SOURCE: “Commentary,” in The Atomists: Leucippus and Democritus, University of Toronto Press, 1999, pp. 157-234.

In the following excerpt, Taylor examines Democritus's ideas on the gods and religion.

Theology

Democritus' theology is naturalistic, in its accounts both of the nature of the gods and of the origins and grounds of belief in their existence. Despite obscurity over some details (see below), it is clear that he believed that there are gods, which are living, intelligent, material beings (of a peculiar sort), playing a significant role in human affairs. They are atomic compounds, and like all such compounds they come to be and perish. They did not, of course, create the physical world (of which they are part), nor, though they are intelligent, do they organize or control it. (For discussion of the atomists' denial of providence, see above on Chance and Necessity.) They are as firmly part of the...