Joy Among the Stoics

ABSTRACT: Some modern secular people are finding meaning from a millennia-old philosophy: Stoicism. Thankfully, Christians wondering how to respond have an expert guide in Augustine, who engaged with the Stoics of his own day in his monumental work The City of God. Like other Christians of his day, Augustine found some common ground with the Stoics’ pursuit of virtue, but he also recognized a fatal flaw in their philosophy. His response reveals why virtue is not enough to achieve true happiness in this world of suffering and death.

Jesus and Seneca were likely born the same year. The Gospel of John opens by introducing Jesus as the Logos — a term steeped in Stoic philosophical meaning. Paul, reasoning with Greek thinkers on the Areopagus in Acts 17, even quotes a Stoic poet. And in the second century, Christian apologist Justin Martyr addressed his First Apology to Emperor Antoninus Pius and his son, Marcus Aurelius — the man who would become both Stoic philosopher and Roman emperor. Clearly, the New Testament writers and early Christians were no strangers to Stoic philosophy and its cultural pull. And if there were any doubt, we need only remember that 350 years after Paul, Augustine of Hippo was still quoting, engaging, and critiquing Stoic ideas in his monumental work The City of God.

Despite the resonance between early Christianity and ancient Stoicism, Christian thinkers from Paul to Justin Martyr to Augustine ultimately rejected Stoicism. Though Christians continued interacting with Stoic philosophy through the Middle Ages and into the Protestant Reformation, as a popular philosophy of life, Stoicism lost influence soon after Augustine.¹

Today, however, Seneca is back. Epictetus is dropping truth-bombs on Twitter. And Marcus Aurelius — although always appreciated in the military — is having a breakout moment with workout bros. In other words, ancient Stoicism is enjoying a modern renaissance. Contemporary popularizers like Tim Ferriss and Ryan Holiday promise that whatever obstacles you face in life, Stoic virtues — like mastering emotions — will lead to the happy life. Modern Stoics are selling millions of copies of their books. Podcasters like Joe Rogan are promoting Stoic practices. In uncertain and chaotic times, Stoicism offers a philosophical alternative to religion that addresses daily anxiety and inspires personal growth.

In this essay, I call on the stalwart Christian theologian Augustine as a guide for engaging Stoicism in its modern form. Retrieving Augustine’s critique of ancient Stoicism in City of God equips pastors and Christian leaders to respond wisely to the rise of modern Stoic virtue ethics. To begin, let’s evaluate why Stoicism has made such a comeback.

Comeback Philosophy

To understand ancient Stoicism’s modern revival, we can ask, Why now? What about our times has created a hunger for Stoic wisdom? I suggest three key reasons: Stoicism promises inner stability in a chaotic world, offers a philosophy for doers, and complements modern secularism.

1. Stoicism promises inner stability in a chaotic world.

Stoicism offers therapy for our desires — a way of finding peace amid uncertainty and anxiety. Ancient Stoics sought stability of soul by cultivating self-control and self-awareness through meditative practices (though not necessarily the ommm-chanting variety). The practices they commend focus on evaluating emotions from a rational perspective. They constantly remind themselves that while they have little power over what happens to them, they can control their response. Epictetus’s handbook summarizes, “Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views they take of them.”² Therefore, he commends, “Do not seek to have things happen as you wish, but wish for them to happen as they do, and you will find peace.”³ Peace doesn’t come from changing your circumstances; it comes from changing your mindset. To achieve such a mindset, Stoics offer many practical exercises, such as “the view from above” or “the contemplation of impermanence.”

Modern Stoic proponents commend the philosophy as “supremely practical,”⁴ offering “a set of practical tools meant for daily use.”⁵ This simple pragmatism appeals to the anxious mom trying to worry less about her kids as much as it does to the Silicon Valley entrepreneur who doesn’t know how he’s going to meet next month’s payroll. Stoicism’s exercises help even with more basic and mundane concerns, like a high school student’s stress over how classmates perceive her to the college student’s worry about being late to class again. Yet while this pragmatic philosophy has wide appeal, it has been particularly attractive to American hustle culture.⁶

2. Stoicism offers a philosophy for doers.

Stoicism gives actionable advice for personal growth. It teaches mental fortitude, self-control, and accepting limitations. Quotes like Seneca’s “we suffer more in imagination than in reality” inspire the hustle-and-grind types like Joe Rogan and his followers.⁷ It appeals to professional athletes wanting to ground and guide their pursuit of excellence in their sport,⁸ to participants in the fitness world — especially those heading to CrossFit gyms or jujitsu studios — and finally to young men searching for actionable advice that simultaneously offers a map for finding meaning in life.⁹

