The Testimony of Universal Belief

For all religions, whether Christian or pagan, belief in Providence, understood in the wider sense of a superhuman being who governs the universe and directs the course of human affairs with definite purpose and beneficent design, has always been a very real and practical belief. Prayer, divination, blessing and curse, oracle and sacred rite, all testify to a belief in some over-ruling power, divine or quasi-divine in character; and such phenomena are found in every race and tribe, however uncivilized or degraded. We find it, for instance, not only amongst the savages of to- day, but also among the early Greeks, who, though they do not appear to have clearly distinguished between Providence and Fate, and though their gods were little more than glorified human beings, subject to human frailty and marred by human passion, they none the less watched over the home and the family, took sides in human warfare, and were the protectors and avengers of mankind. The intimate connection of the gods with human affairs was even more marked in the religion of the early Romans, who had a special god to look after each detail of their daily life, their labours in the field, and the business of the state. The ancient religions of the East present the same characteristics. Auramazda, the supreme god of the Persians during the period of the great kings, is the ruler of the world, the maker of kings and nations, who punishes the wicked and hearkens to the prayers of the good (see cuneiform inscriptions translated by Casartelli in the "Hist. of Relig.", II, 13 sq.). A similar notion prevailed in Egypt. All things are in God's gift. He loves the obedient and humbles the proud, rewards the good and smites the wicked (Renouf 100 sq.). Osiris, the king of the gods, judges the world according to his will, and to all nations, past, present, and future, gives his commands (op. cit., 218 sq.). Amon Ra-is, the lord of the thrones of the earth, the end of all existence, the support of all things, just of heart when one cries to him, deliverer of the poor and oppressed (op. cit., 225 sq.). Assyrian and Babylonian records are no less clear. Marduk, the lord of the universe, shows mercy to all, implants fear in their hearts, and controls their lives; while Shamash directs the law of nature, and is the supreme god of heaven and earth (Jastrow, 296, 300, 301). The books of the Avesta, though they depict a dualistic system, represent the good god, Mazdah Ahura, with his court, as helping those who worship him against the principle of evil (Hist. of Relig., II, 14). In the dualism of the Gnostic theories, on the other hand, the world is shut off from the supreme god, Bythos, who has nothing directly to do with human affairs before or after the incarnation. This idea of a remote and transcendent deity was probably derived from Greek philosophy. Socrates certainly admitted Providence, and believed in inspiration and divination; but for Aristotle the doctrine of Providence was mere opinion. It is true that the world was for him the instrument and expression of the Divine thought, but God Himself lived a life wholly apart. The Epicureans explicitly denied Providence, on the ground that if God cares for men He can be neither happy nor good. Everything is due, they said, to chance or free will. On both these points they were opposed by the Stoics, who insisted that God must love men, otherwise the very notion of God would be destroyed (Plutarch, "De comm. notit.", 32; "De stoic. rep.", 38). They also attempted to prove the action or existence of Providence from the adaptation of means to ends in nature, in which evil is merely an accident, a detail, or a punishment. On the other hand, the notions of god, nature, force, and fate were not clearly distinguished by the Stoics, who regarded them as practically the same thing. While even Cicero, who works out the argument from adaptation at considerable length in his "De natura deorum", ends unsatisfactorily with the statement, "Magna Dii curant, parva negligunt", as his ultimate solution of the problem of evil (n. 51-66).