Epikouros from Samos
Epikouros from Samos (stayed 341 – 270 BC), whoever name is will Latinized just like the Epicurus, is actually a beneficial Hellenistic Greek philosopher and eponymous creator of Greek philosophical college or university from Epicureanism. New Epicureans considered that the fresh gods didn’t come with wedding after all in peoples factors and you may was in fact known for the skepticism out of says away from supernatural phenomena.
You’ve got likely viewed so it quotation related to Epikouros. It’s the quintessential popular phrasing of one’s Dilemma of Worst ever made:
Some thing is certain that will be you to definitely Epikouros indeed never shown new Epicurean trilemma using this type of text
“Are he [we.elizabeth. God] happy to prevent worst, although not able? up coming is the guy impotent. Try the guy ready, yet not ready? next was he malevolent. Are the guy one another able and you will willing? whence up coming is evil?”
The new trilemma was initially demonstrated using this type of text because of the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume (existed 1711 – 1776) inside the publication Dialogues towards Natural Faith, which had been finished in 1776 eventually just before Hume’s demise and you can composed posthumously when you look at the 1779. Precisely why it phrasing of trilemma can often be misattributed to Epikouros is because Hume credited the fresh new conflict by itself so you’re able to Epikouros and folks appear to misunderstood your, considering he was physically quoting Epikouros unlike paraphrasing.
ABOVE: Portrait coated for the 1754 by Allan Ramsay of Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume, the genuine writer of the type of the fresh new very-entitled “Epicurean trilemma” which is tend to quoted into the misattribution in order to Epikouros
Hume situated his dysfunction of your own Dilemma of Evil into a beneficial breakdown throughout the very early Religious apologist Lactantius (lived c. 250 – c. 325 Advertisement) within the part 13, verses twenty thanks to twenty-one of his treatise De Ira Dei (“Towards Wrath of Jesus“). Lactantius writes, because interpreted by William Fletcher:
“However if this account holds true, that Stoics was in fact from inside the no manner able to see, one to disagreement and additionally off Epicurus is accomplished away. Jesus, he says, often wishes to distance themself evils, in fact it is incapable; or He is able, which is unwilling; otherwise He or she is none ready neither able, or He is each other ready and in a 
position. When the They are happy which will be unable, He is feeble, that is not according to the profile from Jesus; in the event that He could be able and you can unwilling, He is envious, that’s similarly at variance with Goodness; if He is neither happy nor ready, They are one another jealous and you may feeble, and this perhaps not God; in the event that He could be each other willing and you can ready, which by yourself is suitable so you’re able to Jesus, about what supply after that are evils? Or why does The guy perhaps not take them out? I understand that many of the fresh philosophers, who protect providence, are widely used to be interrupted by this argument, and generally are almost determined against their tend to so you can recognize one to God takes zero demand for something, and that Epicurus especially aims at.”
Zero conflict whatsoever like this one occurs in some of new extant blog site from Epikouros. This may not at all times imply anything, because the vast majority of the things Epikouros wrote could have been forgotten. I just have around three out of Epikouros’s emails (i.e. the brand new Page so you’re able to Menoikeus, the brand new Page in order to Pythokles, as well as the Letter so you’re able to Herodotos) and two selections from quotations away from his now-destroyed performs (i.age. the principle Doctrines while the Vatican Sayings).
Epikouros you will ergo provides hypothetically displayed a quarrel across the contours away from just what Lactantius describes in one of their works which might be no further extant, such as for instance his treatise For the Gods, that 3rd-millennium Ad Greek biographer Diogenes Laertios praises among Epikouros’s ideal performs, or his treatise For the Characteristics, which is proven to has spanned 30-7 volumes, but and therefore just endures within the fragments. However, it can increase uncertainty you to Lactantius will not say and that treatise Epicurus is meant to said which when you look at the.