Only Man Knows God

Philosophers have often turned aside from reason because they did not know the truth, and have fallen into errors they could not work their way back out of. That is what happens to a traveler who does not know the road and will not admit that he does not know it: he wanders about, because he is ashamed to ask the people he meets. Still, no philosopher has ever claimed that there is no difference between a human being and the animals. No one who wanted to be thought wise has ever brought a rational animal down to the level of the mute and irrational. Some ignorant people do it, and they resemble the animals themselves: wanting to give themselves over to appetite and pleasure, they say they were born on the same terms as every other living creature — which is a godless thing for a human being to say. [a]

For who is so unschooled as not to know, who is so short of understanding as not to see, that there is something divine in a human being? I am not yet coming to the excellences of the soul and of the mind, in which the kinship between man and God is plain. Does not the very posture of the body and the set of the face declare that we are not on a level with the mute creation? Their nature is bent down toward the ground and toward their pasture, and has nothing in common with the sky, which they never look at. But man stands upright, with his face lifted to take in the universe; he sets his features alongside God’s, and reason recognizes reason.

And for this reason there is no animal except man, as Cicero says, that has any knowledge of God. Man alone is furnished with wisdom, so that he alone understands religion; and this is the chief difference between a human being and the mute animals, or the only one. The other things that look peculiar to man may not exist in the animals, and yet something like them does. Speech is peculiar to man — and yet even in animals there is a certain resemblance to speech. They tell one another apart by their voices; when they are angry they let out a sound like a quarrel; and when they see one another again after a stretch of time, they perform the office of congratulation with their voices. To us their voices sound shapeless, as ours perhaps do to them; but among themselves, who understand one another, they are words. In short, in every feeling they utter distinct sounds by which they can show what is in them.

Laughter too is peculiar to man — and yet we see certain signs of joy in other animals, when they throw themselves about in play, let their ears fall soft, draw in their mouths, smooth their foreheads, and loosen their eyes into fun. What is so peculiar to man as reason and the foreseeing of the future? Yet there are animals that open several exits from their lairs in different directions, so that if any danger comes on them a way out is open for a creature shut in — and they would not do that unless they had intelligence and forethought. Others provide for the future, as:

and again:

It would be a long task if I wanted to trace out all the things most like human skill that the separate tribes of animals regularly do. But if in every one of these things that we are used to crediting to man some resemblance is found even in the mute animals, then it is clear that religion is the one thing of which no trace can be found in them, and no sign at all. For justice is peculiar to religion, and no other animal reaches it. Man alone rules; the other animals have been brought over to him. But the worship of God is credited to justice, and the man who does not take hold of it stands far off from the nature of a human being, and will live the life of an animal in a man’s shape.

But since we differ from the other animals in nearly this one respect — that we alone of them all perceive the might and power of God, while in the rest there is no understanding of God — it is surely impossible either that the mute animals should have more wisdom here, or that human nature should be unwise, since every living creature and the whole arrangement of nature is subject to man on account of his wisdom. So if reason, if the strength of a human being at this point, rises above and surpasses the rest of the living creatures, in that he alone is capable of the knowledge of God, then it is clear that religion cannot be overthrown in any way.

But religion is overthrown if we believe Epicurus when he speaks like this: [j]

Now, when he says these things, does he think that any worship is owed to God — or does he wipe religion out altogether? For if God confers no good thing on anyone, if he repays the obedience of his worshipper with no favor, what is so senseless, what so foolish, as to build temples, to offer sacrifices, to bring gifts, to cut into our own property, so that we may gain nothing by it? But, someone will say, an excellent nature ought to be honored. What honor can be owed to a being who pays no attention to us and is ungrateful? Can we be bound in any way to one who has nothing in common with us? Cicero says:

“Farewell to God, if he is such that no favor and no affection of men can touch him. For why should I say, ‘may he be gracious’? He can be gracious to no one.”

What could be said with more contempt where God is concerned? Farewell to him, he says — that is, let him go off and withdraw, since he is able to be of use to no one. But if God takes no trouble, and gives no trouble to anyone else, then why should we not commit crimes as often as it is in our power to cheat what men know and to get around the public laws? Wherever we get a good chance of not being seen, let us take the opportunity: let us take other people’s property, either without bloodshed or even with blood, if there is nothing besides the laws to hold in awe.

While Epicurus holds these opinions, he destroys religion altogether; and when religion has been taken away, confusion and upheaval of life follow. But if religion cannot be taken away without our losing our hold on wisdom, which separates us from the animals, and on justice, by which public life is made safer, then how can religion itself be kept up or guarded without fear? What is not feared is despised, and what is despised is plainly not revered. So it comes about that religion and majesty and honor stand together with fear — and there is no fear where no one is angry.

So whether you take kindness away from God, or anger, or both, religion has to be taken away, and without it the life of men is full of folly, of wickedness, and of monstrous acts. For conscience curbs people hard, if we believe that we are living in God’s sight; if we imagine not only that the actions we perform are seen from above, but that our thoughts and our words are heard by God as well.

But it is useful to believe this, some imagine, not for truth’s sake but for what it does, since the laws cannot punish conscience unless some terror from above hangs over people to hold their offenses back. And so — religion is altogether false, there is no divinity, and the whole thing was made up by clever men in order that people might live more uprightly and do less harm. This is a large question, and outside the subject we set ourselves; but since it comes up unavoidably, it ought to be handled, however briefly.

The philosophers of earlier times had agreed in their opinions about providence, and there was no doubt that the world was set in order by God and by reason, and was governed by reason. Then Protagoras, in the days of Socrates, was the first of them all to say that it was not clear to him whether there was any divine being or not. And this argument of his was judged so godless, and so contrary to the truth and to religion, that the Athenians both banished him from their territory and burned in a public assembly those books of his in which these statements stood. But there is no need to speak about his opinions, because he laid down nothing certain. After this, Socrates and his pupil Plato — and those who ran out from Plato’s school in different directions like little streams, namely the Stoics and the Peripatetics — held the same opinion as the men who went before them. [o]

Afterwards Epicurus said that there is indeed a God, since there had to be in the world some being of surpassing excellence, distinction, and blessedness — but that there is no providence, and so the world itself was ordered by no plan, no art, and no workmanship, and the universe was made up out of certain minute and indivisible seeds. But I do not see what could be said that runs more against the truth. For if there is a God, then as God he plainly provides; and divinity cannot be credited to him in any other way than by his holding on to the past, knowing the present, and foreseeing the future. So in taking away providence he also denied that God exists. But when he openly acknowledged that God exists, at the same time he also admitted his providence — for the one cannot exist at all, or be understood, without the other.

But in those later times, when philosophy had lost its bloom, there lived a certain Diagoras of Melos, who denied outright that God exists and on account of that opinion was called atheos; and Theodorus of Cyrene as well. Neither of them was able to find out anything new, since everything had already been said and found out, and so they preferred, in opposition to the truth, to deny the very thing on which all the philosophers before them had agreed without any ambiguity. These are the men who attacked providence, which had been asserted and defended through so many ages by so many minds. What then? Shall we refute these trifling and idle philosophers by reason, or by the authority of distinguished men — or rather by both? But we must hurry onward, in case our speech should wander too far from our subject.