Philo on Free Will: And the Historical Influence of His View

Abstract

In Philo, as in any other philosopher, the problem of the freedom of the will in man is but a special phase of the more general problems of the existence of immutable laws in nature and the relation of mind to body. Now with regard to laws of nature Philo's view is clear. There are, according to him, certain unalterable laws by which the universe is governed, but these laws were established in the universe by God at the time of its creation. This view is expressed by him in a variety of ways in such statements as that there are “ordinances and laws which God laid down in the universe as unalterable” and that “this world is the Megalopolis and it has a single polity and a single law.” These laws of nature are sometimes designated by him in their totality by the general term Logos, by which he means an immanent Logos in the created physical universe, conceiving of it as part of that incorporeal Logos which existed prior to the creation of the universe. It is this immanent Logos which is described by him as “the bond of all existence,” which “holds and knits together all the parts” and which also “administers all things.”