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Chapter Summary
Boethius challenges Philosophy because of his astonishment at the punishment of good people and reward of the wicked that takes place in the world, especially since God is in control of the world. How is his manifest governance of the world any different than chance? Philosophy replies that Boethius does not understand because he does not know God’s good plan for the world that he is carrying out perfectly.
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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Chapter Summary
Philosophy answers Boethius’s challenge. First, she states that everything that happens in the universe originates in the unchanging divine mind, who plans everything that happens. This plan is called Providence when viewed from God’s perfect perspective as a whole, but Fate when viewed by man’s limited perspective as it occurs. Providence is God’s perfect plan, while Fate is God’s carrying out that plan in time. Therefore, the second aspect depends on the first. Even though some of God’s purposes are impossible for us to understand because we cannot view the whole, those purposes do exist, and move everything in the universe toward the Good. God deals rightly with every human being, according to what he knows he needs, whether that means giving adversity to a person who appears just but is not, withholding adversity from a just person, giving adversity to a just person to increase his virtue, giving adversity or blessings to a wicked person either to destroy him or heal him (and only God can make an evil person good). Human beings must accept the fact of God’s guidance of all things toward the Good, because no one can fully grasp or explain all that God does.
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
Does the Bible support Philosophy’s claim that God’s decrees are unalterable?
How can this doctrine bring comfort to us?
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
Therefore, Philosophy concludes, every fortune is good. For the righteous to improve in virtue is good, and for the wicked to be punished or corrected is good. So a wise person will not resist when Fortune grates against him, since such difficulty helps him deepen his wisdom. So he should respond rightly to harsh or pleasant fortune to gain happiness.
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
Boethius asks Philosophy whether chance exists. She demurs at first, lest this matter weary him so he cannot complete his journey back to his spiritual home. Then she defines chance not as an outcome without a cause, but as an unintended and unplanned outcome of combined events—unplanned humanly speaking, since all things happen as Providence has planned.
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
Within this plan of Providence, does free will really exist? Yes, because each reasonable creature is able to discern between desirable and undesirable things, and thus to pursue the former and avoid the latter; in other words, they are able to will or not to will. However, humans who are embodied, and especially those who pursue vice, have lessened free will; their use of their will has enslaved them to vice.
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
Would existing as a spirit only give us greater freedom of will than we do as embodied creatures?
How does the Scripture view our bodies?
Do some people have greater freedom of will than others?
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
Boethius is still bothered by the contradiction he sees between Philosophy’s teaching on God’s foreknowledge of all things and on the existence of free will. If God accurately foresees every event, what he foresees will infallibly happen, which means man cannot have free will. Some argue that the inevitability of an action causes God’s foreknowledge. But those events are still necessary, and thus, in either case, free will is impossible. Also, if God’s decrees are that events may or may not happen, what kind of foreknowledge is that? But if his foreknowledge is certain, where is human freedom?
The moral result is catastrophic: Good cannot be truly rewarded, or evil punished, because people acted out of necessity, not their own choice. Virtue and vice would cease to exist. Further, vice would be attributed to God, since he is the cause of all things.
The practical result is destructive: Hope and prayer are both pointless. And since prayer is the only interaction people can have with God, we would thus be unable to be joined to him, cut off from our source of life.
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 human reason cannot attain God’s simple foreknowledge, and for that reason Boethius is confused by the contradiction between foreknowledge and free will. She will now unravel his difficulties, and then help him grasp the simplicity of God’s foreknowledge.
If some events do not occur out of necessity, then the contradiction between foreknowledge and free will is resolved. For example, there are actions that unfold before our eyes that are not compelled by outward necessity, such as skilled chariot-driving. Just as our knowledge does not compel events to happen as we watch them, so God’s perfect knowledge does not compel future events to happen as he watches them.
But can events that by their nature are not certain to occur be foreknown? Yes, because whether an event is necessary or not does not affect God’s foreknowledge of it, since knowledge is based on the nature of the knower, not the nature of the event. Philosophy illustrates this by explaining that Physical Sensation, Imagination, Reason, and Intelligence grasp man’s nature in different ways, Intelligence being the highest of all, with the purest and most perfect insight. The knowledge of man these faculties gain is based on the nature of these faculties, not on the nature of man.
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 discusses the differences between types of knowledge: Some animals only know through Sensation (like mollusks), while others know through Imagination (like mobile animals). Humans know in both ways as well, but also know through Reason, which is superior. God alone knows through Intelligence, which is the most superior knowledge of all. Because Reason is superior to Sensation and Imagination, it grasps more of the whole of the knowledge of something. God’s knowledge is as superior to Reason as Reason is superior to Imagination and Sensation. Therefore, we must not think that God knows in the same way we do; we must yield to his superior knowledge, not assert our own. If we can ascend to the level of God’s knowledge, as much as we are able, we will see that there is no contradiction between it and free will.
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.