Varieties of Religion and Analogies for Stoicism

an invited talk about Stoicism and religion at Stoicon-X Midwest 2022

Three years ago, I was invited to give a presentation at the online Stoicon-X Midwest conference, which focused on the theme “Stoicism and Religion.” If you’d like to watch or listen to my talk, here’s the videorecording of it. What follows below is the transcript of my presentation along with an answer to one question spurred by the talk.

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The original title that was was suggested at the beginning was: Is Stoic theology useful? A devil's advocacy argument.” I thought: “well I don't want to be a devil's advocate.” I think we're going to get a lot of stuff about Stoic theology, so I'm going to shift the topic slightly given the overall theme of the conference, which I really think is quite good.

There's this notion that religion or belief in God, something quite encompassing, offers comfort or meaning to people. And the question is: can Stoicism do the same? So I think that's a really great question, and it opens up the possibility for doing some comparison between Stoicism and the things that we typically think of as religion.

So Idecided to shift focus to what we could call analogies, kind of in Seneca's sense where it's not exactly like a ratio or something like that, but we get a grasp on something by seeing matters you could say in their native habitat. And this question about Stoicism and religion (in a very broad sense) comes up endlessly in the Facebook groups. If any of you participate in those, you see that stuff coming up a lot I imagine. I don't actually check out Stoicism Reddit, but it's probably showing up there as well So I think there's a lot to talk about, and I think we're going to hear a lot about that from other people in this.

There's a lot of other related topics connected to this, the compatibility between Stoicism and varieties of religion, so I thought we could you know begin by thinking about religion itself. There's a lot of complexity, and you could say, moving parts and distinctions and interconnections and similarities between what we typically lable as “religions” and what we nowadays also call philosophies of life. Or if you like, Alasdair MacIntyre's term “tradition constituted rationalities” there's a lot of ways of talking about this and Stoicism fits in there quite well.

There are some identifiable philosophies of life that people see as coming out of religious traditions. You could think about Confucianism or Buddhism, but there are very secular versions of these as well. And if we think about historically the use of Epictetus by the monks and the monasteries who took the Enchiridion (and I think we all know this story) changed Socrates to Christ and the philosopher to the monk. There's an adaptability there. They were also reading Seneca quite a lot. They're getting a lot from Cicero, from the neo-Platonists, and so there's this this very rich kind of soup historically that we can talk about that has a lot of ingredients to it.

I think one of the things that could be very helpful is in thinking less about trying to define things very carefully, because as we're going to see there is no consensus definition of religion. Thinking in terms of a Greek term that we're all familiar with in its English version heresy which comes from hairesis which originally means a choice. And a choice of what? A choice of your philosophical or religious or whatever other kind of commitments. And so it was it was quite common to talk about Stoicism as being a hairesis just like epicureanism was, or neo-Platonism was.

You could also think about religious practices that way as well, and I think when we think about it that way there's a lot of overlap. We can talk about the meaningfulness for people who are practicing it as something that draws them in. Now as I mentioned, there is no consensus definition of religion. Anybody who like tries to quote a dictionary definition is overlooking the fact that within religious studies, just like in philosophy (as well in philosophy of religion) there is a whole variety of definitions. We almost have too many of them and nobody is entirely on board with with these.

And the same thing goes for philosophy by the way. It's kind of an embarrassment that philosophy, there's too many definitions of it, and the philosophers themselves don't agree on it. You could say the same thing for psychology, for emotion for all these important terms. So maybe we get away from worrying over too much about definitions, and we think instead about what the things are that we typically associate with religion.

There's a number of different scholars that we could turn to. Ninian Smart is sort of a common place with his seven dimensions of religion: doctrinal, mythological, ethical, ritual, experimental, institutional, and material. And if we look at how Stoicism is practiced or we look at it's it's development over time, I think you can see some of these figuring in there.

The ethical is of course very important. You can ask if there's a doctrinal content. I think that's quite clear that there is as well, although not everybody agrees on precisely what it is. You can talk about a ritual dimension to it. Definitely experiential. Particularly when we're getting together in groups, there might be an institutional aspect to it. I mean, there are groups out there and important institutions within largely the internet sphere.

So there's there's room for looking at connections or similarities between Stoicism and religion, and Smart is just one of many people we could bring up. If we had much longer time, we could talk about William James and the Varieties of Religious Experience, and whether we could talk about “varieties of Stoic practice” and groups and things along those lines.

