Stoic Theology: Proofs for the Existence of the Cosmic God and of the Traditional Gods (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Stoic Theology: Proofs for the Existence of the Cosmic God and of the Traditional Gods Michael Papazian P. A. Meijer . Stoic Theology: Proofs for the Existence of the Cosmic God and of the Traditional Gods. Delft: Elburon, 2007. Pp. xii + 256. Paper, $39.90. Meijer's book, a comprehensive study of Stoic theological arguments, defends the thesis that the Stoics were not narrowly interested in proving the existence of a god. The theology of the Stoa began with its founder, Zeno of Citium, presenting arguments that the cosmos is an intelligent being, though Zeno himself seems not to have explicitly identified that intelligent being as god. A clear statement equating the cosmos with god had to wait until the rise of the third head of the school, Chrysippus, though Meijer acknowledges that there is no reason to think that Zeno or Cleanthes, the second head, would have opposed the proposition that the cosmos, or at least the rational fire that pervades it, is god. Confusion about the true intent of Zeno's arguments is due to their distortion in the sources, for example, by Sextus Empiricus, who, Meijer contends, presents several of Zeno's arguments for the rationality of the cosmos as if they were intended as arguments to establish the existence of god. As a result, Sextus is an unreliable witness for determining the point of these arguments. Further confusing matters is the existence of a set of arguments attributed to Zeno that aim to establish the existence of the traditional gods. Meijer insists that a clear distinction be drawn between these two types of Stoic arguments, a distinction that the sources and later scholars have often not observed. Arguments that conclude that the gods exist because they may be reasonably honored or because otherwise virtues like piety or practices such as prophecy would be discredited served a different purpose than the arguments for the intelligence of the cosmos. The former arguments were advanced, according to Meijer, as a defense against the charge that the theistic naturalism of the Stoics was impious. To acquit themselves, the Stoics presented these arguments for the existence of the Greek pantheon. This need not imply any insincerity, since Cleanthes, whose hymn to Zeus is carefully analyzed by Meijer in an appendix, seems to have been a rather earnest believer, even to the point of charging Aristarchus with heresy for his heliocentrism. Under the pressure of the attacks of the Academic Skeptics and others, Stoic theology became more sophisticated. Meijer devotes a chapter to the parabolai or parodies of the dialectician Alexinus, whose pithy variations of the Stoic arguments were rhetorically effective, though met by the able replies of later Stoics such as Diogenes of Babylon. Of particular interest among the counterarguments are the "soritical arguments" of Carneades against the existence of gods. Meijer's chapter on these is especially strong and provides an interesting contrast of the two sources for this class of argument, Cicero and Sextus. Along with the appendix on Cleanthes' hymn, the book closes with two shorter appendices on the question of the place of the cosmos in the void and on Alexinus's parodies. Meijer's book is a helpful contribution to the scholarship on Stoic theology. But while Meijer provides a salutary counterbalance to the scholarship on Stoic theology that has [End Page 467] tended not to be as attentive to the distinct purposes to which these arguments were first put, Meijer may have gone too far in the other direction. One may wonder whether some of these distinctions were even observed by the Stoics themselves. For example, the Zenonian argument that the traditional gods exist because they are worthy of honor was rescued from Alexinus's parody by Diogenes' proof that the gods are of such a nature as to exist. A plausible reading of being of such a nature as to exist is to understand it as some kind of necessary or essential existence. This has led some commentators to see shades of an ontological argument in Diogenes' response to Alexinus. But while it may make sense to attribute necessary existence to the cosmic god, it is dubious in the case of the traditional...