The situation is a bit (but only a bit) like the sinking boat scenario we were discussing out on the JUB stoa yesterday afternoon in CoPhi. The boat sinks, all aboard are lost, but one would-be passenger who didn't board thinks it must have been his destiny, his "fate" to survive. But what about the actual passengers? Their trust was not rewarded, Crash.
Oh well, says the trusting believer. Life's a mystery. Why do bad things happen to good and innocent people? Why must the innocent die young? Why must the team with 106 regular-season wins now go home to watch its inferiors contend for glory? God only knows.
Or the gods, as the interlocutors in Cicero's On the Nature of the Gods would say.
Cotta the Skeptic, Velleius the Epicurean, and Balbus the Stoic talk it out in an conversation that's still fresh and relevant. All score points at various moments in the discussion. We're giving it a glance today in Happiness.
Early in the dialogue, Velleius mocks the idea of a Master Planner god who's got the whole world in his hands. (NOTE, class: this is a different translation than we're reading, cited by J.M. Hecht in Doubt: A History.) "So you have smuggled into our minds the idea of some eternal overlord, whom we must fear by day and night. Who would not fear a god who foresees everything, ponders everything, notices everything? A god who makes everything his own concern, a curious god, a universal busybody? ...Epicurus has saved us from all such fears and set us free."
I recall being afraid, as a small child, that the god we sang about in Sunday School was snooping on my every indiscretion. "His eye is on the sparrow, I know he's watching me." Yikes! (And, "if I should die before I wake" etc.-double yikes!!) If trust is purchased with fear and thus (for an Epicurean) any prospect of true happiness, it's not worth it. Better to picture the god(s) as indifferent to our fate, uninterested in either protecting, rewarding, or punishing us.
Cotta the Skeptic takes it a step further. "Divine Providence was supposed to be able 'to accomplish anything it pleases' and yet it lets people die."
And:
"It follows from this theory of yours that this Divine Providence is either unaware of its own powers or is indifferent to human life. Or else it is unable to judge what is best. 'Providence is not concerned with individuals,' you say. I can well believe it."
Fate? You really can't trust it. Or the gods, or the God, fate's reputed Master Planner and divine engineer. We cannot count on a cosmic ally or savior to secure our happiness. We're on our own. We must cultivate our Garden.
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