I have been reading Minucius Felix’s Octavius where the protagonist argues that the world is a matter of purposeless forces and there is no moral rhyme or reason in the universe. It sounds very much like an argument for atheism, except that in the end, Octavius says, theology and nature are uncertain, so we might as well just go along and worship the gods of our ancestors.
Let the seeds of all things have been in the beginning condensed by a nature combining them in itself — what God is the author here? Let the members of the whole world be by fortuitous concurrences united, digested, fashioned — what God is the contriver? Although fire may have lit up the stars; although (the lightness of) its own material may have suspended the heaven; although its own material may have established the earth by its weight; and although the sea may have flowed in from moisture, whence is this religion? Whence this fear? What is this superstition? Man, and every animal which is born, inspired with life, and nourished, is as a voluntary concretion of the elements, into which again man and every animal is divided, resolved, and dissipated.
So all things flow back again into their source, and are turned again into themselves, without any artificer, or judge, or creator. Thus the seeds of fires, being gathered together, cause other suns, and again others, always to shine forth. Thus the vapours of the earth, being exhaled, cause the mists always to grow, which being condensed and collected, cause the clouds to rise higher; and when they fall, cause the rains to flow, the winds to blow, the hail to rattle down; or when the clouds clash together, they cause the thunder to bellow, the lightnings to grow red, the thunderbolts to gleam forth.
Therefore they fall everywhere, they rush on the mountains, they strike the trees; without any choice, they blast places sacred and profane; they smite mischievous men, and often, too, religious men. Why should I speak of tempests, various and uncertain, wherein the attack upon all things is tossed about without any order or discrimination?— in shipwrecks, that the fates of good and bad men are jumbled together, their deserts confounded?— in conflagrations, that the destruction of innocent and guilty is united?— and when with the plague-taint of the sky a region is stained, that all perish without distinction?— and when the heat of war is raging, that it is the better men who generally fall? In peace also, not only is wickedness put on the same level with (the lot of) those who are better, but it is also regarded in such esteem, that, in the case of many people, you know not whether their depravity is most to be detested, or their felicity to be desired.
But if the world were governed by divine providence and by the authority of any deity, Phalaris and Dionysius would never have deserved to reign, Rutilius and Camillus would never have merited banishment, Socrates would never have merited the poison. Behold the fruit-bearing trees, behold the harvest already white, the vintage, already dropping, is destroyed by the rain, is beaten down by the hail. Thus either an uncertain truth is hidden from us, and kept back; or, which is rather to be believed, in these various and wayward chances, fortune, unrestrained by laws, is ruling over us.
Munucius Felix, Oct. 5.7-13 (ANF)
Sounds like either AI mimicking a Mensa-level angsty teen or a professor of classical studies going through a mid-life crisis.
Beautiful prose.