The Consolation of Philosophy

The Consolation of Philosophy

by

Boethius

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on The Consolation of Philosophy makes teaching easy.
The eternal, all-powerful, all-knowing, and absolutely benevolent creator of the universe, whom Boethius and Philosophy praise, pray to, and profile in detail throughout the Consolation, particularly in Books IV and V. Although the book strays from identifying this God in terms of specific religious doctrines, He clearly fits the Christian depiction of God, and also closely resembles the “craftsman” creator, or “demiurge,” that Plato writes about in works such as the Timaeus. Philosophy first explains that “God the Creator watches over” the world and everything in it, then suggests that, because God is the greatest thing that can be imagined, nothing can be greater, more powerful, or happier than Him. Indeed, God is identical to goodness and happiness themselves, as well as the superlative forms of happiness’s five elements: pleasure, power, honor, sufficiency, and glory. In Book IV, Philosophy establishes that God has a plan for the universe, Providence. While humans and other mortal beings sometimes err in their attempts to fulfill Providence, God sets them right by providing appropriate consequences that return them to the track of virtue. God is able to do this because He is “eternal,” outside time, and looks onto the whole world (and all of what humans see as the past, present, and future) from an outsider’s perspective. Therefore, as Philosophy explains in Book V, God can have foreknowledge of all human events without necessarily causing those events to happen. Ultimately, God becomes the principal solution to Boethius’s woes, as Philosophy promises that faith and contemplation will free Boethius from relying on the whims of Fortune.

God Quotes in The Consolation of Philosophy

The The Consolation of Philosophy quotes below are all either spoken by God or refer to God. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Classical Philosophy and Medieval Christianity Theme Icon
).
Book III, Part IX Quotes

O Thou who dost by everlasting reason rule,
Creator of the planets and the sky, who time
From timelessness dost bring, unchanging Mover,
No cause drove Thee to mould unstable matter, but
The form benign of highest good within Thee set.
All things Thou bringest forth from Thy high archetype:
Thou, height of beauty, in Thy mind the beauteous world
Dost bear, and in that ideal likeness shaping it,
Dost order perfect parts a perfect whole to frame.
[…]
Grant, Father, that our minds Thy august seat may scan,
Grant us the sight of true good’s source, and grant us light
That we may fix on Thee our mind’s unblinded eye.
Disperse the clouds of earthly matter’s cloying weight;
Shine out in all Thy glory; for Thou art rest and peace
To those who worship Thee; to see Thee is our end,
Who art our source and maker, lord and path and goal.

Related Characters: Lady Philosophy (speaker), God
Related Symbols: The Sun and Sunlight
Page Number: 66-7
Explanation and Analysis:
Book III, Part X Quotes

It is the universal understanding of the human mind that God, the author of all things, is good. Since nothing can be conceived better than God, everyone agrees that that which has no superior is good. Reason shows that God is so good that we are convinced that His goodness is perfect. Otherwise He couldn’t be the author of creation. There would have to be something else possessing perfect goodness over and above God, which would seem to be superior to Him and of greater antiquity. For all perfect things are obviously superior to those that are imperfect. Therefore, to avoid an unending argument, it must be admitted that the supreme God is to the highest degree filled with supreme and perfect goodness. But we have agreed that perfect good is true happiness; so that it follows that true happiness is to be found in the supreme God.

Related Characters: Lady Philosophy (speaker), Boethius, God
Page Number: 69
Explanation and Analysis:
Book IV, Part I Quotes

But the greatest cause of my sadness is really this—the fact that in spite of a good helmsman to guide the world, evil can still exist and even pass unpunished. This fact alone you must surely think of considerable wonder. But there is something even more bewildering. When wickedness rules and flourishes, not only does virtue go unrewarded, it is even trodden underfoot by the wicked and punished in the place of crime. That this can happen in the realm of an omniscient and omnipotent God who wills only good, is beyond perplexity and complaint.