Stoicism supplies the philosophical anchor for today’s hustle-and-grind ideology: Pursue virtue for happiness. The Stoic mindset says

that the only thing that is good in itself is virtue . . . that sages are happy just because they are virtuous, and can be happy even on the [torture] rack; that they must be able to say of everything other than their virtue (friends, loves, emotions, reputation, wealth, pleasant mental states, suffering, disease, death, and so on) that when they are lost, it is nothing to them.¹⁰

The Stoic sage achieves happiness by accepting loss or pain or suffering as part of life and as the very tools for mastering virtue. This philosophical outlook presents an individual with both control and motivation. You can decide whether you will succeed. You can determine whether you will “master your mind and defy the odds.”¹¹ Stoicism offers a philosophical framework for the optimized self.

3. Stoicism complements modern secularism.

Stoicism views religion with indifference. The Stoic’s calm yet confident focus on being his best self no matter who or what rules the cosmos helps to explain why so many people feel drawn toward the Stoic way of life in our secular age.¹² You can retain the spiritual elements of the philosophy while remaining outside the confines of proper religion. Such a strategy underscores the secular search for meaning, suggesting that modern Stoics think philosophy can be swapped for religion like oat milk for dairy. (Allergic to religion? Try Epictetus!)

Stoicism’s flexible agnosticism fits modern secularism. One author sums up the allure of this “best-of-both-worlds” quality: “There is something very appealing for me as a non-religious person in the idea of an ecumenical philosophy, one that can share goals and at the least some general attitudes with other major ethical traditions across the world.”¹³ One specific way Stoicism complements the modern secular world is with its agnostic view of life after death. As Marcus Aurelius puts it, “Things are either isolated units [atoms], or they form one inseparable whole. If that whole be God, then all is well; but if aimless chance, at least you need not be aimless also.”¹⁴ This agnosticism toward life after death becomes even clearer in the practice of memento mori.

Memento Mori and Stoic Suicide

In his Meditations, Marcus Aurelius wrote, “You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.”¹⁵ This threat of death inspired Aurelius to live virtuously now and not wait. For Stoics ancient and modern, the Latin phrase memento mori — “remember you will die” — is a tool for living well. The Stoic sage does not run from death but walks toward it with serene acceptance. Yet this Stoic embrace of mortality uncovers their attitude toward suicide. If death is not to be feared because it is part of nature, then it can become not just the conclusion to life but a person’s choice.

Epictetus famously said, “Is there smoke in the house? If it’s not suffocating, I will stay indoors; if it proves too much, I’ll leave. Always remember — the door is open.”¹⁶ If life becomes unbearable — if the house is too smoky — then you may choose to walk out the door. His metaphor captures the attitude of other Stoics, like Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, and inspires two modern Stoics to defend the option of suicide. These modern Stoics conclude,

You shouldn’t commit suicide so long as you are up to doing what Marcus [Aurelius] called the job of a human being — appreciating and creating meaningful relationships, projects to pursue, useful things to contribute to others, and things to learn for yourself. So long as that’s true . . . stay. If, however, the room gets too smoky for you . . . then you do have the option to walk through the door.¹⁷

Remembering we will die — and even choosing to die — is the Stoic approach to one of the most fearful and uncertain parts of life. To many today, this approach seems humane, even empowering. But to Augustine, it revealed the fatal flaw in Stoicism’s entire system.

Augustine’s Response: Stoicism’s Fatal Flaw

Augustine engaged Stoicism like every other major philosophy in his day: He plundered it. Writing to aspiring pastors, Augustine says in Teaching Christianity, “Any statements by those who are called philosophers . . . which happen to be true and consistent with [the Christian] faith should not cause alarm, but be claimed for our own use, as it were from owners who have no right to them.”¹⁸ Augustine believed that any truth Stoicism taught was properly Christian truth. Therefore, Christians can be like the ancient Israelites who plundered Egyptian gold to build Yahweh’s tabernacle.

But just as the Israelites had to melt down the gold from Egypt before they repurposed it for God’s house, so Christians must discerningly sort the truths that unbelievers see from the lies. Exposing the fundamental problems with a pagan philosophy, then, is essential for successful plundering.

