Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

NEOSTOICISM AND THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 99no otherwise than it was. It is made up of pand wisdom, but there is no indication of Will.is not a blind power in nature certainly, for no menever drew more peremptorily than the Stoics the conclusion," He that made the eye, shall He not see ?"except that they expressed it in the neuter, and said," That which made the eye, shall it not see ?" In thisthey departed from their master, Socrates, who ex-pressed, with almost evangelical tenderness, his beliefin a personal Providence. But still their recognitionof final causes is so specific and continual, that it seemso stimulate even Christian language. And theironception of the world as a whole ruled by infinitewisdom and intelligence stood out in the strongestcontrast with the Epicurean doctrine of chance, andfurnishes a point of contact with Christian doctrine.7. Still more is this the case when that wisdom andintelligence are viewed as ruling all things for thegood of man. This too was part of the Socratic view,and inherited by the Stoics. But to this also theygave their own impress. For as man alone sharedreason with " the divine/' all the effects produced by" the divine" were for the sake of itself, of which manwas the representative among living animals. Thusman is the centre from which they regard natThe order and arrangement which they saw everywhere in the processes of nature were for the good oman. The supreme reason acknowledges and work)r its kindred, which is in man. Not onlv then tinStoic conception of Providence, but in that Providthe subordination of all things to man, the ruling, ftinstance, the seasons of the year, the growth of plantthe production of animals, the whole economy of visibnature, for his advantage, coincided so far with th