I read Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy many years ago, but hastily, I should say, and I allowed my impressions of it to all but fade over time. Grad school has recently given me the chance to return to this text and to do so with the injunction to read it carefully. I can say now that I see why this work was so quoted throughout the Middle Ages: it is beautifully, and tragically insightful.

I want to share some thoughts as I journeyed through this text.

I. Reflection

I am not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but, in a way that strikes me as a first, I feel truly content in life. I have a beautiful wife and family, with only time to spend with them and to make memories. All of our material needs are met, and we live comfortably.

Seeing Boethius strain to understand the fickleness of Fortune really shook me. The “changing faces of the random goddess,” (Bk. II, Pr. I) ¹ can turn everything upside down at a moment’s notice; life is so unpredictable. Illnesses and tragedies, financial spirals, social alienation–we stand at every moment at the mercy of a world so far beyond comprehension and prediction. I felt the reverberations of Boethius’ heartfelt pleas. What if I were to lose something dear to me? Or be faced with some kind of ruin that placed heavy burdens on my family?

I felt a sense of unworthiness, and gratitude to the Gods, as so many people are experiencing this very turn of Fortune’s wheel, and even more have never known Fortune’s gentler side. And I wondered if my happiness has indeed been misplaced in a kinder season of life. He even anticipates one who comes to this worry, and reasons that it may be sent providentially. “Perhaps he will begin to fear the hardness of losing all the things whose enjoyment is so pleasant, and therefore change his ways and abandon wickedness in the fear of losing happiness,” (Bk. IV, Pr. VI). ² And if he succumbs, then, “In all adversity of fortune,” he will say, “the most wretched kind is once to have been happy,” (Bk. II, Pr. IV). ³

The Consolation of Philosophy is so well written I had to remind myself that Lady Philosophy is Boethius. She says that one of the most important things to realize about Fortune is that none of us is owed any of her gifts. We should enjoy them, if they come, but fight any urge to feel entitled to them. Cultivate humility and gratitude. Think about these often. But, even more important, she will argue that our final end; our deepest sense of purpose and fulfillment, is not something that Fortune is even capable of giving to us–let alone taking away. ⁴ By focusing your life on this ultimate end, the tides of Fortune will come and go as they were always going to, but wash over you as blessings and opportunities, not as deal breakers.

She says that “a wise man ought no more to take it ill when he clashes with fortune than a brave man ought to be upset by the sound of battle. For both of them their very distress is an opportunity, for the one to gain glory and the other to strengthen his wisdom.” We must, then, “[h]old to the middle way with unshakeable strength [between becoming enamored by fortune, or embittered by it],” (Bk. IV, Pr. VII). ⁵

Of course, this can all sound fine and dandy, surrounded by all the comforts and luxuries of America. But could any of us truly look a child starving to death in a third-world country and say that they should not let their misfortune affect their happiness, because theirs is an end so much nobler than anything this world could offer? This question haunted me as I read the text, and we will return to it.

First, note that Boethius comes to enrich his concept of Fortune, and practically changes her character altogether. In Book II, she honestly just seemed like the deity most monotheists describe: she causes the rain to fall on the good and the wicked, and we are simply in no position to question her, like Job, let alone indict her as if any of us is entitled to her kindnesses. We are just passing through this life, and are owed nothing from her. But, in Books IV and V, it becomes clear that the constant turning of Fortune’s wheel is not a matter of rolling the dice. In fact, there is a bigger picture in which everything we experience is for us; all our losses and defeats, bathed in the warm light of Goodness Itself. Sometimes when I reflect on this, I glimpse a heart-wrenching, aching, embrace in each God that just… melts all our grief and misery. Maybe he did too.

But how did he get to this new conception?

