Schmitt C.B. (ed.) The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy
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Fate,
fortune, providence and
human
freedom
647
thought. In addition to modernised versions
of
Aristotle
and
of
much
of
the
corpus Platonicum, the recently recovered Stoic and Epicurean texts widened
intellectual horizons even further.
As
a rule, the Stoic doctrine of moral virtue was greatly esteemed, even
though humanists tended to reject most of the monistic-materialist
metaphysics and the notion of fate which supported it. Following the
Fathers, humanists preferred to approach pagan concepts of God and
providence from a Christian point of
view.
However, with the Epicurean
proposition
that
voluptas is the ultimate goal of
life,
we find a radical break
from
the patristic
view.
While Christian thinkers had habitually
vilified
this
proposition, some humanists tried to harmonise Epicurean with Christian
doctrine. They found in Epicurus' morality of pleasure a fuller and more
human account of the tendency towards goodness and happiness which is
imprinted on human nature. They rejected, of course, the elements of
atheism and rigid determinism which they found in the Epicurean theology
and physics.
19
Underlying
the philological expertise and elegance of humanist writing
we
can see a new conception of
life
and a fresh concern for political and
historical events.
Belief
in divine providence where worldly matters were
concerned was somewhat enfeebled. Man must now struggle alone against
adversities seemingly sent by a blind fortune. Some humanists, like
Poggio
Bracciolini
in his De miseria humanae conditionis and his De varietate fortunae,
passionately champion a rational virtue which can overcome ill fortune.
Others, like Leon Battista Alberti, dwell
rather
on the wretchedness of the
human condition as a plaything of mysterious powers outside our control.
In his
Delia
famiglia (1433—4) Alberti visualises a situation where virtue
prevails
over fortune, but when he discusses
fatum
et fortuna (in one of his
Inter
cocuales,
c. 1439) human destiny is ineluctably at the mercy of fate. He
admits, however,
that
prudence and steadfastness can greatly assist man as
he is tossed to and fro in the chaos of
existence:
'plurimum tamen in rebus
humanis prudentiam et industriam valere non ignorabimus'.
20
In the letter
Somnium
de fortuna
(June
1444) written from Vienna to Procopius of
Rabenstein, Enea
Silvio
Piccolomini, the future Pius II, imagines travelling
19.
This
view
of
Epicureanism
was
anticipated
in
Brum's
Isagogicon moralis disciplinae (c. 1425) and
vigorously
defended
in
Cosma
Raimondi's
Defensio Epicuri contra stoicos et peripatéticos (c. 1430); it
was
taken
up
again
by
Filelfo
around
the
middle
of the
century,
by
Ficino
in his De quattuor sectis
philosophorum
(1457)
and by
Bartolomeo
Scala
in his Epístola de nobilioribus philosophorum sectis et de
eorum
inter se differentia
(formerly
attributed
to
Giovan
Battista
Boninsegni);
see
Garin
1961, pp. 72-
92.
20. See
Garin
1975, pp. 13
1
96; the
lengthy
bibliography
in Dizionario biográfico degli Italiani i960 , 1,
pp.
702-19.
Doren
1922-3,
pp. 132-3
looks
at the
motif
of
fortune
in
Alberti;
see
also
Sasso
1953.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
648
Problems of knowledge and action
to the kingdom of Fortuna. His description resembles Alberti's and the
closely
argued dialogue makes it very clear
that
as far as Piccolomini is
concerned only the wise and virtuous man can challenge fortune and
escape.
21
Despite the contradictory
voices,
such as
that
of
Alberti,
it seems fair to
conclude
that
humanists generally countered the irrationality of life and
destiny with constructive optimism. In his old age Poggio Bracciolini put
this sentiment
explicitly:
'The strength
of
fortune is never so great
that
it
will
not be overcome by men who are steadfast and resolute.'
22
Fortune per se is
either nothing, or it is simply the encounter between vigilant human reason
and the forces
—
equally rational
—
which God has embedded in
nature.
One
of
the most unsettling thinkers
of
the period is Lorenzo
Valla,
whose
philological
acumen and rhetorical logic permitted new and deeper insights
into the mysteries of the Christian faith itself and kindled a fierce polemic
with
scholastic philosophy and theology. In 1439 he composed his De liber0
arbitrio, a dialogue with the twin goals of discovering 'whether divine
foreknowledge
precludes free
will,
and whether the
views
of Boethius on
this
matter
were correct'.