Related Characters: Boethius (speaker), Lady Philosophy, God
Page Number: 85
Explanation and Analysis:
Book IV, Part IV Quotes

This is why among wise men there is no place at all left for hatred. For no one except the greatest of fools would hate good men. And there is no reason at all for hating the bad. For just as weakness is a disease of the body, so wickedness is a disease of the mind.

Related Characters: Lady Philosophy (speaker), Boethius, God
Page Number: 101
Explanation and Analysis:
Book IV, Part VI Quotes

The relationship between the ever-changing course of Fate and the stable simplicity of Providence is like that between reasoning and understanding, between that which is coming into being and that which is, between time and eternity, or between the moving circle and the still point in the middle.

Related Characters: Lady Philosophy (speaker), Boethius, God
Page Number: 105
Explanation and Analysis:
Book V, Part III Quotes

The question is, therefore, how can God foreknow that these things will happen, if they are uncertain?

Related Characters: Boethius (speaker), Lady Philosophy, God
Page Number: 121
Explanation and Analysis:
Book V, Part V Quotes

In the same way, human reason refuses to believe that divine intelligence can see the future in any other way except that in which human reason has knowledge. This is how the argument runs: if anything does not seem to have any certain and predestined occurrence, it cannot be foreknown as a future event. Of such, therefore, there is no foreknowledge: and if we believe that even in this case there is foreknowledge, there will be nothing which does not happen of necessity. If, therefore, as beings who have a share of reason, we can judge of the mind of God, we should consider it most fitting for human reason to bow before divine wisdom, just as we judged it right for the senses and the imagination to yield to reason.

Related Characters: Lady Philosophy (speaker), Boethius, God
Page Number: 131
Explanation and Analysis:
Book V, Part VI Quotes

Eternity, then, is the complete, simultaneous and perfect possession of everlasting life; this will be clear from a comparison with creatures that exist in time. Whatever lives in time exists in the present and progresses from the past to the future, and there is nothing set in time which can embrace simultaneously the whole extent of its life: it is in the position of not yet possessing tomorrow when it has already lost yesterday.

Related Characters: Lady Philosophy (speaker), Boethius, God
Page Number: 132
Explanation and Analysis:

God has foreknowledge and rests a spectator from on high of all things; and as the ever present eternity of His vision dispenses reward to the good and punishment to the bad, it adapts itself to the future quality of our actions. Hope is not placed in God in vain and prayers are not made in vain, for if they are the right kind they cannot but be efficacious. Avoid vice, therefore, and cultivate virtue; lift up your mind to the right kind of hope, and put forth humble prayers on high. A great necessity is laid upon you, if you will be honest with yourself, a great necessity to be good, since you live in the sight of a judge who sees all things.

Related Characters: Lady Philosophy (speaker), Boethius, God
Page Number: 137
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Consolation of Philosophy LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Consolation of Philosophy PDF

God Quotes in The Consolation of Philosophy

The The Consolation of Philosophy quotes below are all either spoken by God or refer to God. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Classical Philosophy and Medieval Christianity Theme Icon
).
Book III, Part IX Quotes

O Thou who dost by everlasting reason rule,
Creator of the planets and the sky, who time
From timelessness dost bring, unchanging Mover,
No cause drove Thee to mould unstable matter, but
The form benign of highest good within Thee set.
All things Thou bringest forth from Thy high archetype:
Thou, height of beauty, in Thy mind the beauteous world
Dost bear, and in that ideal likeness shaping it,
Dost order perfect parts a perfect whole to frame.
[…]
Grant, Father, that our minds Thy august seat may scan,
Grant us the sight of true good’s source, and grant us light
That we may fix on Thee our mind’s unblinded eye.
Disperse the clouds of earthly matter’s cloying weight;
Shine out in all Thy glory; for Thou art rest and peace
To those who worship Thee; to see Thee is our end,
Who art our source and maker, lord and path and goal.