The summit he climbs to is in wrestling with Providence and Fate. Boethius sees Providence and Fate as the same thing just considered from different perspectives. When God’s plan, intention, or purpose for each and all things is considered from his perspective, or in that mode, we call it Providence, but when considered as it appears from creation’s perspective, or in that mode, we call it Fate. “So this unfolding of the plan in time when brought together as a unified whole in the foresight of God’s mind is Providence; and the same unified whole when dissolved and unfolded in the course of time is Fate,” (Bk. IV, Pr. VI). ⁶

It is key to Boethius’ conception of Providence and Fate that everything “that is known is comprehended not according to its own nature, but according to the ability to know of those who do the knowing,” (Bk. V, Pr. IV). ⁷ God’s nature is for Boethius intellectual and eternal, and so, by his lights, it not only subsists in pure simultaneous present, but sees in the manner of nous. The objects of his knowledge appear accordingly: in the fullness of their intelligibility and as simultaneously present. “The divine gaze looks down on all things without disturbing their nature; to Him they are present things, but under the condition of time they are future things,” (Bk. V, Pr. VI). ⁸

However, in light of this sheer sovereignty; this indomitability, the question arises of why God chooses to be unpleasant to the good and pleasant to the bad? After all, nothing can compel God to do so. Indeed, Boethius says “since He often varies between these two alternatives, what grounds are there for distinguishing between God and the haphazards of chance?” (Bk. IV, Pr. V). ⁹ But here, Lady Philosophy reveals the true character of Fortune. Through Prs. VI and VII of Bk. IV, Lady Philosophy shows that “all fortune whether pleasant or adverse is meant either to reward or discipline the good or to punish or correct the bad,” such that “[a]ll fortune is certainly good,” (Bk. IV, Pr. VII). ¹⁰ 

As mentioned above, in Bk. II it was unveiled that Fortune’s distribution is never unfair because no one has a right to her bounties but her. But now, and only after having grasped Providence, are we able to see what was only partially visible then, and understand the truth about the unfolding of Fate qua pleasant or unpleasant: it is not a haphazard turning of the wheel, but the supreme rule of one who is goodness itself.

This is not to say that God positively causes evil, but rather that he uses it. Although evil has no positive being, we are its authors on account of our freedom, and “it would be impossible for any rational nature to exist without [freedom],” (Bk. V, Pr. II). ¹¹ The effects of our evil choices are worked to the good, whether justice or mercy. “It is only the power of God to which evils may also be good, when by their proper use He elicits some good result,” (Bk. IV, Pr. VI). ¹²

Now we can return to the question of how realistic Boethius’ proposal is. To be frank, I think a lot of people will be appalled by the categories that Boethius used as examples: a child born into the worst of circumstances does not deserve this lifestyle as punishment, and it cannot be a gesture of just discipline for their poor little minds or bodies. And perhaps Boethius would not invoke these specific categories in cases like this. He may not even know which one to call to mind. Instead, he may simply say that these circumstances, like all things, are laid bare before Goodness Itself, so that when the sufferer reaches their end, they will see what could not be seen from here: that they were never alone; that it was for something incredible, and that they are now enraptured in a goodness unspeakable.

It seems to me that part of why theodicies fall on deaf ears at this point is that a very important question has not been brought to the fore, and that is, just how serious are we that this life is not it for us? If we really do have a final end beyond this life; if there really is more to the story, then the tragedies and horrors of life are not like cries left to echo unanswered through eternity. They just aren’t. The atheist mindset approaching this matter takes in the outrage and heartbreak called for by tragedy but is then stuck with it, because there is no resolution visible from that perspective. Tragedy is not ultimate though, and in the end finds itself in a greater context that it is no match for.

II. Conclusion

I really enjoyed this text, and wholeheartedly recommend it to those able to wrestle with philosophical works. It is not that Boethius is terribly novel. He did imbibe from the Platonists, and much of his thought was already spelled out (and sometimes in far greater detail) by his pagan predecessors and contemporaries. It is rather that Boethius is authentic and raw. His pain became poetry, and that is why he is so quotable.

