Philosophy of Religion

De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods)

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Cicero

45 BC

De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods) is Cicero's major work in the philosophy of religion — a dialogue in three books examining the competing theological views of the three dominant Hellenistic schools. The Epicurean Velleius argues that the gods are blessed beings who dwell in the intermundia (spaces between worlds), utterly indifferent to human affairs; the Stoic Balbus gives an extended account of Stoic theology and natural theology, arguing that the order and beauty of the cosmos demonstrate the existence of divine providence; the Academic sceptic Cotta systematically refutes both positions, arguing that neither Epicurean nor Stoic theology can withstand philosophical scrutiny. Cicero himself speaks through Cotta and allows the Stoic account to end the dialogue with apparent advantage, while leaving the question formally unresolved. De Natura Deorum is the fullest extant account of Hellenistic theology and natural theology, and its influence extends from medieval Christian thinkers who mined it for arguments about divine providence to Hume, whose Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion consciously models itself on Cicero's three-interlocutor format.