The Greek Skepticism. The Divination Questioned

Abstract

The belief in the gods was common in the Ancient Greece. Still, there were some situations in which Greeks turned away from their gods and would undermine the very foundations of their religious system. The article deals with these situations. One of the phenomena of the Ancient Religion was divination (soothsaying), which was seeking for means to address the gods indirectly so as to get to know their plans and the decisions concerning the future. There were scores of types of divination and the scope of the article allows to mention but few of them. Divination was of a pivotal importance in the turning-points of history, e.g. those of wars and social turmoil. Then, the need for the cognition of divine decisions would become nagging. However, the defeats that happened to issue occasioned raising some burning questions as for the sense of consulting the gods, since their words or the way they were interpreted strayed from the truth. Not only Plato, but many ordinary Athenians too, were enemies of divination. Consequently, both the historical process of forming the skepticism as to the role of divination and its impact on how the relations between the human and divine were being formed are shown in the article.