He is overtly monotheistic, and I’ll engage his argument momentarily, but I should first say to the polytheist reader that Boethius’ talk of ‘God’ need not be read as referring to a specific individual. Outside of prayer, and especially in philosophical contexts, when monotheists speak about ‘God’ they are very often identifying and thinking about the formal traits or characteristics that come with being at the ‘top’. Thus, Boethius’ extended deduction of the nature of Providence and Fate is not an exegesis of any revealed text: it is a reflection on what it has to be like for one so-positioned. My recommendation, then, is to read particular singular talk of ‘God’ as collective singular talk of ‘all that is God’.

But, I should add that Boethius is not like any monotheist thinkers you might run into nowadays. He is surprisingly pagan–testifying to how long it took for Christianity to cleanse the collective memory; and, frankly, to help kill a thousands of year old marvel. He believes in pre-embodiment (Bk. V, Pr. II), ¹³ theosis (Bk. IV, Pr. III), ¹⁴ and an order of gods surrounding God (which polycentricity can see as being true of each God). This latter view arises in curious places. For example, at one point he describes everything in terms of revolving concentric circles, with some being closest to the centre, and then says “For the best way of controlling the universe is if the simplicity immanent in the divine mind produces an unchanging order of causes to govern by its own incommunicability everything that is subject to change, and which will otherwise fluctuate at random,” (Bk. IV, Pr. VI). ¹⁵

He will casually distinguish constituents within a very populated higher realm: “whether the work of Fate is done with the help of divine spirits of Providence, or whether the chain of Fate is woven by the soul of the universe, or by the obedience of all nature, by the celestial motions of the stars, or by the power of the angels, by the various skills of other spirits, or by some of these, or by all of them, one thing is certainly clear: the simple and unchanging plan of events is Providence, and Fate is the ever-changing web, the disposition in and through time of all the events which God has planned in his simplicity,” (Bk. IV, Pr. VI). ¹⁶

Still, Boethius is clear; polytheism at the level of God is impossible:

“it is impossible for two supreme goods to exist separate from one another. For it is clear that if the two goods are separate, the one cannot be the other, so that neither could be perfect when each is lacking to the other. But that which is not perfect is obviously not supreme. It is therefore impossible for there two be two separate supreme goods,” (Bk. III, Pr. X). ¹⁷

Of course, all Boethius has deduced is that qua supreme, two Gods cannot be coordinate, and of course… we can agree. Moreover, the underlying assumption that they would have to be coordinate is just to stop treating them like Gods after all. But, we need not spend any more time defusing this than he spent building it.

I hope if you do wrestle with this text, you are able to glean from it insights and ideas that help you along your journey.

1. Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy, Victor Watts trans. (Penguin Classics, 1999), 23. ↩︎
2. Ibid. 109. ↩︎
3. Ibid. 29. ↩︎
4. e.g. “If happiness is the highest good of rational nature and anthing that can be taken away is not the highest good — since it is suprassed by what can’t be taken away — Fortune by her very mutability can’t hope to lead to happiness,” (Bk. II, Pr. IV), 31. Aristotle seems to differ here: with enough misfortune, someone can be blessed, but not happy. Indeed, he says “if someone has suffered these sorts of misfortunes and comes to a miserable end, no one counts him happy,” NE Bk. 9, 1100a5. ↩︎
5. Ibid. 113. ↩︎
6. Ibid. 104. ↩︎
7. Ibid. 126. ↩︎
8. Ibid. 135. ↩︎
9. Ibid. 102. ↩︎
10. Ibid. 111. ↩︎
11. Ibid. 118. ↩︎
12. Ibid. 109. ↩︎
13. Ibid. 118. ↩︎
14. Ibid. 93. He will argue that since “it is through the possession of happiness that people become happy, and since happiness is in fact divinity, it is clear that it is through the possession of divinity that people become happy,” (Bk. III, Pr. X), 71. ↩︎
15. Ibid. 106. ↩︎
16. Ibid. 105. ↩︎
17. Ibid. 71. ↩︎