The Ship of Theseus

The Quandary

I don’t remember where I read about this, but I found it fascinating. It’s called “The Ship of Theseus.” I relate it here pretty much as I found it, but with some needed editing, so as not to use it word-for-word, and, well, it actually needed editing. At the very bottom I present my personal conclusion. I definitely do not agree with their conclusion at all.

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Taken from “Identity, Persistence, and the Ship of Theseus” (as related on the University of Washington website)

Heraclitus and Plato are the probable instigators to all this “identity crises” related here.

Heraclitus’s “river fragments” raises philosophical concerns about the persistence of identity: under what conditions does an object persist through time as one-and-the-same object? If the world contains things that endure and retain their identity despite undergoing any form of physical alteration, then somehow those things (i.e., the thing’s identity) must also persist through said changes.

Heraclitus had a really good point: can we really step into the exact same river twice…when in reality it continually undergoes changes and the water itself isn’t even the same from one moment to the next?

Specifically, the water at any point changes. At any given time, it’s made up of different component parts from that which it had previously been composed (e.g., the water itself, but also stones, leaves, silt, et cetera). According to one interpretation, Heraclitus concluded that we do not have the exact same river persisting from one moment to the next…so how does a river remain its (“the same”) identity?

According to Plato, Heraclitus maintained that nothing forever retains its identity:

 

“Heraclitus, you know, says that everything moves on and that nothing is at rest; and, comparing existing things to the flow of a river, he says that you could not step into the same river twice” (Cratylus 402A).

 

But what Heraclitus might have instead said was:

 

“On those who enter the same rivers, ever different waters flow.” (fr. 12)

 

Plato’s interpretation is that it’s not the same river, since the waters are different. But employing a “less paradoxical” interpretation, of course it’s the same river, despite the flow of different water. Both interpretations of Heraclitus defines the Flux Doctrine: Everything is constantly altering; no object retains all of its component parts from one moment to the next.

Okay…so how does the Flux Doctrine handle identity and persistence?

Plato’s interpretation required that Heraclitus apparently practiced what might be called the Mereological Theory of Identity (MTI). This is the view that any physical identity depends on the identity of its component parts. Using math, this may be viewed as:

 

For and all compound objects, x and y, x = y only if every part of x is a part of y, and every part of y is a part of x.

I.e., an object continues to exist (from time t₁ to time t₂) only if it is composed of all the same components at t₂ as it was composed of at t₁.

Therefore, sameness of parts is a necessary condition of identity.

 

Sounds sane, right?

But what if we want to allow an object to persist through time in spite of a change to some of its components? Must we then deny MTI?

 

An object x, existing at time t₁, can be numerically identical to an object y, existing at time t₂, even though x and y are not composed of exactly the same parts.

 

But once you deny MTI, where do you draw the line? (I feel any time you employ mathematics, you’re automatically limiting philosophy, but I’m running with what’s being presented for now….)

Denying MTI leaves this discussion vulnerable to shoot-me-now puzzles, the mother of them all being:

The Ship of Theseus

This is a puzzle that’s been around since about the time of Heraclitus (535 BCE – 475 BCE), maybe after. It’s first apparent mention is by Plutarch (46 CE – 119 CE ), in  Vita Thesei, 22-23:

“The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their place, insomuch that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same.”

Plutarch states that the ship was exhibited during the lifetime of Demetrius Phalereus (ca. 350-280 BCE). Demetrius was a well-known Athenian and a student of Aristotle, in his Peripatetic school. Demetrius also wrote some 45 books. He was also a politician.

The original quandary is:

Though the original ship of Theseus had been decaying, each of its decaying planks had been replaced over many years to keep it seaworthy. Eventually (the tale goes), not a single plank from the original ship remained.

Think about that. No, really, think about it given all we’ve said so far.

This being the case…did the Athenians still have the one and true Ship of Theseus that originally belonged to Theseus?

I have my answer. Do you?

But, wait—there’s more! That one question would be far too easy to answer!

