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Andrew Bannor
A Letter To Boethius
Where do I begin my friend? I have read your work, "The Consolation of
Philosophy", and by my own accord, along with the overwhelming opinion of others I
Cheap University Papers on A Letter to Boethius
have spoken with, I write to inquire and clarify a point that was made during your
conversation in the fifth book of your work. In this book you focus firstly, and I believe
all too briefly on the subject of chance; accepting Lady Philosophy's astute definition of
chance, "an event produced by random motion without any casual nexus" page 116, you
then allow her to move into her explanation of chance and it's non-existence. The rest of
this final book, and indeed the majority of book V itself, is then concentrated on the
argument between man's free will and God's supreme foreknowledge, concerning how
they interact and co-exist, if indeed that is the case.
You both speak in terms of Providence, "…God has set up a plan for the
multitude of events. When this plan is thought of as in the purity of God's understanding,
it is called Providence.", page 104, and how it differs from Fate in the respect just
mentioned surrounding God's "pure understanding". It is within Providence, along side
the classifications Lady Philosophy makes regarding levels of knowledge, page 10,
and the explanations thereof that I see a hole, as it were, in this particular logical
argument she makes.
In more then one instance our kind Lady presents open doors to the opposition of
her own reason. In these instances I determined an argument for the existence of Chance,
and by it's existence then thus explaining the presence of God's Providence and supreme
foreknowledge coupled with mankind's free-will and ability to make choices.
As I read, I deduced that you had in fact made up your mind about chance before
you even had the need to inquire of Our Lady concerning its existence. Throughout the
"Consolation", you had referred to known things that either exist or have had a
personification attributed to them, Fortune comes to mind as an example as well as
Providence, by capitalizing them as proper nouns and speaking of them as people.
However once you came across the theme of chance, you neglected to do either of these
things, and this tells me you were already set in your belief of chance's absence in the
world and the workings of both God and men. With the combination of these next few
points I will begin to show you the reason behind my thinking, and explain why Chance
does exist.
On page 16, Our Lady lays out the dividers between depths and types of
knowledge, when addressing man's free-will. From least to greatest; sense-perception,
imagination, and reason and intelligence, are the groups there listed. Quite simply the
meanings of these types of knowledge are self-explanatory. Sense-perception allows
information to be gathered through the senses, even the most basic creature have this
ability. Imagination takes sense perception a step further and allows basic animal
instincts concerning the sense perception, such as, something sharp would hurt if one
touched it. Here we come to the most easily debated grouping of two depths of attaining
knowledge; reason and intelligence and the difference between the two. As far as the
definition of either of these goes I have simplified them to this; reason is the ability to
know everything but the grand 'Why?', and intelligence is the addition of that knowledge
to reason.
With this basic framework in place, I have chosen to look at two points Our
Lady makes one supporting the other in its conviction and both supporting the apparent
existence of Chance. "Reason belongs only to the human race, just as intelligence
belongs only to divinity", quoth Lady Philosophy on page 10. This is not to say that
reason does not belong to divinity, because reason is a component of intelligence, but to
say that no other creature on earth can rise to the level of knowledge defined by that
which is reason. However this passage does indicate that intelligence is not for man, and
only his Creator, and by prior definition of intelligence I conclude that man cannot
possibly comprehend the Lord's grand Providence, or God's great 'Why?'.
Our Lady previously said something exactly to just this extent on page 17.
"The point of greatest importance here is this the superior manner of knowledge includes
the inferior, but it is quite impossible for the inferior to rise to the superior." This
statement is further evidence to my conviction, and she continues to say even more about
man's state in comparison to God's that finalize my argument in this respect. "…But
intelligence as though looking down from above, first perceives form and then
distinguishes all things that are under it, but in such a way that it comprehends the form
itself which could not be known to any other." Upon interpretation and examination of
this passage I made the connection between man's perspective of not only himself but the
universe, and God's infinite perspective over all things. Man as part of God's creation
cannot step aside or step back and look 'down' on the grand picture, but God can. Think
of this in terms of a mirror, even as we would stand in front of one, and even if we are
surrounded on all sides by them, we can only view part of our bodies at one time, due to
our the way in which we were created. However, because of the separation of reason and
intelligence when concerning man and God, I also believe that this limited perspective
applies to not only physical abilities but mental capabilities as well.
Follow my argument here friend, and see if I have gone awry. If it is true, and
there has been no evidence otherwise, that man cannot fully understand God's supreme
plan, and only divinity is one with 'intelligence', then is not every seemingly logical,
reasonable, and rational move we make as men indeed Chance? As part of God's picture
and within the bounds of that picture everything we do has both rhyme and reason for
ourselves as far as motive. However, in the grand scheme we know not of what God's
final Providence is, or in fact the truest reason why we have made our actions. Our Lady,
on page 117, used a story of buried gold as an example of chance and how neither the
man who buried it, nor the man who unexpectedly discovered it while tilling his field,
knew of the other's actions. Drawing from this example, it would be safe to say the man
who discovered the gold would count this as a stroke of serendipity, where as the man
who buried it would view it as bad Fortune. However once the discussion turns as to why
God let the man in the field find the other man's gold we are at a loss. Because even as
the smallest stone cast into the ocean can be the beginning of a massive title wave, such is
any one event to what could be in God's Providence. Perhaps this man was in debt, and
badly needed this money to buy his freedom, or perhaps this is part of a much greater
scale. What if this man, being a Godly and generous man, gave the gold to someone more
needy then himself, as only God knew he would? What if that person in turn used it to
feed his children which he would not have been able to do otherwise , one of whom
would arise later in life to be a great and noble king? How could have the man who first
found the gold have possibly known his generosity would give rise to a king, and by
God's plan he was able to give more then what would have normally been possible?
I tell you he could not. And thus, though in everyday occurrence we logically and
reasonably act and move in a way that would promote rational thought, we being inside
of God's Providence cannot comprehend what the final destination of His work will be,
and so what other term then Chance can be used to describe our actions. It is only to God
that some seemingly unconnected events that occur are made sense of in His plan. We
dare not question, we dare not ponder exactly why such things happen, whether it be
from your suffering, to unexpected virtue that befall the wicked, because Chance is all we
can call it while God will call it Providence.
Your friend in Thought,
Andrewthius.
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