Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

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

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

• Romans 1:20

“I will not fail to speak of Leviathan’s limbs,
    its strength and its graceful form.
Who can strip off its outer coat?
    Who can penetrate its double coat of armor?
Who dares open the doors of its mouth,
    ringed about with fearsome teeth?
Its back has rows of shields
    tightly sealed together;
each is so close to the next
    that no air can pass between.

• Job 41:12-16

“Like other Milesian philosophers, Anaximenes searched for the fundamental material from which the universe was made. He opted for air, pointing out that just as air gives life to the human body, so a universal kind of air gives life to the cosmos. He was the first thinker on record to use observed evidence to support his ideas. Blowing with pursed lips produced cold air; with relaxed lips, warm air. He argued, therefore, that when something condenses, it cools; when it expands it heats up. Likewise, when air condenses, it becomes visible; first as mist, then as rain, and ultimately, he believed, as rock, thus giving birth to Earth.”

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

Anaximenes of Miletus (585BC-528BC) is the last of the three great thinkers of Miletus.  Thales of Miletus, Anaximander, and Anaximenes of Miletus are considered the fathers of Western Philosophy.  Next week, we will briefly discuss the philosopher who moved the center of philosophy to Athens.

Anaximenes accidentally stumbled over something.

Okay, his life span corresponds neatly with the fall of Jerusalem and the exile to Babylon, but most of those people were exiled to the east, to the “rivers of Babylon.”  There may have been stragglers that escaped to Asia Minor, or the northern tribes of Israel were scattered roughly 150 years earlier.  Could an exile have been moaning in the courtyard that if his people had only obeyed the unseen God, they would be prosperous.

But Anaximenes went further than thinking that air was the one element that created the earth, he felt air was an unseen god that continuously moved over the earth to continue creation.  Hmmm. Curious.  Either Anaximenes had stumbled over the idea on his own or he bumped into an Israelite.

But to recap, Thales of Miletus had four elements to work with: Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water.  Since a heavy rain turned earth into mud and washed it away, and rain could douse a fire, then water was his idea of what caused the others into being.  Anaximander cheated, you might think.  He invented another element whose sole purpose was to create the other four elements.

But then, Anaximenes comes along and considers air to be the primary element, and that air is a god that continuously moves.  He also felt air to be infinite.  I guess he never climbed an extremely high mountain and found that air was much thinner up there.  But for us earthbound folks, we could easily think air was infinite.  The smoke from a fire is easily dissipated and the next day, there is clean air to breathe, that is if you put the fire out.

But considering air to be a god is much like a belief in the true God.  God is a spirit and does not have a body like man.  The detractors of Anaximenes argued that if air was a god, it had to have a form, something you could touch – maybe those arguments came from the idol sculptors union, or was it a guild?

But air being infinite, unseen, constantly moving.  Okay, constantly moving is okay since there are few days where the air is totally stagnant, and never all over the world.  But the concept of constantly moving can explain to those trapped in a finite world that an infinite God is everywhere.  So, for a “finite” God to have omniscience (knowing all) and omnipresence (being everywhere), Anaximenes had air constantly moving, and at times, moving really fast.

This may seem that I am poking holes in his philosophy.  No.  I am marveling that Romans 1:20 is so true.  Given enough time to think about it, someone that never heard of the true God, the God of the Israelites, would focus a philosophy, based on nothing but his observations, that mirrors the true God.  There is indeed no excuse.

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.