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On the Stoic God (or absence thereof)
Does a modern Stoic need to believe in pantheism in order to be a Stoic?
I consider myself a Stoic practitioner, with more than a pinch of Skepticism added to my philosophy of life. Yet, I just finished reading a book that basically tells me that unless I believe in the ancient Stoic God I’m not really a Stoic, but rather someone who just uses Stoic-inspired life hackery to muddle through existence.
So let’s settle this matter once and for all, shall we? Just kidding. Of course we will never settle this sort of things, because people will believe whatever they will believe, and they will provide what they think are good reasons to back up such beliefs. And I am, needless to say, no exception to the rule.
Still, it may be worth considering the subject in a some detail to try to clarify our thoughts about it. Unfortunately, I cannot quote directly the book that spurred my musings in this essay because it hasn’t be published yet. The two authors, though, are solid writers about Stoicism, so I’m not picking at strawmen here.
The chapter on the Stoic God in the book in question begins by acknowledging that Stoicism is not a religion, and yet the authors tell us that it has a significant component of religiousness or spirituality. That, right there, is the first…
