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Chapter 22 - God and providence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

R. W. Sharples
Affiliation:
University College London
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Summary

Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 1.33

(1) Aristotle in the third book of his On Philosophy introduces great confusion, disagreeing with his teacher Plato: for now he attributes all divinity to intellect, now he says that the world itself is a god, now he puts some other [god] in charge of the world and assigns to him the role of ruling and preserving the movement of the world by a certain rolling back, then he says that the heat of the heaven is a god, not understanding that the heaven is a part of the world which he himself elsewhere has designated as a god. (2) But how could that divine awareness be preserved in such rapid motion? Where are all the gods [we speak of], if we count the heaven itself as a god? And when he wants god to be without a body, he deprives him of all awareness, and [so] of wisdom. Further, how can [god] move if he does not have a body, or how, if he is always moving himself, can he be peaceful and blessed?

Stobaeus, Selections 1.1.29b (35.5–6 Wachsmuth) = Aëtius 1.7.21 (Dox. p. 303.6–7) = Critolaus, fr. 16 Wehrli 1969b

Critolaus, and Diodorus of Tyre, [said that god is] an intellect from impassible aither.

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Peripatetic Philosophy, 200 BC to AD 200
An Introduction and Collection of Sources in Translation
, pp. 196 - 210
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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  • God and providence
  • R. W. Sharples, University College London
  • Book: Peripatetic Philosophy, 200 BC to AD 200
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511781506.028
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  • God and providence
  • R. W. Sharples, University College London
  • Book: Peripatetic Philosophy, 200 BC to AD 200
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511781506.028
Available formats
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  • God and providence
  • R. W. Sharples, University College London
  • Book: Peripatetic Philosophy, 200 BC to AD 200
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511781506.028
Available formats
×