Related Characters: Lady Philosophy (speaker), God
Related Symbols: The Sun and Sunlight
Page Number: 66-7
Explanation and Analysis:
Book III, Part X Quotes

It is the universal understanding of the human mind that God, the author of all things, is good. Since nothing can be conceived better than God, everyone agrees that that which has no superior is good. Reason shows that God is so good that we are convinced that His goodness is perfect. Otherwise He couldn’t be the author of creation. There would have to be something else possessing perfect goodness over and above God, which would seem to be superior to Him and of greater antiquity. For all perfect things are obviously superior to those that are imperfect. Therefore, to avoid an unending argument, it must be admitted that the supreme God is to the highest degree filled with supreme and perfect goodness. But we have agreed that perfect good is true happiness; so that it follows that true happiness is to be found in the supreme God.

Related Characters: Lady Philosophy (speaker), Boethius, God
Page Number: 69
Explanation and Analysis:
Book IV, Part I Quotes

But the greatest cause of my sadness is really this—the fact that in spite of a good helmsman to guide the world, evil can still exist and even pass unpunished. This fact alone you must surely think of considerable wonder. But there is something even more bewildering. When wickedness rules and flourishes, not only does virtue go unrewarded, it is even trodden underfoot by the wicked and punished in the place of crime. That this can happen in the realm of an omniscient and omnipotent God who wills only good, is beyond perplexity and complaint.

Related Characters: Boethius (speaker), Lady Philosophy, God
Page Number: 85
Explanation and Analysis:
Book IV, Part IV Quotes

This is why among wise men there is no place at all left for hatred. For no one except the greatest of fools would hate good men. And there is no reason at all for hating the bad. For just as weakness is a disease of the body, so wickedness is a disease of the mind.

Related Characters: Lady Philosophy (speaker), Boethius, God
Page Number: 101
Explanation and Analysis:
Book IV, Part VI Quotes

The relationship between the ever-changing course of Fate and the stable simplicity of Providence is like that between reasoning and understanding, between that which is coming into being and that which is, between time and eternity, or between the moving circle and the still point in the middle.

Related Characters: Lady Philosophy (speaker), Boethius, God
Page Number: 105
Explanation and Analysis:
Book V, Part III Quotes

The question is, therefore, how can God foreknow that these things will happen, if they are uncertain?

Related Characters: Boethius (speaker), Lady Philosophy, God
Page Number: 121
Explanation and Analysis:
Book V, Part V Quotes

In the same way, human reason refuses to believe that divine intelligence can see the future in any other way except that in which human reason has knowledge. This is how the argument runs: if anything does not seem to have any certain and predestined occurrence, it cannot be foreknown as a future event. Of such, therefore, there is no foreknowledge: and if we believe that even in this case there is foreknowledge, there will be nothing which does not happen of necessity. If, therefore, as beings who have a share of reason, we can judge of the mind of God, we should consider it most fitting for human reason to bow before divine wisdom, just as we judged it right for the senses and the imagination to yield to reason.

Related Characters: Lady Philosophy (speaker), Boethius, God
Page Number: 131
Explanation and Analysis:
Book V, Part VI Quotes

Eternity, then, is the complete, simultaneous and perfect possession of everlasting life; this will be clear from a comparison with creatures that exist in time. Whatever lives in time exists in the present and progresses from the past to the future, and there is nothing set in time which can embrace simultaneously the whole extent of its life: it is in the position of not yet possessing tomorrow when it has already lost yesterday.

Related Characters: Lady Philosophy (speaker), Boethius, God
Page Number: 132
Explanation and Analysis:

God has foreknowledge and rests a spectator from on high of all things; and as the ever present eternity of His vision dispenses reward to the good and punishment to the bad, it adapts itself to the future quality of our actions. Hope is not placed in God in vain and prayers are not made in vain, for if they are the right kind they cannot but be efficacious. Avoid vice, therefore, and cultivate virtue; lift up your mind to the right kind of hope, and put forth humble prayers on high. A great necessity is laid upon you, if you will be honest with yourself, a great necessity to be good, since you live in the sight of a judge who sees all things.

Related Characters: Lady Philosophy (speaker), Boethius, God
Page Number: 137
Explanation and Analysis: