Aristotle (B.C. 384), the first philologian and naturalist of antiquity, scholar of Plato, called “the Scribe of Nature,” and “a reversed Plato,” differing diametrically from his master in his methods, arrived at nearly the same theological result.  He taught that there were first truths, known by their own evidence.  He comprised all notions of existence in that of the [Greek:  kosmos], in which were the two spheres of the earthly and heavenly.  The earthly sphere contained the changeable in the transient; the heavenly sphere contained the changeable in the permanent.  Above both spheres is God, who is unchangeable, permanent, and unalterable.  Aristotle, however, omits God as Providence, and conceives him less personally than is done by Plato.

In the Stoical system, theism becomes pantheism.[255] There is one Being, who is the substance of all things, from whom the universe flows forth, and into whom it returns in regular cycles.

Zeller[256] sums up his statements on this point thus:  “From all that has been said it appears that the Stoics did not think of God and the world as different beings.  Their system was therefore strictly pantheistic.  The sum of all real existence is originally contained in God, who is at once universal matter and the creative force which fashions matter into the particular materials of which things are made.  We can, therefore, think of nothing which is not either God or a manifestation of God.  In point of being, God and the world are the same, the two conceptions being declared by the Stoics to be absolutely identical.”

The Stoic philosophy was materialism as regards the nature of things, and necessity as regards the nature of the human will.  The Stoics denied the everlasting existence of souls as individuals, believing that at the end of a certain cycle they would be resolved into the Divine Being.  Nevertheless, till that period arrives, they conceived the soul as existing in a future state higher and better than this.  Seneca calls the day of death the birthday into this better world.  In that world there would be a judgment on the conduct and character of each one; there friends would recognize each other, and renew their friendship and society.

While the Epicureans considered religion in all its usual forms to be a curse to mankind, while they believed it impious to accept the popular opinions concerning the gods, while they denied any Divine Providence or care for man, while they rejected prayer, prophecy, divination, and regarded fear as the foundation of religion, they yet believed, as their master Epicurus had believed, in the existence of the immortal gods.  These beings he regarded as possessing all human attributes, except those of weakness and pain.  They are immortal and perfectly happy; exempt from disease and change, living in celestial dwellings, clothed with bodies of a higher kind than ours, they converse together in a sweet society of peace and content.