Boethius and "The Consolations"

Paper Summary:

This essay analyzes how Boethius tackles the concepts of justice and free will in his work "The Consolations of Philosophy." The writer provides a synopsis of the work and explains its central themes, the concept of justice, the omniscience of God, free will and the problem of reconciling free will with the determinism that follows from God's omniscience. The paper concludes that the crux of the problem is reconciling necessity with free will, two concepts which normally contradict each other, and Boethius surmounts this contradiction by arguing that it exists only in temporal and spatial reality and disappears in the light of the higher reason of God.

From the Paper:

"The entire question revolves around the concept of justice. Boethius does not believe that he deserves to be stripped of his power, and then thrown into jail and awaiting execution. His own situation leads inexorably to the generalization that evildoers of the world enjoy the privileges of wealth, status and power, while the virtuous natures suffer under their yoke. Lady Philosophy intends to demonstrate to Boethius that this is a false opinion. In the first instance she shows that wealth and power only come to the virtuous, and cannot be appropriated by the evildoers at all. If wealth is determined to be that which enriches one, and cannot be easily taken away, then spiritual wealth is the only one that matters."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Boethius A M S. (2007). The Consolation of Philosophy. New York: Cosimo, Inc.
• Burton D & Grandy D. (2004). Magic, Mystery, and Science: The Occult in Western Tradition. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press.

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