A summary of Boethius' seminal work, "The Consolation of Philosophy", with particular emphasis on Book 5 and the relationship between God's foreknowledge and human freedom

1. Anicius Manlius Severinus
Boëthius (c. 480–524 AD)

2. Bio
• Roman Senator, consul and philosopher
• Served Ostrogothic* King Theodoric the Great…
• …until said king had Boethius imprisoned and executed on
charges of conspiracy.
• Marries his foster-father's daughter, Rusticiana;
• Their sons became consuls
• Composed The Consolation of Philosophy whilst in
prison
• Schooled in the Classics and translated much of
Aristotle into Latin.
• Influenced by Plato, Aristotle and Augustine
• Wrote on Maths and Music

3. The Consolation of Philosophy: Overview
• Five books, comprised of prose and poetry segments.
• Mostly a dialogue between Lady Philosophy and Boethius.
• Much like in Plato’s dialogues, Boethius tends to just agree a lot!
• Themes:
• Fortune
• Power
• Goodness
• Happiness
• Justice
• Free will
• Providence vs Fate
• God’s foreknowledge
Lady Philosophy:
• A woman’s form
• Eyes shine with light surpassing men’s
• Full of years, yet strength intact.
• Both “varying stature” – seems to be of
ordinary height, yet also reach the heavens
• Clothes bear the symbols Π and Θ
• “The hands of rough men had torn
this garment and snatched such
morsels as they could”

4. Book 1 – Boethius’ Lament
• Lady Philosophy appears – drives away Muses of Poetry
• Promises to help – and to give him “medicine.”
• Problem of evil mentioned
• Boethius continues to feel sorry for himself.
• Lady Philosophy tells him off
• Asks, “do you think that this world is subject to random chance, or do you
believe that it is governed by some rational principle?”

5. Book 2- The Nature of Fortune
• Lady Philosophy demonstrates that Fortune is subject to change
• Really, Boethius has been very fortunate in the past (so cheer up!)
• “One thing is certain, fixed by eternal law: nothing that is born can last.”
• “No one is so completely happy that he does not have to endure some loss. Anxiety
is the necessary condition of human happiness since happiness is never completely
achieved and never permanently kept.”
• Happiness is within.
• An analysis of all the things people strive for, and why they’re worthless
• You own nothing.
• Possessing money makes you miserable – since you are worried about losing it.
Spending it makes you happy but then you don’t have it
• “When Fortune seems kind, and seems to promise happiness, she lies. On
the other hand, when she shows herself unstable and changeable, she is
truthful. Good fortune deceives, adverse fortune teaches.”

6. Book 3 – True happiness
• “The good is defined as that which, once it is attained, relieves man of all further
desires.”
• cf Plato in The Republic, where the Form of the Good is “the end of all endeavour- the object
on which every heart is set.”
• The rich man still needs to eat – so possessions don’t change our nature.
• “If riches cannot eliminate need, but on the contrary create new demands, what makes you
suppose that they can provide satisfaction?”
• “Without a standard of perfection we cannot judge anything to be imperfect” –
thus there is a highest, original good.
• “The good is the cause and sum of all that is sought for”.
• God is One and the goal to which all things tend.
• God is happiness, unity and being.
• He rules the universe by His goodness.

7. Book 4 – Doubts and the problem of evil.
Fate and Providence
• Evil people seem to get away with it
• They won’t forever! – God brings all to order
• Evil doers are actually unhappy
• “To give oneself to evil is to lose one’s human nature” – since evil is
not a thing, but a lack, we lose our existence when we are evil
• Providence = government according to the Divine Mind – God’s entire
plan. It is simple.
• Fate = “sets particular things in motion”
• “Providence is the unfolding of temporal events as this is present to the vision
of the divine mind; but this same unfolding of events as it is worked out in
time is called Fate.”

8. Book 5 – Free Will and God’s foreknowledge
• Chance = coincidence. Lady Philosophy uses the example of a farmer
wishing to cultivate land, who finds buried treasure
• “There seems to be a hopeless conflict between divine
foreknowledge of all things and freedom of the human will.”
• However, this is not the case:
• “Even though the events are foreseen because they will happen, they do not
happen because they are foreseen.” In other words, God’s foreknowledge is
not the efficient cause of a thing happening.

9. Book 5 cont. - Necessity
• Necessity does not always rely upon a thing but in conditions.
• For example, if a person, P is sitting on a chair, C, and I say, “P is on C” then my
statement is necessarily true if P is on C. Similarly, if my statement “P is on
C” is true, it is necessary that P is on C.
• Again, “This font is blue” is necessarily true if it is blue, and if the
statement is true, it follows, necessarily, that the font is blue, not
some other colour.
• Lady Philosophy draws a distinction between
• simple necessity – i.e. things which are simply/logically necessary (such as
tautologies) – “The Second World War was preceded by the First”
• “conditional necessity” – things which become necessary on certain
conditions. “The First World War preceded the Second”

10. Book 5 cont. – God’s perception of time
• “God lives in the eternal present, His knowledge transcends all movement
of time and abides in the simplicity of its immediate present.”
• This is a point CS also makes, some centuries later. It is, simply, that, as God is
eternal and atemporal, all times are present to Him. We do not think that, because
we see a chap walking down the street that our observation compels him to do so.
In the same way, God seeing our activities from the perspective of eternity does not
affect our free will. “No necessity forces the man who is voluntarily walking to move
forward; but as long as he is walking, he is necessarily moving forward.”
• “God sees as present those future things which result from free will. Theregfore
from the standpoint of divine knowledge these things are necessary because of the
condition of their being known by God, but, considered only in themselves, they lose
nothing of the absolute freedom of their own natures.”
• The conclusion, then, is that, “all things will happen
which God knows will happen; but some of them
happen as a result of free will.”

11. Book 5 – Boethius consoled.
• Although there isn’t any epilogue, the last paragraph of Book 5 essentially
concludes by saying that, from this concept of human freedom, it follows
that, “laws are just since they provide rewards and punishments to human
wills which are not controlled by necessity. God looks down from above,
knowing all thins, and the eternal present of his vision concurs with the
future character of our actions, distributing rewards to the good and
punishments to the evil.”
• “Our hopes and prayers are not directed to God in vain” then, as God will
right all wrongs and all our “actions are done in the sight of a Judge who
sees all things.” (the final sentence) – which is presumably meant to
comfort Boethius and contrast to the human judge who has falsely accused
him and imprisoned him.
• The final message, then, is as it was in the beginning – chill out, God’s got it
sorted. Or, as some put it…

12. (…whether that comforted him as he was being
executed, I don’t know)