just, is like desire, right? Epithymia [ἐπιθυμία: desire or appetite in Greek philosophy].

The Faculty of Choice: Its Definition, Dual Nature, and Metaphysical Limits

The Definition of Choice Through the Method of Division (Continued)

Instructor: Hence, it is a faculty related to both. Right. So, and I guess what regards only the truly good, that would be the will, and what has a relation to only the apparent good, that would be desire, right? Epithumia [ἐπιθυμία: desire or appetite].

Right. And since choice, again, chooses between both and can go in both ways, then it follows both. So following this method of division, choice is the rational, appetitive faculty that regards both the truly good and the seemingly good. Right.

Okay, so that would be a definition of this faculty that, again, it’s different, and it’s obviously different from Theodorus’s, and using the method of division is supposed to somehow give us a reason for using this definition, right?

Summary of the Faculty of Choice and Its Significance (§59)

Okay. So through this, so 59, to sum up, choices are rational because it gives reasons, appetitive because it’s towards something, faculty that strives for some good, either true or apparent, that’s where the choice is, and leads the soul towards both.

Choice as the Crossroad in Us

Through this faculty, the soul ascends and descends, does wrong and does right. Considering the activity of this faculty, which is that it goes up and down, authors have called its ambivalent inclination the crossroad in us.

Hence, the elective faculty and what depends on us seem to be identical.

What Distinguishes Humans from Divine and Mortal Beings

Due to this faculty we differ from both divine and from mortal beings, since neither of them are subject to this ambivalent inclination. Divine beings, because of their excellence, are established only among true goods, so something like have only will, and mortal beings, because of the deficiency, only among apparent goods, who have only like appetite.

The intellect characterizes the former, the divine ones, the sense perception the latter.

The King and Messenger Image

And the intellect is our king, sense perception our messenger—that is some kind of quote.

Student: Yes, this is in Plotinus, right?

Instructor: And so this is the idea, it’s like this image of the soul as we have in us both sense perception and intellect. So the sense perceptions come to our intellect with their news from the outside world, but then the intellect judges whether is this true or not, what are they telling us.

In Porphyry’s text, commentary on Ptolemy’s *Harmonics*, he uses this and he adds a detail, curious detail, because it is like the king of Persia who had spies throughout the whole of his kingdom, and so he already always knew what the messengers were going to tell him. And the idea there one understands like it’s because the soul has all the logoi [λόγοι: rational principles] and it has all the innate concepts, right, and so that’s why it can judge what the messengers tell.

Animals in a Protagorean World

And so yeah, so we’ve talked a bit about how the divine, about the divine beings only have will, but here he adds about how the mortal beings, and so this would be, you know, the animals, they have only apparent goods, they’re only drawn by the apparent goods, which is an interesting way of putting it. So they would be, it’s like as it be the animals they live in a Protagorean world, right, where they just see how things appear to them and then they just immediately react to what appears good and appears bad. They don’t have this judgment capable of choosing which way to follow.

The Crossroads and What Depends on Us

And the thing about it being the crossroads, and this is like referring to these moral allegories like Heracles having to choose to go which way, the way of virtue or the way of vice, things like that.

And that is what depends on us. It’s interesting, so here he actually gives something that was that we might think was missing in the last paragraph, because the last paragraph gave us a definition of this faculty of choice, and now in 59 he’s identified why does this depend on us. It’s because it is what determines our condition, right—ascending, descending, doing wrong or doing right.

And yes, okay, shall we go on?

Student: Mm-hmm. Yes.

The Limits of Choice and Its Inferiority to Divine Power (§60)

Instructor: Okay. So, back to 60, right?

60. We are in the middle, having been fixed in the faculty of choice, and we are capable of moving in one direction or another. But wherever we move, we are dominated by the universal causes and receive what we deserve. If we move towards the better, we act as intellective, towards the inferior as perception.

Choice Is Not Omnipotence

Therefore, what depends on us does not consist in the power and license to do all things. For like our power is choosing between—it’s choosing kings, something like that, like choosing who controls us, is it the perception or the intellect. It’s not you never become the king, something like that. It’s just like democracy—you have one, you could choose one of two bad choices. No, whatever, one of them is good here, but anyways, like for you, like yeah, like you could choose, but someone puts it on the ballot for you to choose.

The Metaphysical Argument: Duality Precludes Supreme Power

So, for the power that exercises authority over all things is unitary, and therefore it is also a power over all things. That is, since it is one and good, the elective faculty is dual and therefore not of all things, because it is by its ambivalent inclinations inferior to the power which comes before all things, right, because precisely because it’s dual, right, because it doesn’t control all things, it has this ambivalent thing, it would have—

Student: Right.