23
Cassirer,
surprisingly, said of this work
that
it was the first time since
antiquity
that
the question of freedom had been considered from a purely
secular point of
view,
before the tribunal of
natural
reason. In fact,
there
is
little new in the first
of
Valla's
questions
—
except the exemplum
of
a pagan
parable
—
though his theological conclusions are clearly fideistic. Unlike
Salutati's treatise, which was soon forgotten,
Valla's
remained influential
until Leibniz and was invoked
—
with differing motives and interpretations
-
by both Erasmus and Luther. As in the De voluptate,
Valla
attacks
Boethius'
De consolatione philosophiae, for discussing the problems of free
will
and foreknowledge in a pagan fashion, for not mentioning Christ
and for failing to reach any real conclusions because his excessive zeal for
philosophy drew him to Aristotle instead of St Paul ('nimis philosophiae
amator fuit'). The theologians who followed this nova via went so far as to
make philosophy the mistress of theology, compelling her to
follow
philosophy's
methods to the letter.
Valla,
by contrast, hopes
that
Christians
and especially theologians 'would not yield so much to philosophy and
waste so much labour on it'.
21.
See E. S.
Piccolomini
1551, pp. 611-16 (Epistola cvm).
22.
Poggio
Bracciolini 1964-9,
1, p. 131 {De miseria conditionis humanae).
23. L.
Valla
1934, P- 17-
Regarding
this
work
see
also
the
introduction
and
Italian
translation
in L.
Valla
!953, PP-
xxv-xxvii,
251-82.
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Fate,
fortune, providence and
human
freedom 6^.g
Valla's
point of departure was not so much anti-scholastic as anti-
rational. All the same, the dialogue presents
fully
the dilemma of how to
reconcile
human self-determinism with God's foreknowledge and provi-
dence. If man enjoys free
will,
one cannot hold
that
God has known the
result from the beginning, because in
that
case each individual would have
to do exactly what God had foreseen and foreknown. On the other hand, if
man is not free, any striving for morality and the common good is futile,
and any reward would be just as unfair as the punishments meted out to
sinners.
Clearly,
if God had foreseen Judas' betrayal,
Judas
could not have
acted in any other way
than
that
divinely foreseen for him. A dilemma like
this is an invitation to religious doubt, but
Valla
calmly states
that
there
is no
connection between the simple foreknowledge of future events and the
will's
determination to bring them about. The former is an act of divine
intelligence,
the latter an independent decision
of
the human
will:
'The fact
that
God knows beforehand what a man
will
do results in no necessity
that
he should do it, because man acts according to his own
will:
that
which is
voluntary cannot be necessary.'Just as our knowledge of past and present
events does not necessitate their happening, so it is with God's knowledge of
future events. Knowing our
will
better
than
we do, God always knows
what actions
will
arise from it, but this in no way affects the freedom
of
our
decisions.
'So foreknowledge is merely knowing and the rest is free
will.'
The
example chosen
—
Apollo
predicting the miserable destiny of Sextus
Tarquinius, who was to be exiled for his crimes
—
emphasises the fact
that
this is merely the prediction
of
a destiny over which
Apollo
has no power: 'I
know
destiny; I do not decide it. I can complain about fortune, but I cannot
change it. What I have is merely the ability to foreknow and predict.' The
unfortunate king then blames
Jupiter
for having wanted human beings to
be the way they are, some mild and good, others inclined to
evil.
As
Valla
notes, the force of this example consists in its sharp division
between foreknowledge and divine
will.
This merely restates but does not
solve
the fundamental problem. God's
will
is an unfathomable mystery, as
Paul noted in the Epistle to the Romans, when discussing the selection of
Jacob instead
of
Esau; the motives for this choice are hidden even from the
angels.
These motives are utterly beyond human comprehension and
justification, but man knows with the certainty
of
faith
that
such choices are
dictated by a completely wise and pure
will.
