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Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Consolation of Philosophy, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Classical Philosophy and Medieval Christianity
Wisdom, Fortune, and Happiness
The Problem of Evil
Human Free Will and God’s Foreknowledge
Summary
Analysis
Boethius asks Philosophy if she believes in “freedom of the will.” She says she does: it is necessary “for any rational nature to exist,” because reason is based on people’s ability to decide “what to avoid and what to desire.” Some beings, like “celestial and divine” ones, have greater freedom than “human souls,” which expand in freedom when they consider God and lose it when they focus on worldly things or succomb to wickedness. This incorrect orientation turns people into “prisoners of their own freedom,” but God recognizes this and metes out “rewards according to each man’s merit.”
Philosophy begins by explaining why it is important to prove that free will exists: if it does not, and people do not truly make their own decisions, then they are not really rational and cannot really be rewarded or punished for their actions. At the same time as she insists that humans have freedom despite the existence of God, Philosophy also suggests that people become freer the more they dedicate themselves to God. In this sense, subjugating oneself to God in the pursuit of happiness does not mean relinquishing one’s freedom. This recalls the notion that true freedom is the freedom of the mind and soul, rather than that of the body, because it is only through the mind that people can dedicate themselves to God.
Themes
Philosophy sings of the poet Homer, who in turn sang of the Sun in the Iliad. The Sun illuminates much of the world, but fails to reach some places, like underground or deep into the ocean. In contrast, God sees everything, the whole world in addition to the past, present, and future all at once.
Interestingly, now Philosophy uses the metaphor of the Sun to show the limits of truth, knowledge, and reason: there are places that light cannot reach, just as there are things that humans can never fully know, understand, or perceive. She appears to be saying that God’s power is even greater than anything people can imagine, and so despite their freedom, humans should focus on respecting and honoring Him.
Themes
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