Instructor: Oh right, yeah, so this is actually an interesting point, because of course nowadays many people think about like the divine will is some kind of choice, right, and they have this view it can, you know, God could choose not to create the world, God could choose to do bad things sometimes. And here Proclus is saying, well no, and so far as choice is something that is for two things and not just for, and not unitary, because of his metaphysics and metaphysical arguments, you know, the first cause has to be one and so on, then he says it could not be the ruler of all things, right.

So this is like Theodorus has gotten things seriously wrong, because he thought only the god, only the supreme lord of all could have choice, and he’s saying no, no, no, actually if you have choice you could never be the supreme lord of all, because there’s like this basic duality. And of course you already have to have these—we could think of it this way: since it’s something that chooses between options, the options have to be laid out before you in advance, and therefore you are not the creator of those options, and therefore you’re not the first cause.

Discussion: Will, the One, and Providence

Student: Right, like this goes back to our discussion of will and all of this, like will just means inclination towards the good, and since what is good is one, like whatever happens, like will, will is not the thing that is the could have been otherwise thing, nothing to do with them, basically.

Instructor: Yeah, just this like, like in some sense, like there’s these various different, like I don’t know how you call it, like causal relations, like what is something like, and will is also not only like the final cause kind of thing, right, because God, like the One doesn’t act towards final causes, it is the final cause or something. It’s just like—

So, I mean, so the One is, or yeah, each of the henads [ἑνάδες: divine units or gods in Proclus’s theology] is a final cause, is an ultimate cause. And you could say that they have, as it were, the reverse of the will, right? Whereas, and it’s like the providence is supposed to be, as it were, the full version of the will. So the will is looking for the good, whereas providence is the good sharing itself, like the same way that our thinking is and nous [νοῦς: intellect] are the reverse of one another. So nous is something that’s self-explanatory and self-explicating, it makes, speaks itself under—

Divine Causality, Necessity, and Freedom in Neoplatonic Thought

The Problem of Divine Necessity and Freedom

Downward Causality and the Structure of Reference

Student: So that doesn’t even make sense, but something like—But there is still a downward causality. It is true that the lower things cause themselves with reference to the higher things, but the higher things then are still controlling the lower things through this reference.

Instructor: And here, right, he [Proclus] says we are dominated by the universal causes and receive what we deserve. If we move towards the better, we act as intellect. If towards the inferior, as perception. And implicitly, we receive what we deserve, right? If we act as intellect, then better things—then we are elevated. And if towards the inferior, as perception, we’re moved down.

So this is that image from the *Laws* [Plato’s *Laws*] of the man playing draughts and moving the pieces on the board to where they belong, right? And so this universal system of providence where the people who act better are drawn towards the gods and those white horses are pushed away from them. And so that shows how we are capable of moving, but the completion of the motion depends on these higher causes and this one order that is not changed and is not subject to this duality, to going one way or another. But it’s always this order: the good is better than the bad, and higher things are better than lower things.

Student: All right, it does cause the bad things also, but by the same structure, something like that.

Instructor: Exactly. It doesn’t—whereas we choose, do we do the bad thing or do we do the good thing, the one will causes the good things and the bad things, but each in their own place, right?

The Challenge: Is God Bound by Necessity?

Student: Right. Then how would you go back to the thing—like, the one or God or whatever I’ve chosen otherwise? I’m just trying to relate them back, reading about that again. The thing that people all keep on saying is: oh, so God is bound by necessity? You couldn’t have done anything otherwise? Sounds like worse than even us who could always do otherwise. Does that question make sense?

First Answer: God Is Prior to Necessity

Instructor: Yeah, I think that the Proclean answer has to be something like: well, what is necessary actually depends on God. So necessary is—so there are many ways of spelling out necessity, but the Proclean way I think would be: necessity is something that causes itself, so it has its existence in its own concept, which is something like that. But that means it has a duality in itself, right? It requires itself somehow. And so in this Spinozistic way of formulating it—that it includes its existence in its own essence—well, that is then subordinate to what is just pure existence, right?