What does it matter
that
reason
is
an inadequate tool? Faith is a more certain foundation
than
philosophy:
'We
do not know the cause
of
a thing; what does it matter? We stand by our
faith, not by the demonstrability
of
reason.' Boethius' attempt to overturn
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Problems of knowledge and action
Paul's
views,
by attributing to human efforts what is, in fact, purely the
effect
of God's mercifulness, constitutes in
Valla's
opinion the high cost of
theology's
acquiescence to philosophy. This kind
of
rationalism leads,
Valla
says,
away from God and
truth:
'In my opinion no one who likes
philosophy so much can be pleasing to God.' Luther later adopted these
observations in his denunciation of Erasmus' Pelagianism.
Valla's
undeniable fideism and his passionate condemnation of philo-
sophical
rationalism in theological debate account for the slenderness
of
his
contribution to the controversy about freedom.
24
This controversy was to
be reactivated in a much more vigorous manner by Pomponazzi nearly a
century later.
THE
ASTROLOGICAL
IMPLICATIONS
In the second half of the fifteenth century the problem of determinism
versus freedom was
closely
linked with renewed attacks against astrology
and magic which culminate in Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's
Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem (1494) and the reactions to it
—
favourable
and unfavourable
—
over the
following
decades. The arrival of
Greek
scholars in Italy with the Council of Florence and after the
fall
of
Constantinople kindled a bitter debate amongst Italian intellectuals about
the importance of Platonism and its relationship with Aristotelianism.
Georgius
Gemistus Pletho's version of Plato, for instance, contained
elements
of
Neoplatonic and Christian theology and was strongly coloured
by
esoteric doctrines from the East.
25
In it, man was reduced to a
subordinate position in a hierarchy
of
cosmic
forces. Theodore
Gaza
reacted
against this
view
in a treatise on fate
that
was inspired by an Aristotelian
belief
in the rationality of natural
laws.
26
Marsilio
Ficino was wary about Pletho's approach and tried indepen-
dently to find a place for genuine Platonic thought within the edifice of
Christian philosophy and theology. To this end he dedicated his
life,
his
philological
skills and his incomparable aesthetic sensibility. To understand
his Plato (Plato noster)
fully
he plunged into a programme of reading and
translating
that
embraced the entire spectrum of antique magical-mystical
literature, from the Chaldaean Oracles and the corpus Hermeticum to the
24. L.
Valla
1934, pp. 7-10, 19, 29, 33, 50, 48. See
also
Cassirer
1927, ch. 3; Di
Napoli
1971, pp.
163-76.
25. See Nicold Cusano 1970, pp. 175-93,
especially
p. 181
(Kristeller):
'The
treatise
contains
a
short
and
tight
statement
of
strict
determinism
and
does
not
reveal
much
else
of
Pletho's
thought,
let
alone
of
his
Platonism.'
See
Pletho
1858, pp.
64-78
(11.6).
26. See
Taylor
1925a;
F.
Masai
1956;
Garin
1958a,
pp. 153-219.
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Fate,
fortune, providence
and human
freedom
651
followers
of
Neoplatonism. From this material Ficino derived
his
concep-
tion
of
the human spirit
as
independent
of, and
superior
to,
celestial forces.
He vigorously championed this independence
in a
number
of
important
works,
including
his
Theologia platónica (1469-74)
and his
Disputado contra
iudicium astrologorum
(1475-7);
but he
became immersed
in
magical
and
astrological
beliefs
in the De
vita coelitus comparanda (1489), which even
includes
a
horoscope
for
Christ,
and in the De
sole
et
lumine (1493)-
The
famous letter
to
Poliziano
(20
August
1494),
responding
to the
news
that
Pico's
Disputationes were being criticised
for
their ambiguity towards magic
and
the
prisca theologia, reads like
an
attempt
to
pre-empt similar criticisms
of
his
own
work.
It is
significant
that the
long list
of
late fifteenth-century
Florentine astrologers given
by
Luca Gaurico
in his
address
at
Ferrara
—
the
De
inventorihus
et
laudibus astronomiae (1507)
—
is headed by
4
Marsilius Ficinus
florentinus'.
27
At
the
Aragonese court
in
Naples, Giovanni Pontano was thinking along
similar lines
to
Ficino.
In the
brief poem Urania (1476—80)
and in the De
rebus coelestibus (1494)
he
recognised
a
powerful, irrational
and
capricious
astral influence
on
human behaviour
and
destiny, though
he
exempted
from
it the
most personal
and
spiritual
of
freely chosen decisions.
