Human Destinies: Philosophical Essays in Memory of Gerald Hanratty

Chapter Four: Plotinus on Fate and Free Will

f o u r Plotinus on Fate and Free Will Andrew Smith to assert man’s dignity and freedom in respect of the world around him had been a main concern of most Greek philosophers from the Hellenistic age onwards. the epicureans had removed what to them seemed to be the restricting force of “providence” by denying the existence of a divinely planned universe. Of course, they were far from denying the law of cause and effect; and in maintaining that all things are caused, but not by any external or transcendent agent, they ran the risk of positing a mechanically determined universe, a situation from which they tried to extricate themselves by the curious notion of the atomic swerve. this minimal indeterminacy in the movement of the atoms of which the universe and the human mind were composed was intended to break the seemingly ineluctable chain of causal connections and, in the case of the human individual, to allow for the possibility of free will. the epicureans strongly maintained that man’s free will is demonstrable even if their explanation of how it operates is not altogether clear. lucretius thinks that he can demonstrate the fact of freedom from the chain of causation by distinguishing external causation from internal volition, as seen, for example, in racehorses 98 Plotinus on Fate and Free Will 99 whose bodies actually lurch forward only after they have willed themselves to move. the momentary interval is seen as isolating the volition as a cause distinct from the subsequent mechanical implementation: “Don’t you see how also when at an instant the starting gates are opened the eager strength of horses can nevertheless not surge forward as suddenly as the mind itself wishes? For all the mass of matter has to be stirred up throughout the body, so that stirred up through all the limbs it may in a concerted effort follow the mind’s desire.”1 the stoics, on the other hand, were vociferous in proclaiming the workings of divine providence and so presented themselves with the problem of demonstrating the freedom of the individual in a universe in which the smallest detail was part of the divine plan. another and more popular guise in which the same issue arose was astrology, which seemed to assert that the stars not only indicated but were in fact the cause of events in our lives and even of our actions, characters, and dispositions. if man’s every action and even thought is determined in this way it becomes difficult to maintain the value of human moral action. the popularity of astrology and some idea of the problems it presented to philosophers may be seen in Plotinus’ treatise On Whether the Stars Are Causes.2 One of the most extreme expressions of determinism in the ancient world may be found among those Gnostics who declared all men fated either to be saved (those granted gnosis/ knowledge) or to be condemned. this situation was clearly apparent to Plotinus in a Gnostic group that had attached itself to his own circle. in a masterful treatise in which he argued for the goodness of the universe and its divine origin he was severely critical of the beliefs of this Gnostic group which regarded the physical universe as the creation of a fallen spirit and preached a doctrine of salvation for the few chosen ones.3 such a doctrine, according to Plotinus, removed the basis for moral action and spiritual progress and could lead only to immorality: “But this doctrine censures the lord of providence and providence itself still more crudely, and despises all the laws of this world and the virtue whose winning extends back through all time, and makes selfcontrol here something to laugh at, that nothing noble may be seen existing below, and abolishes self-control and the righteousness which 100 Andrew Smith comes to birth with men’s characters and is perfected by reason and training, and altogether everything by which a man could become nobly good.”4 these traditional problems were, then, important for Platonists of the later imperial period, such as Plotinus, who regarded the inadequate defense and even denial of providence and human freedom as ultimately corrosive of all moral order. We may see this concern amply demonstrated in Plotinus’ treatise on fate. Here he discourses on the inadequacy of the solutions put forward by epicureans and stoics and tries to neutralize...