So the god, the gods, are not contingent. They have—they don’t realize the possibility that might not be realized. But they’re not necessary either. It’s not a concept that has to be fulfilled, but rather it’s just the—when we talk about fulfillment or not, or not being fulfilled, we’re always talking about an existence that’s in relation to an essence. But these are existences that are prior to all essences, right? And so that’s the—

So let’s put it this way. So Kronos [Cronus, the Titan representing pure intellect in Neoplatonic theology], Kronos is supposed to be pure intellect. And he is. And so that would be—it’s in Kronos that we would probably have foundations of things like the law of identity, and so far as it’s a law of logic things. And you can say, well, is Kronos bound by the law of identity? No, actually the law of identity is necessarily true because it constitutes itself around something that exists, and that something that exists is Kronos, right?

And that would be—it is not Kronos was bound by the law of identity, but Kronos grounds the law of identity, right?

So you can connect it again to this other issue, that everything that’s necessary is conceptual, and conceptual things, however, on their own have no existence. So it’s like the Schelling [Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, German philosopher] in negative philosophy/positive philosophy we’re talking—and you need—none of all these concepts, you could ever get one ounce of existence out of them. And you can show that these concepts have these—that they imply themselves and so on. But you need that first thing: but why is there anything at all, right?

And these things that just—and so you need these things that just are in order for you to have necessity in the first place. And that’s where—and that’s the kind of existence that the gods have, right? So that would be the full Proclean answer: necessity itself in some sense depends on something else, right? And that is the divine in the strict sense.

Honest Concession: The Limits of This Answer

Student: But that is just—that is—everything is always solved by this “prior to nous” thing. But the thing is, well, two things. One is: this still—this very simple existence still doesn’t have optionality, or precisely still can’t really be otherwise, right? There isn’t—if you’re still looking for that kind of will, you’re never going to find it. And you’re just answering the sort of question which is the reductio [reductio ad absurdum: reduction to absurdity] that says, “Oh, so your God is the least free thing in the universe?” And you’re like, “Well, what is freedom anyways?” Something like that. “He’s the most free thing because he’s before all the things you call necessity.” But he’s not free in the way that the question wanted him to be, right?

Second Answer: God Does All Things Simultaneously

Instructor: Well, if the person insists, we can take another attack, of course. And we can say: well, this really simple thing is present in the best things and the necessary heavy things and the good things, but they’re also present in the worst things, right? They also—the deity calls the whole chain. So if you think you’re free because at one moment you do bad things, another moment you do good things—well, at all moments they’re doing all things. So they’re more free than you.

So Dionysus [Dionysus, Greek god associated with wine, ecstasy, and divine madness] is the nous [intellect] of the cosmos, but he’s also wine and people being drunk at the same time. And you think you’re free because you choose: do I become a drunkard or do I become a philosopher? And Dionysus both at the same time. And so if you’re free because you can do both, he’s more free because he does both.

Student: Okay, okay.

The Challenge of the Static Universe

Student: I guess the second question is: this necessity thing always gets connected with the—at least what is said in these discussions to be—this Aristotelian very static universe, which, you know, at least kinds never change. And the—how does he say—something like “God can’t make the wing of a fly longer if he wanted,” something like that.

Divine Freedom, Human Will, and the Many-Levels Picture of Causation

The Objection from Necessity: Can God Make a Fly’s Wing Longer?

Student: Okay, I guess the second question is this necessity thing always gets connected with what is said in these discussions to be this Aristotelian very static universe, which all these kinds never change and God can’t make the wing of a fly longer if he wanted to, something like that—because it’s good for the fly to have this kind of wings or something. But it doesn’t seem like this whole discussion really has to do with that. That would be a science question really, a question that would be in part a science question.

But on the other hand, the question is: what would it mean for the wing of the fly to be longer? Insofar as the fly is just that biological entity, right, the science question—can it be longer or something like that. But if you’re asking what would it mean for the wing of the fly to be longer, then you’re thinking of the fly as something that can be changed and be instantiated in many levels.

The Fly Within the Analogical Chain

Student: So you think actually the fly has this inside this analogical chain of concepts. And so the wing of the fly being longer—let’s say that the fly is actually, who becomes a fly? I don’t know, maybe lazy people become flies or something. A fly is an image of laziness or distraction. And of course laziness—let’s stick with laziness just so—laziness is actually a perversion of our ability to see that things are not worth doing, right? It’s not worth my energy.

And of course there’s a right way to do that. We recognize what’s not worth it. The opposite of laziness is of course neurosis, where you’re doing everything, you think everything is super important, like a workaholic, and you’re super nervous. And of course there’s the true mean between the two, which is in some sense—it would be something like this aloofness towards the things that don’t matter. That’s like laziness, right?

