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Chapter Summary
Philosophy now aims to show Boethius where true happiness is located. Since the Most High God is the source of all things, he is good. Also, he must have perfect Good, otherwise something else must possess it and be higher than him. Further, this implies that he must be in himself the highest Good, because otherwise he must either have obtained it from elsewhere (and so someone else would be preeminent), or it must be logically distinct from him (but then someone else must have combined goodness with God—and such a person would be God). If it is distinct, it cannot be identical with him, and so God could not be the highest Good (which would be sacrilegious to imagine about the Most High God). And since the highest Good is happiness, God must be happiness itself (for two perfect, highest goods cannot exist together). What results from this is the truth that people can only become happy if they attain divinity—if they attain union with him.
Further, although happiness is composed of many parts, they are not separate, like limbs of a body, but are all identical. The Good is the sum total of everything people desire. Thus happiness and the Good are identical. This means that, combined with the previous conclusion, God himself, in his substance, is the highest Good.
About The Consolation of Philosophy
Written in the 6th-century from a prison cell as the author awaits execution for a crime he did not commit, The Consolation of Philosophy is a dialogue between Boethius and a mysterious woman—Lady Philosophy—who helps him rediscover wisdom and virtue.
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You’re invited to join the companion course that dives deep into each of the five books. There, we’ll explore each chapter, with guided readings, discussion prompts, and study tools to enrich your journey. Enroll today.

Topics Covered
How Philosophy’s teaching that “every happy person is God” is biblical
What Scripture teaches about happiness and union with God
About The Consolation of Philosophy
Written in the 6th-century from a prison cell as the author awaits execution for a crime he did not commit, The Consolation of Philosophy is a dialogue between Boethius and a mysterious woman—Lady Philosophy—who helps him rediscover wisdom and virtue.
Subscribe now and begin walking the path of wisdom with us.
Want to go deeper?
You’re invited to join the companion course that dives deep into each of the five books. There, we’ll explore each chapter, with guided readings, discussion prompts, and study tools to enrich your journey. Enroll today.

Chapter Summary
Philosophy adds more reasoning to support her point of the previous chapter. All parts of the good are inseparable, and everything that is good is so because it participates in the Good. Thus God, the ultimate unified one, and the Good are the same.
Philosophy then talks about unity in earthly creatures. All existing things exist only as unities, and die when they break apart (such as the soul and body). Every living thing pursues self-preservation, even trees and fire and stones—this is a natural instinct. When they seek self-preservation, they are seeking unity. And unity is identical to the Good itself, to God himself. So the Good is the goal of all living things.
About The Consolation of Philosophy
Written in the 6th-century from a prison cell as the author awaits execution for a crime he did not commit, The Consolation of Philosophy is a dialogue between Boethius and a mysterious woman—Lady Philosophy—who helps him rediscover wisdom and virtue.
Subscribe now and begin walking the path of wisdom with us.
Want to go deeper?
You’re invited to join the companion course that dives deep into each of the five books. There, we’ll explore each chapter, with guided readings, discussion prompts, and study tools to enrich your journey. Enroll today.

Chapter Summary
Since Boethius believes that God governs the universe, Philosophy says she is confident she has almost finished rescuing him from spiritual exile; however, she still wants to recount her arguments. God is happiness itself; therefore, he must be fully sufficient, and therefore he governs the universe alone. God is the Good itself, and governs the universe himself; therefore, he governs the universe through goodness. And all creatures submit to God’s guidance as they act according to their natures. Even if they oppose God, they will surely not succeed since God is all-powerful. God’s good governance of the universe, therefore, cannot fail.
Philosophy then tries to bring the arguments together to reveal a further truth: Since God can do anything, but cannot do evil, evil must be nothing. Boethius objects to this “labyrinth of tangled arguments,” reviewing Philosophy’s statements.
About The Consolation of Philosophy
Written in the 6th-century from a prison cell as the author awaits execution for a crime he did not commit, The Consolation of Philosophy is a dialogue between Boethius and a mysterious woman—Lady Philosophy—who helps him rediscover wisdom and virtue.
Subscribe now and begin walking the path of wisdom with us.
Want to go deeper?
You’re invited to join the companion course that dives deep into each of the five books. There, we’ll explore each chapter, with guided readings, discussion prompts, and study tools to enrich your journey. Enroll today.

Topics Covered
How can evil be “nothing,” as Philosophy teaches?
What does this mean for our daily lives?
About The Consolation of Philosophy
Written in the 6th-century from a prison cell as the author awaits execution for a crime he did not commit, The Consolation of Philosophy is a dialogue between Boethius and a mysterious woman—Lady Philosophy—who helps him rediscover wisdom and virtue.
Subscribe now and begin walking the path of wisdom with us.
Want to go deeper?
You’re invited to join the companion course that dives deep into each of the five books. There, we’ll explore each chapter, with guided readings, discussion prompts, and study tools to enrich your journey. Enroll today.

