Part 7/16:
The Stoics rejected metaphysics in favor of a materialist worldview. They posited that the cosmos is composed of bodies and pneuma (breath or fire), which permeates everything. This pneuma constitutes the active divine principle (logos), which orders the universe with reason, resembling a divine, immanent force akin to God or Zeus.
This divine rational principle is intertwined with nature itself—permeating, ordering, and governing all things. The universe is thus a single, rational, interconnected whole, where everything is preordained by divine reason—a doctrine known as determinism.