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Epicurean Philosophy on the Existence of the Gods

Some say that Epicurus did not believe in the Gods at all, some say he did. When his
ideas are observed in depth the latter seems much more probable. Epicurus could even be
considered pious, since “from an excess of modesty, he avoided affairs of state”. 1 In fact, it
was not that Epicurus deemed the Gods non-existent, rather he thought they did exist, but they
played no part in the governance of the world.2 For him it was not the Gods who caused all
natural phenomena; instead, everything could be explained by “[the] mechanical
combination[s] of atoms moving in empty space”.3 So, for Epicurus natural science was the
primary factor in understanding the world around.4 According to some, “he believed the gods
to exist as independent entities”, but for others “he believed them to exist merely as
concepts”.5 What is for sure is that the Epicurean Gods must be made out of atoms as
everything else is, they are not the creators of the world, they have nothing to do with the
running of it, and they do not take any interest in humans’ lives. 6 Although it is said that most
of Epicurus’s work is lost, there are resources which can give an idea of his beliefs on the
existence of the gods that have survived to this day. One of these is the work of the Epicurean
Lucretius; The Nature of Things. Lucretius wanted to provide others with the Epicurean
thought, thus he wrote this work.7 In order to thouroughly understand Epicurean philosophy
on the existence of the gods one must analyse the Epicurean understanding of matter and its
relation to the gods, how Epicureanism rejects that natural phenomena is caused by gods, and
how it views nature as the “creator” of everything.

Firstly, it is crucial to take a look at the Epicurean understanding of matter and of the
nature of the gods. What is everything made of? What are the gods made of? According to the
Epicurean thought, “all matter is made up of small indivisible particles -atoms- and that
nothing exists except atoms and empty space”. 8 This empty space, as well as the atoms
moving within it are infinite; and none of these atoms can be destroyed, nor can they be

1
Diogenes Laertius and Charles Duke Yonge 2018, Introduction.
2
Long 2006, 157.
3
Long 2006, 157.
4
Titus Lucretius Carus and Stallings 2007, iv.
5
Titus Lucretius Carus and Stallings 2007, iv.
6
Titus Lucretius Carus and Stallings 2007, iv.
7
Titus Lucretius Carus and Stallings 2007, iii.
8
Titus Lucretius Carus and Stallings 2007, iv.

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created.9 Everything and anything that happens and exists are caused by the movement of
atoms; therefore there can be no supernatural realm, as all existence is material and everything
that exists is part of nature.10 In Lucretius’s words, “The stuff that makes the universe, with
which it is re-made, [t]hese particles perforce are indestructible. Therefore nothing can be
reduced to nothing, as I said before, [a]ll things decompose back to the elemental particles
from which they rose.”11 As everything is material, soul is too, thus in his letter to Menoeceus
Epicurus states, “Accustom yourself to think death a matter with which we are not at all
concerned, since all good and all evil is in sensation, and since death is only the privation of
sensation. Therefore, the most formidable of all evils, death, is nothing to us, since, when we
exist, death is not present to us; and when death is present, then we have no existence.” 12 It
can be understood thus far that Epicurean thought deemed all matter and events as material -
including death-, and made not a mention of any kind of afterlife. According to this train of
thought, gods must have been material too. So, what was their nature and how were they
talked about? In the letter to Menoeceus, “[g]od is a being incorruptible and happy”. 13
Additionally, Lucretius once states for Epicurus, “He was a god, a god indeed.”, and on
another occasion he mentions “the divine delight and shiver that grip him when he
contemplates the master’s words”.14 Also, he believes that humans can live in serene and
secure pleasure if they are liberated from the fear of death, in this way they can have “a life
worthy of the gods”.15 From all this, it can be seen that a “god” in the Epicurean thought is a
distinguished being with an amazing life. So, how in this belief system the “atom” theory and
the nature of the gods intertwine? This can best be observed in the way Lucretius starts his
book; with a hymn to Venus.16 For other believers the gods resided beyond nature, yet for
Lucretius it was a matter of adoring the push and pull of atoms, as well as the facts of nature
themselves.17 As every action is the product of the movement of atoms, Lucretius’s climax of
the hymn with a picture of the sexual union between the gods Venus and Mars makes sense

