An Apollo 11 patch. From earth to the moon, then from Neil Armstrong to my uncle to me. Armstrong requested that they only go to Eagle Scouts who stayed with the program, teaching the younger boys. And under the "A" of the patch is the earth, our little blue marble, or as Armstrong called it, a tiny pea.

November 5, 2024 / 0 comments

A Ball Hanging in the Universe

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

  • Genesis 1:1-2

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

  • Genesis 1:28-31

The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the Lord thunders over the mighty waters.

  • Psalm 29:3

This is what the Lord says: “See how the waters are rising in the north; they will become an overflowing torrent. They will overflow the land and everything in it, the towns and those who live in them. The people will cry out; all who dwell in the land will wail

  • Jeremiah 47:2

“Born in Miletus, in what is now southwest Turkey, Anaximander was a pupil of Thales, the ‘father’ of Western philosophy Like Thales, he thought there was a single basic substance from which everything had evolved. He decided it must be infinite and eternal and called it apeiron (‘indefinite’). Anaximander also challenged Thales’ suggestion that Earth was supported by a sea of water, reasoning that this sea would have to be supported by something else. Lacking evidence for this supporting structure, he declared that Earth was an object hanging in space. He went on to publish what is believed to be the first map of the world.”

  • Sam Atkinson (senior editor), The Philosophy Book, Big Ideas Simply Explained

Anaximander (610BC-546BC) lived his life in Miletus, a student of Thales.  Odd how Thales of Miletus is mentioned several times in my early philosophy discussions, but I never devoted a discussion to him directly.  Thales, in this quote thought the earth rested upon the sea, but Anaximander thought it had to be something else.  I guess he doubted that the land could float.  But in my early philosophy discussions I mentioned that Thales thought everything came from water, as in one of the four “elements”: Earth, wind, fire, and water.  Anaximander’s work regarding the origin of all things, mentioned in the quote, is the earliest fragment of philosophical thought that has been found.

Anaximander was possibly the earliest student of geography and biology.  He was the first speculative astronomer.  Yet, The Philosophy Book relegated his contribution to the paragraph that is quoted above.  There are about sixty of these philosophers, what I might call “one hit wonders,” that are granted a paragraph each in an appendix to the book: from Anaximander (b. 610BC) to Isabelle Stengers (b. 1949).  Many of these philosophers may have so little written about them for there to be anything upon which to comment.

Since Thales was the teacher of Anaximander, I wonder if they invented the phrase “agree to disagree.”  But then, they could probably argue that viewpoint for a few generations – and get nowhere.  If Thales thought the earth rested upon water (the source of all things), and Anaximander thought it had to be something he called “indefinite,” you do wonder if the teacher and student got along when they met for afternoon “tea.”

But the works of such philosophers as Thales and Anaximander is important.  If they had not thought about such things and carried the philosophical tradition from one generation to the next, we would not have much of the science that we have today.  The instruments used in that science would have never been invented if someone had not asked a question and we had no means to measure “it” at that time.

Let us not get tied up in the detail of everything coming from water.  Thales saw it rain.  Rain came from the wind.  Rain, enough of it, washed out the fire, and rain took some of earth and deposited the mud in the sea.  Thus, what conclusion would you draw?  You could argue, and other philosophers did so, that everything came from earth, wind, or fire, from the same observations that Thales made.  Anaximander just took the Thales observations one step further.  He postulated a fifth element.

But if I were around in the time of Anaximander, I would be tempted to ask, “If the earth really is a mass of five elements hanging in space, what is it hanging from?!”

I wonder what “Earth, Wind, and Fire” would do if they also added Water and Indefinite?  Now that would be some really good music. …

But asking the questions hundreds and even thousands of years before science could catch up with the questions was important in furthering thought.

But what good was all that thought when Moses had already answered their questions in the book of Genesis?  But did Thales know Hebrew?  But with all the mentions of God being over the waters and the Spirit hovering over the waters, maybe that is where Thales got his idea.

If you like these Tuesday morning essays about philosophy and other “heavy topics,” but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Tuesday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.

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