Excuse the bizarre title and bear with me; it’ll make sense in a minute. This is my first Friday Philosophy post, and each week I’m going to be looking at a key idea from a renowned philosopher. We’ll start back in 620BC, which was the approximate birth date of Thales of Miletus, an ancient Greek philosopher considered by many to be the founder of natural science.
Who Was He?
Thales came from the seaport of Miletus in Ionia, which is modern-day Turkey. He is a presocratic philosopher, which as you may be aware is the name given to philosophers who were philosophising before Socrates. We don’t have any of Thales’ writing, but he is referenced in works by Aristotle and Herodotus which is how we know about his thinking.
What’s the Big Idea?
Thales is regarded as the founder of natural science because of the way he speculated about the natural world, and specifically about water. He deduced that because water can be heated to form vapour and frozen to form ice – it can take the form of a solid, a liquid, or a gas – it is therefore the substance underlying all matter in creation. That may not totally make sense to our modern minds, but we can appreciate the depth of insight.
My Reflections
The idea that there is a single underlying principle or substance to the universe is quite profound. It’s interesting that Thales also believed that the mind of the world is God and that God pervades all things. His speculations about the natural world led him to adopt these theological positions despite the fact that he was more interested in investigating nature than appealing to the Homeric gods of his contemporaries.
I do believe Thales was onto something. I believe in the omnipresence of God, and that God is both transcendent (beyond) and immanent (within) creation. Perhaps Thales was among the first men on Earth to consider the principle of God’s immanence – an idea that many philosophers and spiritual thinkers have arrived at, including the Apostle Paul, who said of God, “In Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).
Next week we’ll be looking at a big idea by another presocratic philosopher, Pythagoras. If you’d like to receive an email for each new post, please consider subscribing. Thank you for reading!
Perfect Chaos 
18 responses to “Is Everything Made of Water?”
I love your idea of looking at philosophical ideas from greats. A great source for future blog posts!
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Hi David! Yes, should keep me busy for a while! And hopefully we can all learn something in the process 🙂 God bless!
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I think that studying about the philosophy of some of the philosophers of the past like Thales is an interesting topic.
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Glad you like the idea! Thank you and God bless 🙂
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Nice job, Steven.
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Thank you, David! Have a wonderful weekend. I enjoyed your post about Israel 🙂
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Thanks for the kind words, Steven. You, as well, have a wonderful weekend.
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This is fascinating. Thank you for expanding my knowledge.
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Hi Sarah,
I’m delighted you found the post interesting – thank you so much for reading!
Peace and blessings upon you, and in the spirit of your lovely poem – shalom!
Steven
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Hi Steven!
I loved this one – you know my interest in science.
Bacteria can be grown in a petri dish of agar which provides food and water so they are not dependent on a host like viruses are but the host of the virus itself is made of water.
I found the link below helpful and I hope you don’t mind me pointing it out?
https://www.britannica.com/topic/immanence-divine-attribute
Peace and love to you and all your followers,
Dinos
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Hi Dinos!
Glad you enjoyed the post and thank you for the link!
Peace and blessings,
Steven
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[…] Friday I posted my first Friday Philosophy post, entitled ‘Is Everything Made of Water?’ and was grateful for the warm response that […]
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I too appreciated learning of Thales. This is probably happenstance, but Miletus, near Ephesus, is the site of the long, poignant blessing-and-farewell (Acts 20) from Paul to the shepherds at Ephesus. I wouldn’t suggest that Paul chose that site because of any history with Thales, but the status of Ephesus in the ancient world is well known, and it’s interesting to think about nonetheless. The Greek world’s philosophies (cf. Paul’s Athens words that you referred to) would have extended in general terms to such a great city.
As for the history of “immanence,” wouldn’t you say the Hebrews had some of that, too? Some things that come to mind:
* The story of Jacob’s ladder (“surely the LORD is in this place) and also his wrestling with the man (some level of theophany seems to have been understood).
* The song of Miriam that indicates a sense of God’s direct intervention and deliverance
* Many Psalms. Ps. 124, for instance, attributed to David, has the LORD “on our side,” and “our help is in the name of the LORD.” And there’s always Ps. 23.
Just off the top here, do you feel this is a different kind of faith that does not rise to “immanence” of Thales several hundred years later?
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Hi Brian,
Many thanks for your thoughtful comment.
Yes, I agree with your point about immanence. To attribute the idea to Thales as some kind of discovery would probably be misguided. As you suggest, it’s quite likely that Hebrews (and others?) were thinking of these things before the Greek philosophers were. So thank you for pointing that out! I apologise for my lack of historical clarity.
Peace and blessings,
Steven
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When i read what you wrote, it made me think about it. It was really informative too as i heard about the philosopher Thales for the first time.
A great post!!
👍👍
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Thank you so much for your kind words! I’m delighted you enjoyed the article.
Peace and blessings,
Steven
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[…] the mid-sixth century BC (we don’t know the exact dates) and like Thales who we looked at last week was a presocratic […]
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[…] was a poet and freethinker, perhaps influenced by Thales as he shared that philosopher’s disgruntlement concerning the human traits that were […]
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