How to Think about God

How to Think About God by Marcus Tullius Cicero

https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RGM74S5AVEZIG?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp

This series provides a reader with good quality. The individual books offer a nice introduction to the featured philosopher and the subject of the book. The book takes a portion of an ancient philosopher's corpus of writing devoted to a particular subject and offers that selection. The selection usually constitutes a short read that can be accomplished in a few hours. The quality of the selection is well worth the read.

In this case, the selection is Cicero's De Natura Deorium and the Dream of the Scipio. The first selection provides Cicero's explication of the Stoic philosophical understanding of the divine. What I found interesting was how much of the Stoic perspective informed subsequent religious philosophy. For example, Cicero argues to the existence of God from the design and purposefulness of Nature. Cicero also has his Stoic character (this is presented as a dialogue) take a pantheistic position, namely, the universe must be alive and wise because there is life and wisdom in the universe and the only place such things could come from is from the universe. This reminded me of the Thomistic axiom that the effect cannot be greater than its cause.

For Cicero's Stoic interlocutor, the prime matter of the universe is heat. Heat is the vital force of the universe that causes motion. The sun presents a good heat that gives life and the stars must be living things because they also represent heat. I wonder at the ability of some ancients to equate the sun with the stars. I wonder how they came to that conclusion. For other ancient people, I believe, the stars were pinpricks in the dome of the sky.

For anyone doing a comparative analysis of religious arguments or tracking through the development of philosophical arguments, this is an excellent book.