Without a doubt, of a lot suspicious rates are misattributed to help you Epikouros

Epikouros away from Samos

Epikouros from Samos (lived 341 – 270 BC), whose name is tend to Latinized because Epicurus, is actually a good Hellenistic Greek philosopher in addition to eponymous founder of one’s Greek philosophical college of Epicureanism. The brand new Epicureans thought that new gods had no engagement after all for the individual factors and you can was indeed noted for the doubt from claims out-of supernatural phenomena.

You have probably seen this estimate associated with Epikouros. It is the quintessential greatest phrasing of your Problem of Worst available:

Something is certain in fact it is you to definitely Epikouros indeed never showed the latest Epicurean trilemma using this text

“Is the guy [we.age. God] willing to stop worst, not ready? following was the guy impotent. Is the guy in a position, yet not ready? after that is he malicious. Is actually he both able and happy? whence then is evil?”

Brand new trilemma was initially demonstrated with this text by the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume (stayed 1711 – 1776) in his guide Dialogues regarding Absolute Religion, that was completed in 1776 eventually just before Hume’s death and you can penned posthumously from inside the 1779. Why that it phrasing of the trilemma can be misattributed to Epikouros is simply because Hume paid brand new argument by itself to Epikouros and other people apparently misunderstood him, thought he had been really estimating Epikouros unlike paraphrasing.

ABOVE: Portrait coated inside 1754 by the Allan Ramsay of one’s Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume, the actual author of brand new type of the new very-named “Epicurean trilemma” that is commonly quoted into misattribution so you’re able to Epikouros

Hume based his breakdown of Issue of Evil to your an excellent malfunction on very early Christian apologist Lactantius (stayed c. 250 – c. 325 Advertisement) for the section 13, verses twenty due to twenty-one of is own treatise De Ira Dei (“About the Wrath regarding God“). Lactantius produces, since translated by the William Fletcher:

“In case this membership is true, that your Stoics were during the zero trend able to see, that disagreement as well as regarding Epicurus is carried out aside. Goodness, according to him, either wants to take away evils, which can be not able; or He is able, that is unwilling; otherwise He is neither willing neither able, otherwise He or she is one another willing and you may ready. In the event that They are happy and that is not able, He is feeble, that’s not in accordance with the character out-of Goodness; in the event that He’s able and you can hesitant, He could be envious, that’s similarly on difference that have Goodness; in the event that They are neither happy neither able, He’s one another jealous and you will feeble, and therefore not Goodness; if the He’s both ready and you can in a position, and this by yourself is appropriate in order to Goodness, about what provider next was evils? Or why does The guy perhaps not remove them? I understand that many of the fresh philosophers, who protect providence, are used to end up being disturbed by this argument, and are almost motivated facing their usually to know that God requires zero need for some thing, and therefore Epicurus especially aims at.”

Zero conflict whatsoever such as this one to happens in any one of the new extant blog site out-of Epikouros. This may never mean some thing, just like the vast majority of the things Epikouros penned has been shed. I just have around three regarding Epikouros’s letters (we.elizabeth. brand new Page in order Dating apps dating app to Menoikeus, the brand new Letter in order to Pythokles, and the Letter to Herodotos) as well as 2 selections of quotations from their today-shed functions (i.e. the principle Doctrines additionally the Vatican Sayings).

Epikouros could hence has hypothetically exhibited a quarrel along the contours away from what Lactantius means in one of their really works which can be no more extant, such as their treatise With the Gods, which the 3rd-100 years Post Greek biographer Diogenes Laertios praises among Epikouros’s greatest work, otherwise his treatise With the Characteristics, which is recognized to provides spanned 30-7 volumes, but and therefore simply endures in fragments. Still, it does increase suspicion you to definitely Lactantius cannot say and that treatise Epicurus is meant to said which into the.