Vorsehung und Schicksal

While providence as the concept of divine care for the world is present in Greek thought since Homer and reaches a peak in the Hellenistic era with the materialistic Stoic conception of total determinism of physical processes, Plotinus, relying on Plato’s Timaeus, sees providence as the order given to the sensible world according to Intellect as a transcendent principle and archetype of the sensible world. Looking at what is still enfolded in Intellect, the world soul builds rational forms in virtue of which she composes the multiplex unity of the ordered sensible world. This – causally, not temporally – progressive unfolding of what is causally united in Intellect can even imply contrariety, strive and war between single parts of the complex whole of the world. This leads to an ample theodicy discussion why even the best possible world has to admit evil. The lowest layer of unfolding providence is fate. While providence properly means worldly order insofar as it is grounded in Intellect, fate is the entirety of the processes that follow this order. Here man is basically free to act, but he always has to play his role within the whole, and each of his acts meets an appropriate response. Real individual human freedom can only be accomplished by transcending the realm of the sensible with its manifold external influences and by living according to Intellect.