28
He
reiterated this
view
in his De
fortuna (1500): 'Where reason
has
greatest
sway,
fortune
is
most ineffectual.'
It is not
entirely clear
how
Pontano
reconciles
human
life
to the
shadowy imperatives
of a
fate which
orchestrates
the
stars
to
affect human activities
and
possessions adversely.
29
Despite
his
rigorously Aristotelian training, even Giovanni Pico
fell
under
the
spell
of
Ficino's fascination with
the pia
philosophia
that
would
reconcile
and
unite heaven
and
earth. This
is
evident
in the
section
on
Conclusiones
magicae
et
orphicae
for the
i486 disputation
in
Rome.
By
contrast,
the
famous Oratio, which precedes
it,
contains
a
splendid
celebration
of
human freedom.
God has
placed
man at the
midpoint
between
the
superior, divine realm
and the
inferior, animal world,
and has
made
him
entirely independent
of
rigid stellar
and
natural
laws;
thus
man,
uniquely endowed with reason
and
judgement (ratione consilioque),
may
27.
See
L'opera
e il
pensiero
1965, 11, p. 243 (Zambelli); Walker 1958, pp. 3-59.
28. See Tateo 1960a; De Nichilo 1975.
29. See Pontano
1518,
f.
284
r
;
see also f. 3o8
v
: 'Nec temeré igitur nec praeter rerum naturam ac rationem
dictum est a nobis, fortunam turn fati ministram
esse
illique et obsequi et famulari, turn executricem
eorum omnium, quae a
stellis
portendantur ac coelo, vel suum ipsius coeli potius ac stellarum
effectum . . . Et vero quamquam nonnumquam vis maxima est coeli eaque fortasse insuperabilis,
iuverit tamen, quod prudentis est omcium hominis illud graviter praestitisse ne ignaviter
superemur.' See the full analysis of these three books of Pontano on fortune in
Doren 1922—3, pp.
121-8.
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652
Problems
of
knowledge
and
action
choose
his own
destiny
and
achieve divine immortality.
30
In the
Disputationes,
his
last work, Pico further stresses this independence from
astral
and
demonic influences, from physical
and
instinctual determinism,
so
as to
highlight man's self-fashioning capacities.
Man,
unique among
earthly creatures,
can
freely
and
consciously fashion himself
as he
wishes
through
his own
activity:
'The
condition
of our
birth
is
that
we
should
become
what
we
want
to
be.'
31
All
nature
unfolds according
to the
causality
of the
laws which
God has set in the
secondary causes. From
the
rational
and
Christian points
of
view,
fate
is
merely
that
necessity which
God
has
written into
nature
itself and which
is
obedient
to him.
This
is his
providence
in the
world. Fortune
is not a
divinity,
as the
pagans believed;
nor
is it
some mythological entity which participates
in
human affairs,
whatever
impression
to the
contrary might
be
created
by
chance encounters
with
causes beyond
our
control.
32
Nature
thus
rationally structured presents itself
to the
calm scrutiny
of
human reason
and
observation (ratio
et
experimentum).
It is
necessary,
however,
to
eliminate
the
fantasies
of
astrology,
of
the occult sciences which
use astral symbols,
of the
mantic
arts
and of
cabala,
all of
which corrupt
natural knowledge
and
encourage idolatry. Pico
gives
a
ferociously radical
condemnation
of
magic
— 'an
amalgam
of
idolatry, astrology
and
superstitious medicine'.
33
While astronomy
is the
entirely praiseworthy
and serious mathematical study
of
celestial dynamics, astrology
is a
degeneration, void
of
sense, certainty
and
truth,
and no
more
than
superstitious rigmarole which steals man's liberty
and
replaces
it
with
anxiety.
34
It
has
been suggested
that
Pico's assault
on
astrology
was too
rhetorical
and abstract,
and
that
if the
human mind
was to be
opened
to a
mathematical
and
mechanical conception
of the
universe
an
entirely
30. G. Pico 1942, p. 106: 'Tu, nullis angustiis coercitus pro tuo arbitrio, in cuius manu te posui, tibi illam
praefmies [naturam]. Medium te mundi posui ut circumspiceres inde commodius quicquid est in
mundo. Nec te caelestem neque terrenum, neque mortalem neque immortalem fecimus, ut tui
ipsius quasi arbitrarius honorariusque plastes et fictor, in quam malueris tute formam effingas.
