ALEXANDER POPESlide 2Pope’s Poetry “Essay on Criticism”Alexander Pope -- InfluencesAlexander Pope Poetic FormThemes in Pope’s “Essay on Man”St. John’s Problem Why is There Evil?Slide 8Leibniz’s Rational Theology TheodicyLeibniz’s Rational TheologyAlexander Pope ThemesSlide 12Slide 13Slide 14Slide 15Slide 16ALEXANDER POPE1688-1744Poet of the Age of ReasonSketches of PopePope’s Poetry“Essay on Criticism”Of all the causes which conspire to blindMan's erring judgment, and misguide the mind,What the weak head with strongest bias rules,Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools.Whatever Nature has in worth denied,She gives in large recruits of needful pride;For as in bodies, thus in souls, we findWhat wants in blood and spirits, swell'd with wind;Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence,And fills up all the mighty void of sense!If once right reason drives that cloud away,Truth breaks upon us with resistless day;Trust not yourself; but your defects to know,Make use of ev'ry friend--and ev'ry foe.Alexander Pope -- InfluencesDescartes--the emphasis upon reason, order, harmonyLeibnitz--Rational TheologyAlexander PopePoetic FormThe Heroic CoupletThe heroic couplet’s rhyme-scheme was ordinarily closed, rhymed couplets.The meter was Iambic Pentameter.The couplets often contrasted opposing ideas in an epigrammatic manner.“Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.” (93)Themes in Pope’s “Essay on Man”Evil happens naturally, the by-product of natural fault; it is not directly caused by God.Pride keeps us from seeing our role in God’s world; we should not presume to judge God.God’s universe must be coherent with logic and reason.Humans fit into an elaborate “chain of being, composed of lifeforms and inanimate objects which are all necessary for the whole mechanism to work.St. John’s ProblemWhy is There Evil?“Laugh where we must, be candid where we can;But vindicate the ways of God to man.” (Pope)“The existence of evil in the world must at all times be the greatest of all problems which the mind encounters when it reflects on God and His relation to the world.” (G. H. Joyce, a Jesuit Father)God is all GoodGod is all PowerfulGod is OmniscientLeibniz’s Rational TheologyTheodicy Truths of philosophy and theology can’t contradict.God chose from an infinite number of possible worlds. This then is the best of all possible worlds.Humanity is necessarily imperfect; the created works of God could not be as perfect as the creator.Man has free will. God has foreknowledge, but that does not predestine us.Man’s rational nature, which is his soul, is the closest approximation of God’s nature.Leibniz’s Rational Theology“Nothing happens without a sufficient reason; that is, nothing happens without its being possible for one who should know all things sufficiently to give a reason showing why things are so and not otherwise.” (Principles of Nature and of Grace)Alexander PopeThemesPRIDE“Ask for what end the heav’nly bodies shine,Earth for whose use? Pride answers,’Tis for mine’;” (88)Alexander PopeThemesThe Great Chain of Being“Above, how high progressive life may go!Around , how wide! how deep extend below!Vast chain of Being! which from God began,Natures ethereal, human, angel, man,Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see,No glass can reach; from Infinite to thee,From thee to nothing!” (92)Alexander PopeThemesRejection of Animism--Defense of a Mechanistic world“But errs not Nature from this gracious end,From burning suns when livid deaths descend,When Earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweepTowns to one grave, whole nations to the deep?‘No, (‘tis reply’d) the first Almighty CauseActs not by partial, but by gen’ral laws’;” (88)Alexander PopeThemesHuman reason is limited in its scope“Say first, of God above, or man below,What can we reason, but from what we know?Of Man, what see we but his station here,From which to reason, or to which refer?Thro’ worlds unnumbered tho’ the God be known,‘Tis ours to trace him only in our own.” (84-5) (Note that we should rely on reason, but not on conjecture or imagination.)Alexander PopeThemesThe human inability to see the big picture, to have a divine perspective“So man, who here seems principal alone,Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown,Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal;‘Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.” (86)Alexander PopeThemesWith a divine perspective, flaws would not appear as flaws, but as necessary parts of a whole picture.“Of Systems possible, if tis confestThat Wisdom infinite must form the best, . . .Then, in the scale of reas’ning life, ‘tis plain,There must be, somewhere, such a rank as Man; . . .Respecting Man, whatever wrong we call,May, must be right, as relative to