Chapter Summary
Philosophy responds to Boethius’s complaint about the flourishing of evil by stating that because God reigns, powerful people are always good, and wicked people are always weak; goodness is always rewarded and evil always punished. If Boethius understands truths like this, which she will show him, he will be able to return from exile to his true home.
About The Consolation of Philosophy
Written in the 6th-century from a prison cell as the author awaits execution for a crime he did not commit, The Consolation of Philosophy is a dialogue between Boethius and a mysterious woman—Lady Philosophy—who helps him rediscover wisdom and virtue.
Subscribe now and begin walking the path of wisdom with us.
Want to go deeper?
You’re invited to join the companion course that dives deep into each of the five books. There, we’ll explore each chapter, with guided readings, discussion prompts, and study tools to enrich your journey. Enroll today.

Chapter Summary
Philosophy’s argument is that good is always powerful, and so evil is always weak. She develops this argument from two sides: First, since all people seek happiness, and only the good attain it, they alone have both will and capability to attain what they seek. Secondly, since a person who can accomplish what his nature fits him for is stronger than someone who cannot, a good man who seeks happiness the way Nature has designed, being virtuous, is stronger than the wicked, who seek it piecemeal and thus cannot find it.
She continues to support her argument with several other points: Evil people are weak, paralyzed and unable to obtain the highest goal of reality, either ignorant of the good or deliberately following vice. In fact, wicked people do not exist at all, because to do evil is to abandon one’s nature. Evil people have power only to perform evil, which cannot help you obtain the good, and so is not desirable. But since all power is desirable, power to do evil is no power at all.
About The Consolation of Philosophy
Written in the 6th-century from a prison cell as the author awaits execution for a crime he did not commit, The Consolation of Philosophy is a dialogue between Boethius and a mysterious woman—Lady Philosophy—who helps him rediscover wisdom and virtue.
Subscribe now and begin walking the path of wisdom with us.
Want to go deeper?
You’re invited to join the companion course that dives deep into each of the five books. There, we’ll explore each chapter, with guided readings, discussion prompts, and study tools to enrich your journey. Enroll today.

Chapter Summary
The dirtiness of shameful actions and the glory of virtuous actions shows that good people are always rewarded, and wicked people are always punished. This is because a reward is a natural result of the purpose of an action. If a good man becomes good, he must have the good—that is, happiness! And no one can take this reward from him, for only those who cease to be good lose it. Also, those who are happy partake in godhood, which reward cannot be diminished or destroyed.
The wicked must suffer a converse punishment: wickedness itself. Since wicked people depart from the good and lose their own unity, they thus destroy their own personhood. They become subhuman, animals—far from being gods.
About The Consolation of Philosophy
Written in the 6th-century from a prison cell as the author awaits execution for a crime he did not commit, The Consolation of Philosophy is a dialogue between Boethius and a mysterious woman—Lady Philosophy—who helps him rediscover wisdom and virtue.
Subscribe now and begin walking the path of wisdom with us.
Want to go deeper?
You’re invited to join the companion course that dives deep into each of the five books. There, we’ll explore each chapter, with guided readings, discussion prompts, and study tools to enrich your journey. Enroll today.

Chapter Summary
Philosophy asserts that not only do the wicked have no power, but also that the accomplishment of wicked people’s desires adds to their misery. Further, their wrongdoing is often limited by their sudden destruction. What follows from these truths is that wicked people who are punished are happier than if they were not punished. For it is just and, therefore, good for the wicked to be punished, who then experience something good. To know and love this truth is to be rewarded within one’s self, and to hate it is to be punished within one’s self—but tragically, the majority of mankind rejects this truth.
A further truth is that those who inflict injustice on others are unhappier than those so afflicted, for those who act wickedly are wretched, and so worse off than those they afflict! Thus they are worthy of the pity of the wise, not hatred.
About The Consolation of Philosophy
Written in the 6th-century from a prison cell as the author awaits execution for a crime he did not commit, The Consolation of Philosophy is a dialogue between Boethius and a mysterious woman—Lady Philosophy—who helps him rediscover wisdom and virtue.
Subscribe now and begin walking the path of wisdom with us.
Want to go deeper?
You’re invited to join the companion course that dives deep into each of the five books. There, we’ll explore each chapter, with guided readings, discussion prompts, and study tools to enrich your journey. Enroll today.

Topics Covered
Should we really pity wicked people, and not hate them? How does that fit with God’s commands to hate wickedness?
About The Consolation of Philosophy
Written in the 6th-century from a prison cell as the author awaits execution for a crime he did not commit, The Consolation of Philosophy is a dialogue between Boethius and a mysterious woman—Lady Philosophy—who helps him rediscover wisdom and virtue.
Subscribe now and begin walking the path of wisdom with us.
Want to go deeper?
You’re invited to join the companion course that dives deep into each of the five books. There, we’ll explore each chapter, with guided readings, discussion prompts, and study tools to enrich your journey. Enroll today.