Is Stoic Philosophy compatible with Christianity in your opinion ?

[Jude1:3Contendforthefaith]

These are quotes from The Stoics, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca and Epictetus compatible with Christianity in your opinion ?

 

[trophy33]

Yes-ish. Even though the goals are compatible and the virtues are similar, the source of the peace of a Christian is different from the source of the peace of a Stoic.

A Stoic is calm because he knows he cannot change the fate, whatever kind of fate (good or bad) it is. A Christian is calm because he knows that God is in control of everything and even the bad has a good purpose.
In other words, a Stoic is calm because he gave up, in a sense. A Christian is calm, because he trusts God.

In any case, I read some Stoic works and found much of it useful, at least in some contexts.

 

[Joseph G]

Are these quotes from The Stoics, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca and Epictetus compatible with Christianity in your opinion ?

Do they acknowledge that Jesus Christ is the Son of God in the flesh, that He was crucified for us, and rose again? Do they have the courage to preach that the only way to receive eternal life is through Jesus? Do they agree with Him that He alone is the Way, the Truth and the Life? Do they confess that compromising genuine faith with worldy philosophies is utterly worthless?

If they reject these basic tenets of Christianity (ie: elevating a personal relationship with the Living God as He truly is), then no, their philosophies are not only incompatible with Christianity, but are actually at enmity with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and therefore enticing people to eternal hell.

Perfect example of the blindness and futility the god of this world (Satan) holds the unbelieving in? Marcus Aurelius' quote above. Man is in fact utterly incapable of winning the war for his mind on His own effort. Encouraging him to continue to strive to only keeps him in chains. The blind leading the blind.

Whereas those who belong to Christ know and daily practice the only true way to have consistent victory... submission to the Mind of Christ out of dependence and reverence for His Name and on His Word - through prayer.

God bless! The invitation to share His Mind, and Spirit, goes out to all...

1 Corinthians 2:13-16 NKJV

"These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For “who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ."

biblegateway.com

 

[Jude1:3Contendforthefaith]

In other words, a Stoic is calm because he gave up, in a sense. A Christian is calm, because he trusts God.

I agree with some of what you said, but I disagree with the part about them giving up.

They are Actively / Purposely / Consciously trying to not worry about things that are beyond their control.

 

[trophy33]

I agree with some of what you said, but I disagree with the part about them giving up.

They are Actively / Purposely Consciously trying to not worry about things that are beyond their control.

Yeah, I meant a Stoic gave up the try to control the things around him. Because he knows he does not have enough power to control them.

But Christian knows that the things themselves are controlled in every detail - by God. So its a bit different stance, even though both may bring the peace of mind. And both require some mental training to achieve the calm.

 

[Gregory Thompson]

The emphasis on the will implies it is more compatible with the occult.

 

[Maria Billingsley]

Are these quotes from The Stoics, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca and Epictetus compatible with Christianity in your opinion ?

Christianity is about Jesus Christ of Nazareth. He does not exist in Stoicism.
Blessings

 

[com7fy8]

They are Actively / Purposely / Consciously trying to not worry about things that are beyond their control.

Then, I would think, they are making it about themselves, not about how God is able.

And possibly they are mainly concerned with how they are feeling, not about relating with others and feeling for others.

I can trust God so I am in peace, and then feel for others, caring about them . . . not only about how they feel and have control of their own minds, but caring about how God is able to change their character into the image of Jesus so they are pleasing God while intimately enjoying Him and doling His will. It seems, though, that the stoicism you are representing is mainly about living in a person's own mind trying to control what is going on there. That can be isolating from God and from how God has us loving others as family in Jesus and also caring for enemies in Satan's kingdom.

Have you read any stoic statement or claim about loving others, and how to become in our character? . . . not only calm about surrounding things, but how a person is becoming. They are limited to how their character is!! Their character has so much to do with how they are capable of disciplining themselves; and our human character without God is helpless > "without Me you can do nothing," Jesus says in John 5:15.

But, also, there are Christians who preach, it seems, how much their "free will" . . . which is human . . . is capable of doing. And they can be "trying" to discipline their own selves. And their human trying fails.

But I find that Biblical Christianity is God's grace first bringing a person to Jesus, and to trusting in Jesus. This trusting is very personal and intimate, bringing us into ongoing personal sharing with God while God in us changes us so we are submissive to Him in His peace. Our character becomes submissive so we are sharing with Him in His own love (Romans 5:5) while doing what He has us doing with Him. And we discover how He has us loving as family with other children of God, and we care for any evil people, at all . . . like Jesus on the cross.

So, this is very personal, with God Himself. It is not a theory or philosophy, then.

But this is what God is doing . . . while we *discover*, each moment, what He does with us. So, we are not guided by some idea that we try to get ourselves to live by, but God guides us by means of actually working in us to do what He means by His word >

"for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure." (Philippians 2:13)

And I now think of this > in case I really am with God, like this, God has people praying for me to be so blessed with Him in His love. God includes us, uses us, to help each other to live the way the Bible really means. So, I need to pray this to others, since I am included in ministering this.