Poteris in inferiora quae sunt bruta degenerare; poteris in superiora quae sunt divina ex tui animi
sententia regenerari.' 31.
Ibid.,
pp. 108-10.
32.
G. Pico
1946-52,1,
p. 430 (iv.3): 'Fortuita fieri dicimus quaepraeter intentionem operands eveniunt;
quare
tantum in rebus humanis fortuna dicitur, ut quae solae consilio rationeque fiunt. . . Fortunam
vero non intelligimus aut numen, aut naturam, aut rem omnino aliquam causam talis eventus, sed
potius excludimus, tantum fortuna factum dicentes ac si dicamus "ita evenit forte, non ex aliqua
causa".'
33.
Ibid.,
11,
p. 524
(XII.6).
Di Napoli 1965, p. 277
notes
that this work marks 'il rifiuto della magia, la
svalutazione della
prisca theologia,
l'abbandono della cabbala come dottrina ermeneutica e come
metodo alfabetario'. For a penetrating analysis of the conceptual structure and the meaning of Pico's
Disputationes
see Zanier 1981, pp. 54-86. 34. G. Pico 1946-52, 1, pp.
36-46
(prooemium).
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Fate,
fortune, providence
and human
freedom
653
different approach was called for.
35
Others, however, have regarded Pico's
ethical pathos
as
compensating
for his
logical
and
epistemological weak-
nesses
and as
prefiguring
the new
natural science
of
Kepler.
His
indestructi-
ble
belief
in
man's self-determination, freedom
and
spiritual dignity
demands
that man
cast
off the
shackles
of
cosmic determinism
and
astral
forces.
In
Cassirer's words: 'This faith
in
man's creativity,
and in the
autonomy
of that
creativity,
is the
genuinely humanistic conviction with
which
Pico overwhelmed astrology.'
36
Pico's relentless refusal
to
entertain
the slightest stellar influence
or
physical causality
in
human self-determina-
tion marks
the
zenith
of
faith
in
humanity. After
the
ferment
of the
fourteenth
and
fifteenth centuries Petrarch's legacy bears
its
finest fruit.
Apart
from unravelling
the
untenable hybrids
of
pagan
and
Christian
doctrine which were
so
dear
to
Ficino's Florentine circle, Pico's compel-
lingly
rational arguments lent clarity
to an
incipient scientific approach,
allowing
it to
analyse natural causality without
the
distraction
of
mythical,
irrational
and
occult forces.
37
PIETRO
POMPONAZZI
Pomponazzi
played
a key
role
in the
sixteenth-century controversy about
astrology.
Two works, both finished
in
1520, deal with
the
topic.
The
first,
De
naturalium effectuum causis sive
de
incantationibus, does
so
systematically;
the second,
De
fato,
de
libero arbitrio
et
de praedestinatione, refers frequently
and favourably
to
astrological predictions.
In
the De
incantationibus Pomponazzi asserts
that
Pico understood
nothing
of
astrology, adding
that:
'apart from arrogance, petulance
and
superficial
glitter,
the
Disputationes contain nothing
of
value'.
Spitefully,
he
insinuates
that the
book
was not
even Pico's
own
work
and that he
merely
provided stylistic embellishments.
38
35.
See Thorndike 1923-58, iv, pp. 529-32;
L'opera
e il
pensiero
1965, 11, pp.
315-31
(P. Rossi).
36. Cassirer 1927, p. 125.
37.
The contrasting
responses
of Pico's contemporaries confirm the fact that the
Disputationes
divided
scholars into proponents and adversaries of astrology for more than a century. On the one hand,
there were Giovanni Abioso's
Dialogus
in
astrologiae defensionem
(1494), Lucio Bellanti's
Liber
de
astrologica peritate
et in
Disputationes Ioannis
Pici
(1498) and Pontano's De
rebus caelestibus
(1494); on the
other hand, there were Savonarola's Trattato
contro
gli
astrologi
(1495), Thomas Murner's
Invectiva
(1499) and Gianfrancesco Pico's De rerum
praenotione
(1507). The intricate controversy
soon
crossed
the Alps and added to the new religious controversies. Francesco Giuntini published his
Defensio
honorum astrologorurn.
