Abstract: There are two extreme interpretations of Presocratic, and in particular Ionian, theories of religion. In one case, the Ionians are viewed as the initiators of a tradition of rational theology leading up to Augustine and early Christian thinkers. Natural theology as practiced by the early philosophers provides a basic understanding of the divine independent of revealed truths. In the other case, the Ionians are viewed as subversives who undermined the basis of civic religion by replacing the gods in every important role they played in the cosmos. On this view, they were positivists who aimed at replacing religion with science.
I argue for a middle ground between these two extremes. For the Ionians, an understanding of the gods was fundamentally different from that of later theistic theologians, precisely because the former saw the divine not as autonomous and sovereign, but as a subordinate feature of nature. The Ionians did not recognize a supernatural realm, but only divine attributes that were exemplified within the domain of nature. On the other hand, the Ionians (with the possible exception of the atomists) did not aim at banishing divine properties from the world, but rather at associating them with the rational and orderly power governing the world. Their interest was not in rejecting divinity, but in rejecting a conception of the divine as arbitrary and willful. What they invented was not natural theology, but a theology of nature.
© De Gruyter