And ultimately, so that has to do something with the form of superiority, or of one thing being higher than another—some kind of hierarchy. And to go up this analogical ladder, that is what it means for the fly’s wings to become longer, right? So if you ask what do you mean, then yeah, he actually makes the fly’s wings a lot longer, because all of these things do exist, right?

So that’s the thing: if you take your question seriously and you ask, “Okay, you’re talking about something that could be different,” then you’re not just talking about this physical reality. Then the answer is yes, he makes the fly’s wings longer and even shorter. Yeah. So that’s how he would answer this, interesting.

Student: So something like, okay, I don’t know, the actual flies—it’s not clear what kind of necessity you would need or want for all of that or something. I don’t know. Okay, I’m going to—okay, I see something like this.

The Many-Levels Picture and the Question of Miracles

Student: Something like we discussed about miracles once. Something like this whole academy depends on there only being one level of causation in the world, or one kind of causation. And then either everything is Stoic physics—nothing changes ever—or there’s free will, God sometimes smashes things or whatever.

But in practice, in this system, you have so many different things of what causation are that you could always say, “Well, what you mean to say when you say God smashing things just means some higher or lower level of causation being active here or something like that.” And there’s space for all those things. Now you’re just left with the very small question of: do the things that we call nature—how fixed are they? Which in some sense is just a science question. Nowadays you would say, “Oh, there’s evolution, so we have to think things differently,” or whatever, right?

Multiplicity in the Divine Will

Instructor: And ultimately, yeah. And so just to think about how the many-levels picture comes into it—things like, so the many-levels picture brings a certain multiplicity into the divine will, in the sense that it really wills all these things. And when you’re looking for the divine will to be quote-unquote “really free,” what you’re looking for is this kind of multiplicity. And the many-levels brings this in, right?

Student: Okay, I guess, right. And then for monotheistic things, people start saying also you have two gods and that’s the solution and blah blah blah.

Instructor: Okay, let’s see. And you’re like, “Well, you’re the one that has two gods. Your god is two. That’s why I have separate ones for each thing,” something like that. Okay, anyways, something like that.

Student: Yeah, and then you’ve put all these gods into that one god. Now it’s not even a god, it’s just a nous, things like that. Yeah, okay, anyways. Okay, I’m just trying to—

Return to the Text: Human Will and Divine Power

Instructor: And back to our free will—our free will is for sure—there’s some analogy. And we’re finishing here to see that. Let’s read it back here. Where am I? Virtuous people, here I think. I think for the power, right? Start from there again. For the power. Power, where is that? I’m 61.

Student: 60.

Instructor: 60, 60, still, right? Sorry.

Student: Yeah.

Reading from Proclus (§60-61)

Instructor: “For the power that exercises right authority of all things is unitary, and therefore it is also a power over all things, since it is one and good, and the more one, the more power. The elective faculty is dual, and therefore not of all things, because it is by its ambivalent inclinations inferior to the power which comes before all things.”

“It would have—no, he said it—it would have become itself the power over all things if it had not had the impulse of choice, but only been will. But had only been will. For a willed life is in accordance with the good, because will means only willing the good, and it makes what depends on us extremely powerful, and it is really godlike. Thanks to this life, the soul becomes god and governs the whole world, as Plato says in the *Phaedrus* [Plato’s *Phaedrus*].”

Interpretation: The Divine Will and Human Choice

Instructor: So that is—if it’s true—so going back to the earlier definitions, that is true only for the really good people, if there’s such a thing, kind of things.

Student: Yeah, yeah.

Instructor: And here this passage makes it clear that when he’s talking about this will that just wants the good, it’s also identical with the one of the soul that he’s mentioned before, because it’s what’s divine in us, what makes us like god.

Student: Yeah, okay.

Instructor: And yeah, so again, and this also grounds in a sense the analogy between our will and our choice and the divine will, because our choice can become like that. And this is where the fact that there’s plurality in both works.

So our choice—we can do bad things, we can do good things. And becoming divine isn’t—is of course about only doing the good things, but it’s about wanting all things, right? So if we become divine, we are going to just be sources of order and wisdom and help people and so on. But we’re going to want the world as it exists, and we’re going to want also the inferior versions to exist as well, right? And so we’re going to share in that kind of freedom, right?

Answering the “Boring Life” Objection

Instructor: So let’s bring this down to earth. That criticism of “Oh, the god just wants one thing and it’s worse than us that can do”—that can be directed towards the wise people. Like, “Oh, these philosophers, their life is so boring. They have to read books and pray all the time. And I can—one day I’m reading Plato, but the next day I’m drinking and partying, and so this is the good life. This is free. And they have the boring life.”

