Boethius Was Successful in His Argument That God Rewards and Punishes Justly.
‘Boethius was successful in his argument that God rewards and punishes justly.’ Discuss (35)
Boethius was a philosopher teaching at the end of the Roman empire, in his 40’s he was arrested for suspected conspiracy with the Eastern Roman Empire and was eventually put to death at the age of about 44/45. Whilst in prison Boethius wrote his book, ‘The Consolation of Philosophy’ where he discusses in great depth with Lady Philosophy issues with God’s omniscience. In his writings, Boethius identifies an issue with God’s foreknowledge, our personal autonomy and the impact of how we are to be judged as when we enter the life after this. He identifies that if God has foreknowledge and knows our future, He then knows what we are going to do which in turn removes the idea that we have freedom to do what we choose. He also sees that if we have no free will when it comes to our judgement we will be judged unfairly and unjustly as God will have caused us to do that evil or not intervened to stop us from committing that evil.
‘There seems to be a considerable contradiction and inconsistency between God’s foreknowledge and the existence of free will.’ (Boethius).
Boethius in his book creates a dialogue with Lady Philosophy, a personification of pure reason, whilst he plays a naive questioner. Boethius starts by questioning whether we have free will or not to which Lady Philosophy replies.
She appears to Boethius and reassures that as we have the ability to reason we must then have free will and this is due to fact that our reason is what we use to make judgements which enables us to make decisions. However there are different classes of freedom, the most is when we are in contemplation and the least is when we are addicted our let our desires rule our head.
This however creates another issue for Boethius, if we are free then we will be able to do what we like however if God knows what we are going to do then we must not have free will. It is impossible for God to be
Boethius was a philosopher teaching at the end of the Roman empire, in his 40’s he was arrested for suspected conspiracy with the Eastern Roman Empire and was eventually put to death at the age of about 44/45. Whilst in prison Boethius wrote his book, ‘The Consolation of Philosophy’ where he discusses in great depth with Lady Philosophy issues with God’s omniscience. In his writings, Boethius identifies an issue with God’s foreknowledge, our personal autonomy and the impact of how we are to be judged as when we enter the life after this. He identifies that if God has foreknowledge and knows our future, He then knows what we are going to do which in turn removes the idea that we have freedom to do what we choose. He also sees that if we have no free will when it comes to our judgement we will be judged unfairly and unjustly as God will have caused us to do that evil or not intervened to stop us from committing that evil.
‘There seems to be a considerable contradiction and inconsistency between God’s foreknowledge and the existence of free will.’ (Boethius).
Boethius in his book creates a dialogue with Lady Philosophy, a personification of pure reason, whilst he plays a naive questioner. Boethius starts by questioning whether we have free will or not to which Lady Philosophy replies.
She appears to Boethius and reassures that as we have the ability to reason we must then have free will and this is due to fact that our reason is what we use to make judgements which enables us to make decisions. However there are different classes of freedom, the most is when we are in contemplation and the least is when we are addicted our let our desires rule our head.
This however creates another issue for Boethius, if we are free then we will be able to do what we like however if God knows what we are going to do then we must not have free will. It is impossible for God to be