Socrates' daimonion (inner voice) warned him not to enter politics (Apology 31c). Socrates' student, Plato, portrays Socrates founding an imaginary city -- The Republic -- the dialogue with this name dates from the middle of Plato's life and is considered his greatest work -- perhaps the greatest single work in all philosophy. Cicero explains that this book, the Republic, is not an attempt to lay out the best political order but instead is an attempt to present the nature and limits of politics as such (Cicero, Republic II, 52). At the end of his life Plato wrote his longest work, the Laws, in which Socrates does not appear as a character; and this work does very explicitly try to lay out practical ideas about governing, rather than considering politics in the abstract. These notes are about Plato's Laws, Book 10, which is Plato's most sustained discussion about theology.
Today we define theology as the study of conceptions about God, the study of the nature of God, the study of religious ideas and claims that purport to state religious truths. In the Republic Plato puts a definition of theology into the mouth of the character Adeimantos -- Plato's elder brother -- for whom theology is "study of the patterns and norms of right speech about the gods" (379a). The discussion of theology in the Laws stays close to this definition, concentrating on what people say about this subject. This is a crucial limitation: theology on Plato's conception is not about the gods, but about what we say concerning the gods. Book 10 of the Laws investigates this question and tries to define the right things for us to say rather than a truth apart from all human experience and public discussion. In a way the most important idea in the dialogue comes at the end, where Plato's character, the Athenian Stranger, summarizes the discussions he has been having with his two interlocutors -- Kleinias, an elderly man from Crete, and Megillos, an elder from Sparta -- by saying that the imaginary state they are founding and writing laws for must pass a law forbidding all private shrines; all worship of the divine must take place in public temples (910c; see 717b and 885a).
The introduction of the subject of theology in dialogue devoted to the problem of writing laws for a state comes about by an observation that many kinds of laws refer to the gods. The discussion of crimes, for example, of incest and murder, and the discussion of marriage, and swearing people in to official duties, refer to oaths. Oaths -- in order to feel binding and carry the highest import -- in order to be taken seriously and have the force of law -- are made before gods, the sacred, the holy, the divine.
This is the reason why we talk about gods in the context of politics. Kleinias mentions that all men, whether Greeks or barbarians, hold that there are gods. In ancient times it was sufficient to point to the Sun, moon, stars, and the earth itself to prove the existence of gods. But wise men of recent times have explained that all these things are made of elements, and so the existence of gods is no longer self-evident. Atheists also live in our community. Thus the question arises whether we should abandon the attempt to legislate on the presupposition that gods exist. In any case we see immediately that any short and easy proof of the existence of gods is completely worthless. We also see that when people speak about these subjects they do so with spirit or anger; it seems hard for people to discuss these subjects calmly. The Athenian stranger decides to conjure up a young person for the three old men to talk to and work out the proper ideas and way of speaking about gods.
Beginning the discussion, the Athenian stranger says that gods exist by art not by nature or law; this is why there are different gods for different places.
Kleinias is shocked by these statements and wonders what will happen to the family and the obedience of young people when they hear this shocking idea. He says that the belief in gods is an ancient law or ancestral custom or unwritten law based on a common report of a mysterious origin and coeval with man himself. The belief in God survived the flood when all arts and wisdom were lost. He repeats the old idea that there is more than one god; he says that all things are full of gods.
The Athenian stranger calls to mind the problematic existence of happy people who have corrupt characters and who do evil things. This seems to suggest that the gods do not the police the world of virtue and vice, but instead allow corrupt people to succeed, good people to fail, and in general it would seem that the gods have no interest in us. We feel some kinship with the gods, he explains, which is why we hesitate to blame them for the existence of evil; we are unwilling to hold them responsible for such things or feel disgust at the gods for allowing evil men to prosper. Since we are unwilling to blame them, the only alternative is to think of them as looking at human affairs with contempt and having no care for human beings at all. The Athenian stranger then brings up an argument to the effect that human beings are the possessions of the gods. Thus we might think that since man is so given to worshiping gods, and since man belongs to the gods, then surely the gods care no less for the affairs of human beings than they do for wolves or lambs. All creatures are the playthings of the gods. But a property owner is not necessarily wise or infallible simply by holding property. An artist, however, who creates or makes something, is wise at least to the extent that he is an artist, or in his capacity as artist; and surely the gods are supreme artists, who therefore created man with artistry and care. The Athenian stranger reminds his friends of some lines from the Odyssey (3.26) -- see 803e:
Search for thoughts from your own suggesting mind,
and others dictated by heavenly power,
they will arise spontaneously in your hour of need.