De
astrologia judiciaria adversus calumniatores
late in the sixteenth century while
Jean Bodin's
Démonomanie
des
sorciers
and Johan Wier's De
praestigiis
discussed the social and legal
implications of
witchcraft
and the witch-trials. For further
discussion
of the whole
issue
see
L'opera
e
il
pensiero
1965, 11, pp.
239ff.
(Zambelli), pp. 333-56 (Mesnard); Garin 1969, pp. 421-48; Perrone
Compagni
1975; Zanier 1977;
Scienza
e
filosofia
1983, pp. 345-72 (Zanier);
Grande antologia
1964-,
xi,
pp.
388-9;
Zambelli
1973b.
38. Pomponazzi 1556, p. 286 (cap. 12).
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654
Problems of knowledge and action
Despite an almost puerile credulity about reported marvels, whether
ancient or recent, Pomponazzi sharply separates the religious and scientific
sides of astrology. He regards an astrological account of even the most
shattering events - such as the end of a civilisation or the
birth
of a great
religion,
even Christianity-as being rationally possible and acceptable. The
true
cause must be identified, however, and contrary to popular opinion, it
does not lie in a miraculous intervention by God or demons. Instead, it is the
eternal, unalterable causality, immanent in cosmic
laws,
which reveals itself
in the motions and interrelationships
of
the stars. Upon these phenomena all
sublunary events
—
physical or human
—
necessarily depend.
39
Some
thinkers, such as Symphorien Champier,
Johannes
Reuchlin and
Philipp Melanchthon, countered Pico's radicalism by granting magic and
astrology a degree
of
influence,
though always subject to God and freedom,
and only after carefully distinguishing between the
natural
and demonic
varieties.
Pomponazzi seems instead to have had the single aim of
eliminating any supernaturalism whatsoever, so as to be able to ascribe
everything to
natural
forces. Cassirer sees this respect for the regularity and
sovereignty
of
natural
laws as a step forward in the search for scientific
explanations: 'astrological causality becomes a condition for the conceiv-
ability of
nature'.
40
The rigour of scientific knowledge
thus
replaces the
arbitrary and miraculous interventions of faith.
The
second of Pomponazzi's books mentioned above was completed at
Bologna
on 25 November 1520, and it is the most
important
Renaissance
work
on the problems
of
freedom. Ambrogio Flandino, a noted opponent
of
Pomponazzi on the question
of
the soul's mortality, even accused him of
collusion
with the Lutherans in order to destroy the Christian Church.
41
Despite this charge, we find no explicit reverberations of the theological
earthquake initiated by Luther's recent exegesis
of
the Epistle to the Romans
and his 1520 series of meditations on Christian liberty. In fact, the
immediate motive for Pomponazzi's treatise was his reading of Alexander
of
Aphrodisias' work on fate, published by Hieronymus Bagolinus at
Verona
in 1516, which he had only very recently
(nuperrime)
acquired.
Beyond
this external circumstance, however, lay a deep hunger which no
amount
of
searching through the 'infinitorum paene auctorum scripta' had
ever
assuaged.
42
39. Ibid.
(capp.
10-12);
and for the
similar
views
expressed
by
Pomponazzi
in
academic
lessons
at
Bologna
in the
same
period,
see
GraifF
1976. An
opposing
view
is
expressed
by
Nifo
in his De
daemonibus and
subsequent
works:
see
Zambelli
1975.
40.
Cassirer
1927, p. no.
41. Philosophy and
Humanism
1976, pp.
70-99
(Lemay).
42.
Pomponazzi
1957, pp. 2-3.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
Fate,
fortune, providence and
human
freedom 655
Pomponazzi disregards flowery humanist treatises and concentrates on
Alexander,
Aristotle, Boethius, Averroes, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus
and William of Ockham. The
five
sections of the work are devoted
respectively
to: confuting Alexander; listing and evaluating other theories
about fate; an analysis
of
the volitional act; providence; and predestination.
He develops his arguments systematically, concisely and idiosyncratically,
using a relentless series of syllogisms in scholastic fashion. The two themes
are entirely consonant with his
mature
philosophical programme, which is
to discredit Christian doctrine at the philosophical
level
in favour of a
mechanistic and Stoic metaphysics and ethics.