When it comes to Stoicism we're probably better off that we don't have a definition of it I mean, there are people out there who are like “give an elevator pitch for Stoicism”, and those are nice as elevator pitches. But like Seneca points out to us, Stoicism is a complex set of self-reinforcing and referring ideas, and if you try to encapsulate it in a single formula you're not getting that much.

But we can certainly say there are some things that are Stoic and some things that are not Stoic, right? If you say for example, “pleasure is the only good”, okay: not Stoic. Epicurean or otherwise hedonist, but clearly not Stoic. If you say something like “virtue is the only good,” well that's definitely important. It's not the totality of Stoicism, but it's a good start.

And when we think about Stoicism and its emergence within the Mediterranean and near East World in Antiquity, and then its encounter with all sorts of other, let's call them ways of life or ways of thinking, you can say that Stoicism was viewed as a rival not just by other philosophies but also by religious people in their communities and their traditions.

We can definitely see this in Christianity where the early Church Fathers are constantly talking about the Stoics. Think about Lactantius and his treatise On Divine Anger, where the Stoics and the Epicureans are his main opponents and interlocutors. Jewish authors, even you know Pagan authors of a certain sort — you could think of the Pagan neoplatonist tradition which draws heavily on Stoicism and Aristotelianism Simplicus's commentary on Epictetus’ Enchiridion, there’s a lot of talk about God in that.

So were the Stoics viewed as being religious? Yes and no. I mean, there's Providence as we're going to hear about shortly, but there's not an awful lot of personal interaction. It's not a way of life in which prayer plays a fundamental role. Epictetus talks about God as caring about particulars, but he might be an outlier when it comes to that. There is this beautiful idea that you see in Epictetus and in Seneca of a commonwealth or a political Community, which is the world of human beings and gods. So we are connected with the Divine in some way in classical Stoicism.

It's not like the gods show up, as in Greek fables in disguise, and hang out with us, or anything like that. But there is this sense of of community that matters. There's also this sense of there being a bit of God within all of us. Epictetus is super clear about that. That's why you shouldn't treat people badly. You're not just screwing your own little bit of God up when you go to the house of prostitution or do other bad things. But when you mistreat your neighbor, you're messing around with this this bit of God.

Is that the same thing as the eikon theou or the imago dei? Not exactly, but it's pretty close. And there's some similar ramifications, obviously. There's a huge overlap in terms of ethics. The four cardinal virtues which get some really great discussion in Stoic texts are definitely not unique to the Stoics. The Platonists, even the Epicureans recognize those, and that's taken up by Jewish and Christian authors as well. The focus on the will, and what's up to us, we're going to see that as central in many different traditions.

Moral development is is very important, and we can also talk about what is the end, what is the the goal, if it's something like tranquility or getting along with people or having a meaningful life or something like that. I think there's a lot of overlap even in ancient Stoicism with all the other things that are going on in the other haireseis, as we were calling them earlier.

And if you think about our contemporary concerns, there people talk about modernity as being a time not just of secularism (which doesn't actually seem to be quite so easy to take for granted these days, at least here in in the United States), but also being a time in which we have this “meaning crisis”. People are having less meaningful lives, and I think a lot of people are thinking that Stoicism could could help out with that, and probably probably rightly so

I think here's where we can ask: “Well, what do people take religion to mean?” And then we can say: “Okay, what things are Stoicism doing, or providing, or offering that would fit into that. It's clear that not only is there no consensus about what religion is among the scholars in religious studies, or philosophers of religion, or sociologists of religion. It's very clear that people all over the place have a whole bunch of different ideas about what religion means, not just in general but for them what it means to be committed to a religious life.

So I put together a kind of typology that might provoke some interesting discussion of ways in which people live out, or at least think they're living out their religious commitments. I think we could see some of the similar things in Stoicism, at least within the vast Stoic community.

So there are some people who are very pragmatic and experiential, and they're like: “I just want to try this thing out. I'm not going to commit in any major way until I see some fruits. People do this in churches, and synagogues, and pick whatever else you want. I think there's a lot of people doing that with Stoicism. It's sort of like they look for the entry points, what we often call the “gateway drugs”, as we're introducing people to it.

And then at the other extreme, there's what I call the “immediate convert,” the person who runs into something, and they're like: “Holy crap! This is amazing! I can't get enough of this!” And they jump into it wholeheartedly and very often with, you could say, blinders on or the proverbial rose-colored glasses. Sometimes that manages to sustain them for a while. Sometimes they get burnt out on it. I think we see people doing this with with Stoicism as well.