In book 19 of City of God, Augustine identifies the fundamental flaw in Stoic thought not by external attack but by exposing Stoicism’s internal inconsistencies.¹⁹ He does this by demonstrating the gap between the Stoic theory of virtue ethics and their lived reality, specifically the choice some Stoics make to commit suicide. To see this contradiction, we will follow the three steps Augustine takes in engaging Stoic philosophy.

1. Happiness does not rest in external goods.

Augustine builds common ground with the Stoics by agreeing with them that happiness cannot be found in external goods.²⁰ Stoics believe that if we place our happiness in wealth or health or even our homes, we will soon discover how uncertain and tenuous those external goods are in this life. Augustine describes the many ways life presents unexpected challenges: A storm could send your life’s fortune to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea; a disease could sap all your health and strength; a marauding enemy could destroy your home and family. We can imagine his contemporary Stoics nodding their heads because they make the same arguments. They say, “Yes, exactly, Augustine — these misfortunes are always possible, so we shouldn’t place our hope for happiness in things misfortune can take from us!”

Augustine’s emphasis on the many possible misfortunes and miseries of this life seems, at first, to underscore the Stoic position that we should treat all those external goods as things indifferent — adiaphora. They’re nonessentials. What is essential, a Stoic would say, is that we learn to pursue virtue in every circumstance. But Augustine goes further. What’s true of external goods (goods of the body) is also true of internal goods (goods of the soul). We shouldn’t place our hope in our mental capacities, such as intelligence or wisdom. We could go deaf or blind or even mad. “Who can be sure,” Augustine asks, “that even a philosopher will not be such a victim at some time in his life?”²¹

“Christians practice virtue not as a grim duty but as a glad preparation for the reward of eternal life.”

For the Stoics, this idea that life’s external goods are things indifferent means they also see the evils that threaten them as indifferent. Only virtue matters. The real thing is stability of soul. Therefore, Augustine’s catalogue of not only bodily but also mental evils is likely intended to unsettle the Stoic, who believes practicing virtue leads to apatheia or tranquility of soul. The Stoic says we must seek happiness in virtue instead of the goods of this life because practicing virtue is the only reliable way to find stability of soul in any circumstance. Yet Augustine’s list of potential evils signals that practicing virtue may not be sufficient for happiness.

2. Virtue is insufficient for true happiness.

Taking the Stoics at their word, Augustine then considers whether practicing virtue as they prescribe can really lead to true happiness.²² While he agrees that the cardinal virtues — courage, justice, temperance, wisdom — offer a more promising path toward happiness than external goods like food or fame, Augustine argues that those virtues are susceptible to evils just as external goods are. Even if virtue is a higher good than other human goods, there is no guarantee we will keep practicing virtue and therefore no guarantee of happiness in this life.

In fact, the very existence of virtue testifies to the brokenness of the world. We need courage because there is danger. We need justice because there is injustice. We need temperance because there are unruly desires. We need wisdom because life is confusing and often dark. To say that complete happiness is found in virtue is to say that happiness is a constant warfare against vice. How can that be true happiness?

Augustine knows the Stoic response: The true sage knows that those misfortunes or ills are not real but perceived evils — adiaphora. But Augustine is not convinced. He exclaims, “It is beyond my comprehension how the Stoics can boldly argue that such ills are not really ills, meanwhile allowing that, if a philosopher should be tried by them beyond his obligation or duty to bear, he may have no choice but to take the easy way out by committing suicide.”²³ Remember Epictetus’s analogy of the smoky house. We can stay in the house — this life — as long as we can endure it, showing bravery when we do. If it becomes too much for us, the doorway of suicide is always open. For Augustine, the problem is not that the Stoics value virtue but that they overestimate what it can achieve. If virtue is the reliable road to happiness, then why does that road sometimes end not in resilience but in despair?