9
Titus Lucretius Carus and Stallings 2007, iv.
10
Titus Lucretius Carus and Stallings 2007, iv.
11
Titus Lucretius Carus and Stallings 2007, 7.
12
Diogenes Laertius and Charles Duke Yonge 2018, Epicurus to Menoeceus.
13
Diogenes Laertius and Charles Duke Yonge 2018, Epicurus to Menoeceus.
14
Titus Lucretius Carus and Stallings 2007, v.
15
Titus Lucretius Carus and Stallings 2007, iv-v.
16
Titus Lucretius Carus and Stallings 2007, v-vi.
17
Titus Lucretius Carus and Stallings 2007, vi.

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according to Epicureanism18: “[T]he universe is the sum of infinite space and an infinite
number of atoms, and nothing can be added to it or subtracted from it; and each single atom is
immortal, indivisible and indestructible. In between, everything is activity and mutability, for
the atoms are in ceaseless energetic motion. The drama lies in this combination of change and
changelessness, and Lucretius’ erotic metaphor celebrates this grand paradox.”19

Secondly, it is important to know about how Epicureanism deems it wrong to accept

everything religion says without question and believe in gods’ intervention in the world’s
events. Epicureans consider it ignorant to attribute the causes of natural phenomena to the
gods. Cicero’s Epicurean spokesman described what these religious people were doing as
“run[ning] to god like the tragic poets, needing a god to unravel the end of [their] plot[s]”. 20
Also, Lucretius believed that people were forced to “attribute celestial motions to the gods’
domain” because of ignorance.21 He absolutely denied the supernatural, claimed that religion
caused people to act cruelly22, and has said “So potent was [r]eligion in persuading to do
wrong[,] [s]ooner or later, you will seek to break away from me, [w]on over by doomsayer-
prophets.”.23 He thought that people who believed pursuading philosophy made a person
impious were in the wrong, because it was often religion that bred wickedness. 24 Lucretius
says, “[I]f men saw that there was an end in sight [t]o trials and tribulations, they would find
the power to fight [a]gainst the superstitions and the threats of priests. But now [t]hey have no
power to resist, no way to reason how, [f]or after death there looms the dread of punishment
for the whole [o]f eternity, since we don’t know the nature of the soul: Is the soul born? Or
does it enter us at our first breath? And does it die with us, and is it broken down at death?”. 25
So he criticises the fear factor of religion, thinking one should first question everything and
find logical answers before complying to religion completely. According to Epicureanism
“nothing can be made from nothing”, so it is wrong for people to think that natural
phenomena on earth is created by the gods out of nothing just because they cannot fathom
earthly affairs have their own natural order.26 Natural phenomena must be much more than
just a god’s personal business, and a god would not destroy his own creation or punish

18
Titus Lucretius Carus and Stallings 2007, vi.
19
Titus Lucretius Carus and Stallings 2007, vi.
20
Long 2006, 158.
21
Long 2006, 208.
22
Titus Lucretius Carus and Stallings 2007, v.
23
Titus Lucretius Carus and Stallings 2007, 3.
24
Titus Lucretius Carus and Stallings 2007, 3.
25
Titus Lucretius Carus and Stallings 2007, 4.
26
Titus Lucretius Carus and Stallings 2007, 5.

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innocent people by sending natural disasters upon the earth. Lucretius further explains this by
saying, “[W]ho can hold sway [o]ver the measureless universe? […] Who can juggle all the
heavens? […] What god would send down lightning to rend his own shrines asunder? Or
withdraw to rage in desert wastes, and there let those bolts fly [t]hat often slay the innocent
and pass the guilty by?”27 These are all evidence on the fact that the gods do not play any role
in earthly affairs. When it comes to Epicurus’s very own thoughts on this matter, it is possible
to extract some information from his letters to both Pythocles and Menoeceus. In his letter to
Pythocles he mentions how ignorant it is of those who “assign[s] imaginary causes to facts,
wish[ing] to leave wholly to the Deity the care of the government of the universe”28, and in his
letter to Menoeceus he says, “[T]he greatest evils which befall wicked men, and the benefits
which are conferred on the good, are all attributed to the Gods; for they connect all their ideas
of them with a comparison of human virtues, and everything which is different from human
qualities, they regard as incompatible with the divine nature.”29