Closely related to this would be the people who basically treat religion as if it is their community, as their in-group. And everybody else is in the out group, and religion becomes just another set of group dynamics. I think there's people like that with Stoicism. They're on “Team Stoic” and sometimes they actually misrepresent what Stoicism is because they haven't studied it enough. But they want a very strong division between the Stoics and then say, those dirty Epicureans or whoever else.

We also have people who you could call, in religion we call these “church hoppers” or “church shoppers”. I think people do this with philosophies of life as well. They try one out, and they're like: Yeah, not for me”, and then go to another one. And they just keep moving from place to place, so to speak, and commitments.

All of these are not bad. I would say one that is, I guess we could call it bad — I'll leave it up to you to think about this — people who are in the group, sometimes they like to police everybody else. And these are the people who are chiming in constantly and saying: “that's not Stoic of you.” And you're like: “Well, who the hell made you the king of the Stoics?” as Seneca might say. Is this like what happens in religious organizations or political organizations or any other? Yes of course!

So there's certain types. We have evangelists, people who are turning now to groups outside or individuals outside. They've got this great thing that they want to share with everybody, and they're constantly doing that. I think we can say there are Stoic evangelists of that sort.

There are the insiders or institutionally associated people, the ones who keep everything going, the ones who see the how the proverbial sausage is being made. It takes a certain kind of stomach to do that, because just as with any other organization, people are not always living up to the ideals that they profess. But we know, to put on a conference like this, it's work! So you have to do that.

Then before we go into too many others (because I could go on and on about this) there's one other group that I think is is worth bringing up, where there's kind of an interesting analogy. I hesitate to call them Stoic monks and nuns, or ascetics, but I think there is something kind of like that, a recognition. If you think about: what did the original ascetics want to do?

They withdrew from society not because they're like: “well society sucks! Screw it all!” They're like: “I need some peace and quiet, and some being able to concentrate on what I'm trying to do with my life.” You know, with the monks it's an orientation to God, so they can pray better, and maybe make themselves less miserable bastards that they come in as. Stoics, maybe there's less prayer, but there is also an emphasis on the damaged beings that we are, and trying to slowly improve this

Maybe evangelization would be a distraction, or policing others would be a distraction. I think that this is a very important part of Stoic life for many people. I could say I know people who who behave like that. They're they're not usually the ones doing a lot of organization. They're they're trying to withdraw and just practice this stuff.

Now can we draw analogies to different ways in which people live out their their religious lives, and say that these are possibilities for Stoicism as a philosophy of life? I would say definitely. They're not exactly the same. There are some vital differences, which we certainly can't explore right now, but I think it's worth thinking about all of these different types that we encounter, and figuring out where we fit into these as well.

I would say I'm probably, when it comes down to it, because of my involvements over the last years, I've been one of these sort of institutionally oriented people. And that's actually taken time away from practice and study. I'm kind of looking forward to getting back to those as I pare back on on some of those commitments

So does anybody have any questions about this kind of disorganized proposal? [Question is asked in the chat]

Yeah, I think that loosening boundaries is is a good way to talk about it. I will throw in one other thing that I didn't quite say. I don't think that Stoicism needs to be made into a rival religion. I think there's enough space that being a philosophy of life is already enough In its classical form, it certainly has some what we would typically call “religious commitments”, meaning about beliefs and a providential ordering of the universe or things like that.

But how did you put it? We don't have to have barriers. Or we don't have to have like identification. So Stoicism doesn't need to shift over into this thing that we we call “religion” in order for it to be very helpful, and useful, and to provide meaning for people's life. I mean I don't think you necessarily need to be a religious believer, and committed, and practicing all the time in order to have a very meaningful life. I would suspect that for a lot of people it actually does get in the way, depending on how it's being played out.

So that that might be a perennial temptation for some character types, to to get into everybody else's business because it takes away Focus from your own. The more time that you're telling other people: “That's not Stoic of you” or “You've got things wrong” or something like that, the less time you have for like looking at how screwed up you are, and how to unscrew yourself up using Stoic philosophy. And I will admit that I myself have succumbed to that temptation from time to time!

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Gregory Sadler is the president of ReasonIO, a speaker, writer, and producer of popular YouTube videos on philosophy. He is co-host of the radio show Wisdom for Life, and producer of the Sadler’s Lectures podcast. You can request short personalized videos at his Cameo page. If you’d like to take online classes with him, check out the Study With Sadler Academy.