God and the gods

In his sketch of Greco-Roman philosophy in Paul and the Faithfulness of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God) , NT Wright quotes this wonderful passage from Diogenes Laertius that describes the Stoic method of collapsing the traditional gods into philosophical pantheism:

“The deity, say they, is a living being ( z?on ), immortal, rational ( logikon ), perfect or intelligent in happiness, admitting nothing evil [into him], taking providential care of the world and all that therein is, but he is not of human shape. He is, however, the artificer of the universe and, as it were, the father of all, both in general and in that particular part of him which is all-pervading, and which is called many names according to its various power. They give the name Dia because all things are due to ( dia ) him; Zeus ( Z?na ) insofar as he is the cause of life ( z?n ) or pervades all life; the name Athena is given, because the ruling part of the divinity extends to the aether; the name Hera marks its extension to the air ( aera ); he is called Hephaestus since it spreads to the creative fire; Poseidon, since it stretches to the sea; Demeter, since it reaches to the earth. Similarly men have given the deity his other titles, fastening, as best they can, on some one or other of his peculiar attributes. The substance ( ousia ) of God is declared by Zeno to be the whole world and the heaven ( ton holon kosmon kai ton ouranon ), as well as by Chrysippus . . . Now the term Nature ( physis ) is used by them to mean sometimes that which holds the world together, sometimes that which causes terrestrial things to spring up. Nature is defined as a force moving of itself ( hexis ex haut?s kinoumen? ), producing and preserving in being its offspring in accordance with seminal principles ( kata spermatikous logous ) within definite periods, and effecting results homogenous with their sources. Nature, they hold, aims both at utility and at pleasure, as is clear from the analogy of human craftsmanship.”