The quandary is livened up by:

There are two different modernized versions of The Theseus Ship gedankenexperiment. On both versions, plank replacements are taking place at sea. Theseus sails away…replaces each and every plank on board with a new plank (yeah, of course, in this gedankenexperiment Theseus carries all he needs to do this, including replacement parts—just don’t think too hard about this part, okay?, it’s mind game).

Two modernized gedankenexperiment versions are:

1. Simple version: Theseus completely rebuilds his ship, by replacing all the old parts with new ones, throwing the old ones overboard.
   1. Does he arrive to his home port on the same ship as the one he left on? Of course the ship has changed, so is the rebuilt one really still the same one Theseus and his crew left on? Here we go with the math thing again…

1. Let A = the ship Theseus originally started his voyage with
   Let B = the ship Theseus ended up finishing his voyage with

1. Is the question simply A = B? If not, why not? Suppose Theseus had left one original part in. Would that have been enough to make A identical to B? If not, suppose he had left two pieces…where do we draw the line?

1. 1. Not-Simple version: Use the Simple Version, but add: following Theseus in another boat; call it the Scavenger. The Scavenger takes all the discarded pieces Theseus threw away and rebuilds the Ship of Theseus all over again! Then some of the Scavenger’s crew sails the rebuilt Ship of Theseus back to its home port (remember, this ship is composed of precisely and exactly all the original parts that composed the ship Theseus started out in). The Scavenger docks this rebuilt Theseus Ship right next to one that Theseus rebuilt as his new ship. So, back to misleading mathematical equations…:

1. Let C = the rebuilt Theseus ship some of the Scavenger’s crew finished the voyage with.

Is your mind beginning to hurt?

How do we sort out the Theseus identities of ships A, B, and C?

Two alternatives to the modernized gedankenexperiment versions are:

1. Employing MTI tells us that A = C. There are three ships: Ship A was sailed out by Theseus. Ship B was created from the systematic dismantling of Ship A with new parts. Ship C was Ship A cobbled back together from it dismantled and discarded parts. “Ships” A, B, and C all returned to port. Ship B was berthed directly beside Ship C and are “identical” to each other.
2. Not employing MTI tells us that A = B. Doing this we still have two ships, but their identity and non-identity relations are different: Ship A was sailed out by Theseus, but Ship B was sailed in by Theseus. That other, Ship C, was created out of Ship A‘s original parts during the voyage, and was also sailed back into port.

The thought is that both alternatives lead to unintuitive consequences. But do they?

1. The problem with alternative (i) is that it requires Theseus to have changed ships during the voyage. For he ends up on Ship B, which is clearly not identical to C. But Theseus never once got off his ship during its entire voyage: Theseus got on board a ship (A), sailed a voyage during which he never got off said ship, and arrived at his destination in a ship (B). He was on just one ship during the whole process, but alternative (i) seems to require that he was on two (dare we say three?) different ships.
2. The problem with alternative (ii) is that if we say A = B we must also say that B = C , which (according to those who wrote this up say) also holds that A = C . Yet every part of A is a part of C, and every part of C is a part of A! So A and C are two different ships even though their parts are the same. But what say you of A and B? They have no parts in common, yet A and B are the same ship (according to those who wrote this up). These results seem as paradoxical as the view that there are no persisting objects.

Conclusion – Theirs

MTI seems too strong. It denies identity to objects that we think of as persisting through time. But that leaves us with problems:

