Death and the gods

Death is nothing to us

The argument is in Epicurus' Letter to Menoeceus and in the second of the Principal Doctrines. Epicureans were atomists. They held that the soul is made of very fine atoms that spread through the body and scatter at death. Sensation needs the soul and body together, so once they come apart there is no one left to feel anything.

From this Epicurus drew a simple conclusion. Good and bad are matters of sensation, and death is the end of sensation, so death cannot be bad for the person who dies. While you exist, death is not there; when death is there, you are not. It is nothing to the living, who are not dead, and nothing to the dead, who no longer are.

He also took on the hope of a longer life. A life is complete when it contains the pleasure of a mind at peace, not when it lasts a certain time (PD 19 and 20). Wanting to live for ever, he said, comes from not understanding what makes a life good.

The symmetry argument

Lucretius adds a second argument in Book III of On the Nature of Things. Before you were born there was an endless stretch of time in which you did not exist, and it does not trouble you. Nature, he says, holds up this earlier time as a mirror of the time after your death. If one is not frightening, why should the other be?

Many readers find this the more moving of the two arguments, because it asks you to look at your own feelings. You can test it by thinking calmly about the centuries before your birth and then asking why the centuries after your death should feel different.

Objections

Philosophers have argued about these claims ever since, and the arguments have not been settled. The most common replies are these:

• Deprivation. Death may be bad because of what it takes away, not because of how it feels. Dying young deprives you of future goods, even though you will not be there to miss them. Many modern philosophers, including Thomas Nagel, defend a view of this kind.
• Asymmetry. We care about the future in a way we do not care about the past. We may fear losing future life without fearing the time before birth, and this could be reasonable. Some philosophers have defended the asymmetry and others have not.
• Dying versus being dead. Epicurus argues about being dead. Most people fear the process of dying, and the loss of relationships and plans, which his argument does not touch directly.

Epicureans have replies to some of these, and the discussion is worth following. It helps to remember what Epicurus wanted. He was not trying to win a debate but to remove an anxiety that spoils the life people actually have.

The gods

Epicurus did not deny that gods exist. He said we all have a common idea of gods as happy, undying beings. From that idea it follows that they cannot be angry, anxious or bribable, since those states would disturb their happiness (PD 1). A god who punishes or rewards would not be the blessed being we imagine.

Later writers such as Cicero report that the Epicurean gods lived in the spaces between worlds, far from human affairs. Scholars still disagree about what Epicurus meant. Some think the gods were real beings made of fine atoms. Others think they were closer to ideals that our minds form from images. The surviving texts do not settle it.

The practical result is clear in either case. Storms, eclipses, plagues and earthquakes have natural causes, not divine anger, and there is no judgement after death. Epicureans took part in public religion all the same, because they believed we can honour the gods for their excellence without expecting anything in return. Philodemus, an Epicurean writing in the first century BCE, wrote a work On Piety on this theme. Critics in antiquity still accused the school of hidden atheism.

For Epicureans the point is one of attitude. You can admire what is excellent without fear or bargaining. It is also a reminder that a calm life depends partly on getting rid of ideas of a threatening universe.

Try it

This is a short exercise for a quiet evening, taking about ten minutes. Nothing here is medical or therapeutic advice. If thoughts of death feel overwhelming or sad, speak to someone you trust or a health professional.

1. Read the Letter to Menoeceus passage on death, or Lucretius, Book III, from line 830.
2. Sit quietly. Think of the time before your birth and notice how it feels.
3. Now think of the time after your death, and notice whether the feeling is the same.
4. Write down one worry about death that survives, and whether it is about being dead or about dying, or about the people you leave.

The journal is a good place for what you write.