Alexander
of Aphrodisias objected to the Stoic notion of fate as a
necessary
natural
causality on the grounds
that
such a notion eliminates
chance, precludes contingency and, above all, obliterates man's freedom to
make his own choices. Pomponazzi, substinendo stoicos, counters by stating
that
from the point of
view
of an indeterminate agent the necessity of an
event is compatible with its fortuitousness
—
as, for instance, when a stone,
following
its own laws of falling, encounters the head of an unwitting
bystander
(1.6).
He roundly condemns the idea
that
contingency should be
understood ad
utrumlibet
as ontological indifference,
that
is, as the possibility
for
an effect to be or not to be. Contingency refers, Pomponazzi says, only
to things which sometimes happen and sometimes do not, such as whether
or not it
will
rain next month.
If
it does rain,
that
happens necessarily: 'And
this is the
true
meaning of contingency. Any other meaning of the word is
an illusion and a deception, at least where
natural
things are concerned'
(1.7.2.23).
When considering Alexander's
view
of free
will
as self-determination
between two contradictory choices, Pomponazzi drily notes
that
such a
position goes against a fundamental Aristotelian principle, namely
that
movement cannot be self-initiating, but must be caused from without;
otherwise this would permit the absurdity of something being created out
of
nothing. If it is
true
that
'no secondary cause can move if not itself
moved',
man's
will,
in deciding to choose one option instead of
another,
would
have to be determined by some higher and external cause.
According
to the Stoics, this motive cause is providence, or the stars, which
not only incline but also compel the
will
with the same necessity as an agent
acts upon its material
instrument
(1.9.2).
To be sure, man does not act
entirely instinctively and blindly, as an animal does, because man has the
capacity
to think. But, since man is unaware of the
true,
higher, external
factors which condition any given choice, he has the illusion of interior
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
Problems of knowledge and action
freedom and
of
making his own decisions. This illusion is the fruit
of
man's
ignorance: 'It is held without qualification
that
this is within the power of
the
will
which it in no way is. In fact, numerous factors are concealed from
us,
which we would not divulge if we saw them'
(1.9.3.3).
Despite having inserted human
will
into the universal hierarchy of
natural
causes, Pomponazzi is at pains to show
that
Stoic determinism is
compatible with moral responsibility because everyone does good or
evil
scienter et voluntarie according to their inner
nature
and uncompelled by
external pressures. For Pomponazzi, the existence
of
good
and
evil,
and the
concomitant praising of the virtuous and rebuking of sinners, is
part
of the
ordo universi.
Just
as in the
natural
realm we praise a fine wine and crush a
noxious insect, so too in the field
of
morality. However, since virtue already
contains its highest reward, we should not look forward to
another
reward
in the afterlife because the afterlife cannot be philosophically demonstrated,
and the soul's immortality is believed in only because it is a revealed
truth.
Everything
is therefore subject to the providential order of fate. Nothing
escapes God's knowledge, for as the cause of everything, he permits no
contingency, whether in physical
nature
or in human affairs. This Stoic
account seems to Pomponazzi to be the most rational because
if
we
allowed
freedom, bearing in mind both the extreme difficulty of finding a truly
virtuous man and the ocean
of
iniquity which is human history, we would
have to conclude
that
God, or his providence, could not or did not know
how
better
to nourish our freedom
(1.11—15).
The
starting-point
of
the second book is the paradoxical claim
that
fate or
providence can coexist with freedom. In making this claim Christian
doctrine
—
even if, in the light
of
faith, it is the only
true
doctrine
—
presents
the rational point
of
view
with a number
of
insoluble problems. A review of
previous opinions on the subject shows
that
all thinkers had to reject either
providence or freedom; the Epicureans, for instance, rejected the former
and the Stoics the
latter.
There is no point in bothering with the
intermediate positions, developed from Aristotle by Chalcidius, Alexander
and Themistius, which propose, absurdly, to limit providential necessity to
the heavens, or at most extend it only to the species
of
the sublunary world,
excluding
individual beings. Against the atheist sectae, Pomponazzi argues
that
denying providence is the same as denying the existence
of
God.
As for
Aristotle,
we must not shrink from noticing the obvious contradictions
between his general principles about the necessity of motion as laid out in
the Physics and the statements about contingency and freedom in the
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008