Meg’s Reviews > The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties towards Mankind > Status Update

(pg 288) This whole page briefly touches on Greek symbolism, e.g. God as a circle and the relationship between geometry, mathematics and theology. Pretty brilliant, but I feel like if I was better at mathematics, I'd appreciate it even more.

(pgs 284-286) More on Divine Providence and the affinity between Stoicism and Christianity. As a side note, it's funny how Weil despises the Romans as much as she loves the Greeks. This quote is a perfect example (pg 286): "Naturally, when the Romans felt obliged to dishonour Stoicism by adopting it, they substituted in place of love an insensibility based on pride."

On Divine Providence as the order of the world.

(Pgs 276-279) More on bad and dumb theology, illogical thoughts in re Providence and God. I think this is where Simone Weil really shines. She manages to articulate these sort of philosophical/theological misconceptions and ideas brilliantly.

(pg 275 cont...) ..."The devotion of a slave fro the man who looks upon him as his property is a base affair.The love which drives a free man to bring himself body and soul into servitude to what constitutes perfect good, that is the opposite of servile love."

(pgs 268-275) Expounding on the relationship between the Roman Emperors and subjects (as slaves) and the parallels brought into theological thought.
(pg 275)"To ascribe to God sovereign rights without obligations is to turn him into the infinite equivalent of a Roman slave-holder. This can only allow for a servile devotion. ....(cont..)

Interesting observations regarding God being turned into a counterpart of the Emperor (of Rome) or Pharaoh (as Jehovah).

(pgs 259-266) Interesting ideas about Divine Providence and the concept of a personal Providence and an impersonal Providence with special focus on an impersonal Providence "almost like a mechanism".
(pg 260) "All the parables about the seed are connected with this notion of an impersonal Providence. Grace descends from God upon all beings; what becomes of it depends on what they are;..."

(pg 259 continued) ..."But there is an answer. It is that that the object of human thought is itself thought. The savant's true aim is the union of his own mind with the mysterious wisdom eternally inscribed in the universe. That being so, how should there be any opposition or even separation between the spirit of science and that of religion? Scientific investigation is simply a form of religious contemplation."

(pg 258 continued) ..."What can we find to love about it, if it isn't its beauty? The true definition of science is this: the study of the beauty of the world."
(pg 259) "How should human thought ever have any other object but thought? That is so well-known a difficulty in the theory of knowledge that one gives up trying to fathom it, leaving it on one side as an accepted fact."...(continued in next update)