Nothing unprosperous shall come your way
Born with good omens, and with Heaven as your friend.
In the middle of the discussion, after this interlude about poetry, the Athenian stranger notes that speaking rationally (by logoi) will not be enough, but we will always need to discuss this subject via some enchanting story (by mythoi). In this context, the Athenian stranger says the following things. Everything that we care about, all the solicitude we show in our daily lives, what today we call our values, is vulnerable. The good we are trying to find and live is under attack. We have to wage a never-dying battle against forces of chaos, recklessness, thoughtlessness, and all forms of disaster. Our lives therefore have to be a wondrous watchfulness. The things that we are battling against are injustice, hybris (arrogance, excessiveness, overreaching), together with folly. The things that save us are justice, moderation and good sense. These virtues dwell in the animate powers of the gods and some small trace of these virtues can also plainly be seen here dwelling in human beings. The Athenian stranger apologizes for the way he is speaking -- he says that it is somewhat vehement or overzealous -- but reminds the company that he is trying to lay out an enchanting myth. The gods as he conceives them are our leaders; they are our generals in the fight against vice and for virtue. To abandon them is to abandon the things we hold most dear in life. To sacrifice to them or think that they can be bribed is a pernicious idea; it is like thinking of generals remaining with our cause, and not going over to the other side and fighting for the enemy, simply because we have paid them a goodly sum. To expect that gods could be bribed (or cajoled, influenced, tempted, begged or prayed to) is a horrible falsehood, which portrays the gods as weaklings who might desert their posts -- like corrupt dogs who, instead of protecting the flock, share a part of the booty with the wolves -- what we should think instead is that the gods are our leaders in the undying fight against bad things of all forms, including avarice and acting merely in self-serving ways.
At the end of this discussion, showing what gods have to do with legislation and the foundations of the state, and showing how we should think about gods by an enchanting myth, the conversation comes around to atheism and what a well-founded state should do with atheists. It appears that there are different kinds of atheists:
1. people with good character, who hate evil, loath injustice and do good
2. people who are weak (akrasia), but who have good power of memory and are quick at learning
People from group 1 are likely going to be practitioners of parrhesia (utterly free and frank speech) and therefore they will speak openly and thus ridicule gods, sacrifices and oaths, and by ridiculing these things they will likely produce more people who are impious, and thus endanger the state; they will undermine the foundation of the state and its oaths and regulations, which are intended to fight against chaos and recklessness and which are free mens' allies in the fight against vice. These people therefore should be restrained; the state should create a sophronisterion -- a sophist-cage (a special place in the marketplace, whose leaders meet at nighttime -- note that this word sounds a lot like Aristophanes' idea of the phrontisterion in his comedy The Clouds -- the phrontisterion is where Socrates hangs out in the play and is roughly translatable as the think-o-mat -- an idea by which Aristophanes made fun of people who think too much). Thus atheists of good character should be required to remain in the sophronisterion for five years. During their stay, men of good sense will come to speak with them and help them to see clearly what they should say in public; if they recant, they shod be released; if they persist, they should be punished with exile or death.
People from group 2 are the people who become renowned as gifted; they are full of guile and craft; they become soothsayers, jugglers, tyrants, public figures, generals, plotters of private mysteries and of course sophists. These people despise human beings and tempt everyone into thinking the gods can be bribed. They should be imprisoned and no one should be exposed to their influence.
But an atheist who is just and does not ridicule others and only speaks frankly and searchingly with doubts to his friends and people he knows personally and can influence positively for the good -- we cannot imagine Socrates denouncing such a person.
The point is that when we worship, we show what we care about, what we uphold and value; this is why it is most important that there be public religious ceremonies -- not private ones -- so that everyone in the city can see everyone else -- where we can all see each other and see clearly what we care about, what we value, and see whether this person is on the side of fighting against chaos and recklessness, or whether instead this is a person who is working for disaster and the destruction of all virtue.
Paraphrase: the gods are our leaders in (theism is the principle of) the development of the human project. To deny the gods is to undermine this project. Atheism is contradictory to the purposes of the state founded to promote virtue, which must rely on public forms of worship and common bonds of civility and cooperation. Private atheism, like private worship, is meaningless from a political standpoint (i.e., it is meaningless, period). What counts and is important is what one promotes in public, especially among people who lack philosophical training and mental discipline, who can never follow logoi, but must be persuaded, guided, kept in check and assisted in the hour of need by mythoi.
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