But then things like—no, the philosopher, he thinks that this world, the world that exists with drinking and sex and things, is good, is the good world. It’s the best world. It’s the world that the gods make. And in some sense he’s also enjoying the existence of these things, but he’s—

It’s just a drawing, but…

Proclus on Freedom: The Critique of Theodore’s Expansive Definition and the Stoic Paradox of Power

Theodore’s Illegitimate Expansion of “What Depends on Us” (§61)

Instructor: And so he says, so Theodore, he expanded the expression “what depends on us” to be a power that dominates all things, right? And so he’s illegitimately expanded this all over the things that do not depend on us, right? It’s like that idea that you’re only free if you can do whatever you want, basically. We’re not free because we can’t fly like Superman or something like that.

It’s just this expression that you have made the elective soul such as it is. That’s confusing to me. Let me check to see if Strobel has some kind of solution to this. So in paragraph 61, he has been something like “the elective soul.” That’s just a weird way of—I’m just confused about how he’s expressing this.

But so I think that he’s—well, so then Proclus is going to contrast this with his own view. For what is outside the soul does not depend on us. Therefore our life is a mixture of what doesn’t—does not depend on someone—does depend on us. And then he’s going to say, well, the true freedom is not vice and the true freedom is not by giving the soul power over the things that are outside it, but rather by limiting itself to what it can truly control, right?

And the true slavery, right, the whole case of the many, is people who are, you know, really dependent on things outside them. So there’s something, you know, there’s some—it’s like Theodore’s idea of, “Oh, being truly free is being able to do whatever you want.” That’s actually closer to—that’s like a recipe for not being free, right? Because then your freedom depends on things outside you. Something like that.

Student: Mm-hmm.

Instructor: Okay. Where am I? Back—”it is not by limiting,” right. “But giving you the power, therefore our life is a mixture of what does not depend on us and what depends on us. And virtuous people have much that depends on them, for due to their virtue they also make moderate use of all things that do not depend on them, coloring even those things and making them as if, as it were, in their power insofar as they always bring order to what is presently given.” Interesting.

The Contrast: Virtuous People vs. The Many

“In the case of the many, however, there is much more that does not depend on them, for they follow external things, not having an internal life powerful enough to simulate those externals. Hence the virtues are set to be free and are indeed free, because their activity depends on them and it is not the slave of what does not depend on them. Other people, however, cry out the necessity, cry out necessity, burying that which depends on them together with that which does not, and so have nothing which depends on them,” right?

So the vicious people, since they make their internal states—their thoughts and feelings—depend on things outside them, they lose control over what should depend on them, which is the internal things. Whereas the virtuous people, because they use—they are not led by the external things but use them for their own virtuous ends—they actually bring external things into their power, right? And in that sense they become more free, right? They expand the circle of their freedom. And that’s why the virtuous are said to be free and are indeed free, and the others are slaves.

Resolving the Textual Confusion

And I guess, reading the complicated phrase earlier: “It is not by limiting its power within the domain of desirable things inside the souls that you have made the elective soul such as it is, but by giving it the power also over what does not depend on us.” So that is—so that’s as—it may be like critics—it seems, sounds like a criticism: you’re not doing what you should do, which is to limit the power of the soul within the interior domain, but you have done the opposite. You have given it power over things that do depend on it, right?

The Stoic Paradox of Power and Freedom

So there’s actually this kind of paradox, this kind of Stoic paradox, that if you seek to have power over external things, over material things, then you’ll actually lose that power. You won’t get it, right? Because you’ll become power-thirsty and led by external things. But if you just seek to control yourself, then actually you’ll have more power over the other things because you’ll use them moderately and so on, right?

And okay, and so that ends his criticism of Theodore’s definition of freedom.

Preview of Next Class: Determinism from Divine Omniscience

Then okay, we’re not gonna have time for this, but we’re almost at the end because they’re just—the last paragraph is 66. So the—there’s the last—and that will be for next class because it’ll be the last class. The last problem, which is about determinism from omniscience, right? If God already knows everything, how’s there freedom, right? And so we’ll leave that for next week, which will be the 25th, if that’s all right.

Student: Yeah, I should be, I think, yes.

Instructor: Okay. So we’re good, or any last questions?

Student: Yeah, I think that’s the—yeah, do have to understand this.

Instructor: Okay. Okay, good. Well, have a nice week, then.

Student: Thank you so much.

Instructor: Bye bye.