Among the Stoic writings we still have today, Seneca most frequently articulates the case for suicide.²⁴ In Letter 77, he recounts the story of Tullius Marcellinus, who, facing a chronic yet curable disease, chose to end his life. As Seneca tells the story, many friends gave Marcellinus different reasons to live or die. But finally a Stoic friend stepped forward and offered him the most inspiring advice: “Do not torment yourself as though you were pondering a great matter. Living is not a greater matter; all your . . . animals do it. To die honorably, prudently, bravely — now that is great.”²⁵ The words persuade Marcellinus, so he chooses death. Seneca holds up his friend’s suicide not as a tragedy but as an example to admire and imitate. Life is to be measured not by its length but by its quality — and when quality diminishes, the wise may choose to exit.²⁶

For Augustine, Stoic suicide reveals the insurmountable incongruity at the heart of their philosophy. If virtue alone were sufficient for happiness, then no external suffering, however great, could justify suicide. The sage would persevere, finding joy in the daily exercise of virtue. Stoic sages endorsing suicide confess otherwise. Augustine identifies the dilemma suicide reveals: “Happy life, indeed, which seeks the aid of death to end it! If such a life is happy, let the wise man remain in it; but if these ills drive him out of it, in what sense is it happy?”²⁷ His question presents two inescapable options: If Stoic philosophy claims that true happiness is achievable by virtue, how could the virtuous person ever become miserable enough to end life? But if the troubles of life really can reach a point that warrants suicide, then how could we ever say that the virtuous life is truly happy?

For Augustine, this internal contradiction reveals the lack of an eschatology that can serve as grounds for hope in suffering. You can grit your teeth through suffering because you think it will make you stronger. But if the suffering gets too hard, the Stoic says you should give up. With no clear hope beyond death, Stoics cannot offer hope for the deepest suffering in life.

3. True happiness is found in eternal life.

Augustine points to the hope Christians have in the life to come as what Stoics cannot offer but ultimately want. Eternal life — the greatest good — is where true happiness is found. And it is what true virtues are intended to prepare us for. Virtue is not the end but a means for advancing toward true happiness.

So, while Marcus Aurelius — and Ryan Holiday — may be right that “the obstacle is the way” to advance in virtue,²⁸ they are wrong that advances in virtue will lead to true happiness in this life. Virtue will not ultimately make you happy because virtue is not the greatest good, and ultimate happiness is not possible in this earthly life.

Augustine goes further to say that although Christians and Stoics both value the good of practicing virtue, there is a fundamental difference in their view of virtue. For the Stoic, the source of virtue is in oneself. For the Christian, virtue is a gift from God that we steward. In fact, Augustine emphasizes that while Stoics and other pagans can have comparative virtue, the cardinal virtues only become true or genuine virtues by God’s gifts of faith, hope, and love. So, “the cardinal virtues might put the sage on the road to happiness, but they have need of the theological virtues to realize their end.”²⁹

Augustine argues, then, that Stoic virtue theory is insufficient to secure true happiness. He challenges the conclusion that the sage who has perfected the cardinal virtues will be happy despite his external circumstances. He insists that the sage will not be happy because true happiness can be found only in eternal life.³⁰

But what about this life, you might wonder? Can a Christian be happy in this life? Augustine zeroes in on the virtue of hope as the means to happiness in this life. He quotes Paul from Romans 8:24–25: “In this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” Christians, Augustine argues, can “by the hope of heaven, be made both happy and secure.”³¹ Our final, complete happiness will come in eternal life. But even in this life, we can be happy in the hope we have through the promised salvation secured by Christ and the present fellowship we enjoy with him.

True Virtue: Gift and Goal

Stoic virtue ultimately rests on self-sufficiency, leaving the cords of life in the hands of the individual. Yet self-sufficiency is ultimately suffocating. We need the sufficiency of another to have true hope. We need to hear Christ say, “My grace is sufficient for you” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

In a sermon on Paul’s speech at the Areopagus in Acts 17, Augustine offers to his contemporary Stoics something better than self-sufficiency through virtue: “Virtue delights you. It’s a good thing that delights you. But you can’t pour yourself a drink of virtue. You’re parched . . . [let me] show you the fountain of life (Psalm 36:9). . . . [Recognize] Christ as the gushing torrent; drink your fill of virtue [from him].”³² True virtue is a gift, not an achievement; a fruit of the Spirit, not the triumph of the will. And the goal of this virtue is not merely tranquility or self-mastery but the vision of God himself — eternal life where our joy will be full and we will reach our final happiness.

Christians practice virtue not as a grim duty but as a glad preparation for the reward of eternal life. Such virtue trains the soul not only to endure but to hunger for the One in whose presence is fullness of joy (Psalm 16:11). Practicing virtue is a battle for deeper delight, a foretaste of the satisfaction that will one day flood our hearts forever. Therefore, we press on with courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom transformed by faith, hope, and love. We do so not because we trust in ourselves but because we trust in Christ, who has promised that our joy will be made complete, to his supreme glory (John 15:11).