Thirdly, one needs to see why Epicureanism trusts in the ways of nature as the
explanation of everything and the root of all creation. Lucretius tells, “What can things be
fashioned from? And how is it, without [t]he machinations of the gods, all things can come
about? For if things were created out of nothing, any breed [c]ould be born from any other;
nothing would require a seed. […] But since in fact each species rises from specific seeds,
[e]ach thing springs from the source that has the matter that it needs, […] that’s the reason
every thing cannot give rise [t]o every other thing, because there is a separate power [i]n
distinct things.”30, and “[N]othing can emerge from nothing, Nature does not render anything
to naught.”31 Clearly, he criticises the notion that a god can create something at will and finds
that this does not make sense to him at all. Lucretius actually mentions nature as the “creator”:
“If Nature the Creator did habitually compel [a]ll things to decompose to smallest parts, she
would not then [h]ave the power, as she does, to rebuild things again. 32 Also, according to
him, the universe is quite flawed, it is not something that a perfect god would create:
“[C]ertain people, […] think it is impossible without the gods [f]or Nature to create the crops
and alternate the seasons [i]n such convenient accordance with our human reasons, […] these
men have grossly strayed [f]rom reason’s strait and narrow in every way. […] I might not
27
Titus Lucretius Carus and Stallings 2007, 57.
28
Diogenes Laertius and Charles Duke Yonge 2018, Epicurus to Pythocles.
29
Diogenes Laertius and Charles Duke Yonge 2018, Epicurus to Menoeceus.
30
Titus Lucretius Carus and Stallings 2007, 5.
31
Titus Lucretius Carus and Stallings 2007, 6.
32
Titus Lucretius Carus and Stallings 2007, 16.

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know [t]hat such a thing as atoms of matter existed - even so, [f]rom the very workings of the
skies above I would be bold [a]nd claim […] [i]n no way was the universe made by the power
of God [f]or our sake, when the universe stands so profoundly flawed.” 33 Additionally,
Lucretius says that nature does everything on its own34; mortal humans were born from
Nature’s body that she also later fed them with, with her “joyful vines, sweet fruits and the
green fields”,35 and nothing can resist nature’s power and everything is doomed to decay
because of it.36 So it is nature that creates, grows and feeds all life, and takes every living
thing back to its system when they die. Lucretius sees no work of any gods’ in this. After all,
“where could gods find [a] model for creating things -what planted in their mind [t]he notion
of mankind, so they knew what they undertook [t]o make, and they could picture in their
hearts how it should look? And how did they discover atoms, how were their powers found,
[a]nd what could be accomplished just by shifting them around, [u]nless Nature herself
supplied them with the paradigm [f]or creating things?37

In conclusion, it would be fair to say that in order to know what Epicurean philosophy
on the existence of the gods entails one must understand what is everything -especially the
gods were- made of, that it is not the gods who run the world, and that nature is the root of all
creation according to Epicureanism. In all this, one might see contradictions here and there,
such as the fact that while Lucretius is not in favour of religiousness he still uses religious
language in his work and talks about Epicurus with a kind of religious respect as if he was a
god. However this should not necessarily mean that his beliefs are flawed. Because he lived at
a time when theology and philosophy were becoming different ways of talking about the
world.38 Maybe this transitional period was the reason of Lucretius’s way of praising Epicurus
with religious language and his religious language in general, despite defending a not quite
conventional belief system about the gods. All in all, when one truly understands
Epicureanism, it becomes evident that it holds the belief that although gods do exist, they do
not take interest in the world and the world’s affairs are all completed by nature itself.

33
Titus Lucretius Carus and Stallings 2007, 33.
34
Titus Lucretius Carus and Stallings 2007, 57.
35
Titus Lucretius Carus and Stallings 2007, 58.
36
Titus Lucretius Carus and Stallings 2007, 131.
37
Titus Lucretius Carus and Stallings 2007, 128.
38
Titus Lucretius Carus and Stallings 2007, iii.