 

[FireDragon76]

Not really.

Jesus said life is worth more than the body and food, whereas Stoicism essentially says that life in itself has no particular value, which is why Stoics advocated suicide as one possible commendable response to it. Jesus' vision is essentially a spiritual vision and idealistic in comparison, with a positive view of sociality and human love that Stoicism lacks. Stoicism is essentially an anti-life ethic. Not coincidentally, its founding figures were slaves like Epictetus and Zeno.

 

[Jude1:3Contendforthefaith]

Not coincidentally, its founding figures were slaves like Epictetus and Zeno.

Uh, Marcus Aurelius was Literally one of the most powerful people in the world while he was alive....

 

[FireDragon76]

Uh, Marcus Aurelius was Literally one of the most powerful people in the world while he was alive....

He was a relatively late Stoic philosopher, and hardly one of its major contributors. Epictetus was far more influential.

 

[Fervent]

Like all human philosophies it contains elements of truth, but misses the mark. Both Christianity and stoicism seek to subdue the passions, but the end goal is different. For a stoic, the subjection of the passions is the goal itself but for the Christian the subjection of the passions is to replace the desires of the flesh with the desires of the Spirit. Christian ascetism is a means to an end, not the end in itself. Stoic asceticism is an end unto itself. Stoics seek to destroy the life within them simply for its detruction, Christians seek to replace it with the life of Christ.

 

[Jude1:3Contendforthefaith]

He was a relatively late Stoic philosopher, and hardly one of its major contributors. Epictetus was far more influential.

You can't be serious right now.

 

[public hermit]

Are these quotes from The Stoics, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca and Epictetus compatible with Christianity in your opinion ?

I think there is some compatibility and some significant differences. Paul says things that sound agreeable to Stoicism. He has learned how to have much and how to have little. He has learned to be content in all circumstances. I don't know that living according to the Spirit and living according to one's true nature are all that different, unless one wants to argue our true natures are not that of the Spirit, which would be odd. I think detachment from things outside one's control is not incompatible. Certainly, Christians through the centuries have found compatibility. You have the apocryphal letters between Paul and Seneca, which are not very interesting, to be honest. But they do reminds us that Christians have found connections.

Correspondence of Paul and Seneca - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Stoic idea of the divine is obviously not going to be Trinitarian. They held to divine providence, which generally agrees with Christian faith. Their metaphysic of world conflagration-everlasting return isn't going to fit Christianity very well. The idea that these repetitions are identical certainly wouldn't. They were often rigidly deterministic regarding the conflagration/return cycle. Christianity is metaphysically linear in a way that Stoicism is not. I think most agreement is going to concern the virtues, discipline/detachment, moral issues. The metaphysical frameworks are different in significant ways.

 

[Fervent]

I think there is some compatibility and some significant differences. Paul says things that sound agreeable to Stoicism. He has learned how to have much and how to have little. He has learned to be content in all circumstances. I don't know that living according to the Spirit and living according to one's true nature are all that different, unless one wants to argue our true natures are not that of the Spirit, which would be odd. I think detachment from things outside one's control is not incompatible. Certainly, Christians through the centuries have found compatibility. You have the apocryphal letters between Paul an

I see living according to our "true nature" and living according to the Spirit as very different, because living according to the Spirit is to partake of the Divine through Christ whereas living according to our "true nature" is to live by the spirit of man apart from God. Living by the Spirit is living according to an alien nature, otherwise we would not need to be born again in order to do so. So there are certainly compatible ideas, but ultimately any philosophy is going to be inconsistent in some way with Christianity even at the most basic levels.

 

[Palmfever]

In the sense that Stoicism is a pragmatic view of a natural human life, it may be beneficial.
Tho, pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps is not a Christian perspective, the disentanglement from emotional decision making is helpful in the context of a faith walk with God.

 

[FireDragon76]

This guy's critique of Stoicism is relevant to what I said earlier:

 

[Jude1:3Contendforthefaith]

This guy's critique of Stoicism is relevant to what I said earlier:

I don't believe that you really understand what Stoicism actually is.

 

[Apple Sky]

Simply put, Stoicism is an ancient Greek and ancient Roman philosophy. It encourages people to put aside passions and strong emotions in favor of a simple life.

If this is Stoicism I'm up for it

 

[rockytopva]

"Another thing, of course, is life will have terrible blows, horrible blows, unfair blows. Doesn’t matter. And some people recover and others don’t. And there I think the attitude of Epictetus is the best. He thought that every mischance in life was an opportunity to behave well. Every mischance in life was an opportunity to learn something and your duty was not to be submerged in self-pity, but to utilize the terrible blow in a constructive fashion. That is a very good idea." — Charlie Munger... 2007 USC Law School Commencement Address

The thoughts of Epictetus have helped me as well. In which I would summarize... Let loose of those things troubling you!