1. What do we replace it with? Spatio-temporal continuity (the intuition behind our alternative (ii), above)? According those-who-wrote-this-up, that seems the most promising (and common) answer. A persisting object must trace a continuous path through space-time. And tracing a continuous path is compatible with a change of parts, so long as the change is gradual and the form or shape of the object is preserved through the changes of its component materials. So it appears that we can replace MTI with the theory of spatio-temporal continuity (STC). Man, it all depends what you define as constants.
2. But STC is also problematic. For it is easy to imagine cases in which our intuitions tell us that we have numerical identity without spatio-temporal continuity. Consider that an object can be disassembled and then reassembled (Consider a UFO taken apart and its parts, placed in different shipping boxes, are sent across country. The boxes are then unpacked and the UFO reassembled). How do we account for its identity? STC breaks down in this case, for there is no continuously existing UFO-shaped object tracing a smooth path through space-time. But MTI gives us the right result: the reassembled UFO is made of exactly the same parts as the one that was taken apart, and so is numerically the same UFO. In fact, there is a way of describing the case of Theseus’s ship that seems to demand MTI rather than STC. Suppose the ship (A) is in a museum, and a band of covert operatives steals the UFO by removing its pieces one at a time and reassembling them elsewhere.* Each day, the thieves remove another piece, and replace it with a look-alike. When they have removed all the original pieces, we are left with this situation. There is a ship, B, that is in the museum (made of all new materials), and there is a ship, C, in the possession of the thieves (the original pieces of A now reassembled). Which ship is A (Theseus’s original ship)? Surely not B—it’s just a copy of A, left behind in the museum by the crooks to cover up their crime. It is C that will interest the antique dealer who is interested in buying A, the original ship.

The authors of this presentation maintain they are still baffled and therefore still trying to work it out.

*Any similarity to covert government operations or operators is purely coincidental and I deny everything.

My Conclusion

Occum’s Razor. Sometimes the simplest answer is the answer.

And keep math out of it, unless there is some Mathematical Kung-fu that allows for notional variables, which I just can’t think of right now, short of some X^XYZ element. In any event and first off:

1. Ship A does not equal Ship C. While the ships are physically the same, they are not notionally—nor intentionally—the same (“identical”). It’s like how Eskimos have many terms for “snow.” Intent is everything in life. Nor is Ship C identical to Ship B! Ship A was old and decrepit and needed to be repaired, which turned into Ship B (BRAND NEW!). Ships A’s old boards had been tossed, but salvaged and rebuilt into Ship C. Ship B was BRAND NEW. Details, my friends, details….
2. However, “Ship C” is in fact Ship A. If any of the three ships could be said to be the same, it is A and C. Ship A was torn apart…then rebuilt. Those two physical constructs are the same. Their identities are not. Now, I can still split hairs, here, when I get into my “Identity” details, below, but physically, Ship C IS Ship A. Therefore there should be no “Ship C” in this whole thing.
3. Ship A is NOT the same as Ship B. See item #1, above. Please. Ship A = old and decrepit. Ship B = BRAND NEW. Not the same. They just both happen to bear the same “applied name.
4. NO, he wasn’t on just one ship during his voyage. Don’t be led down the primrose path by the argument above. He was on two ships, unless he walked aboard “Ship C” while in port. When you break down the above argument it deconstructs into the following:
   1. Theseus initially departed on one ship.
   2. The ship Theseus initially departed on was falling apart so a new ship was built under their very feet as they sailed.
      1. This is a TOTALLY NEW SHIP
      2. Built from TOTALLY NEW MATERIAL
   3. The old/original ship’s material was thrown into the ocean. Trash.
   4. Another ship sailed behind them.
   5. That ship collected all that tossed trash.
   6. This other ship’s crew decided to mess with Theseus and his crew.
      1. They rebuilt the decrepit trashed parts and played a nasty head game on Theseus and the world.
   7. All three ships returned to harbor:
      1. The original and reconstructed, decrepit Ship of Theseus.
      2. The totally new ship, now called The Ship of Theseus.
      3. The Scavenger.

The Flux Doctrine

I’m pretty much in agreement, here. Everything is constantly in motion. On atomic and sub-atomic levels this is just how it is. Atomic and subatomic particles are always in motion. Well, for the most part…there is a halt to all movement at zero degrees Kelvin…as I remember my university physics. Anyway, here I do believe absolutely everything is always in a state of change. But even at a macro level we see this with the decay of all objects over a period of time.

Identity

When it comes to identity, things can get weird, if you employ limiting constructs. Like basic math.

We all identify THINGS by nomenclatures. It one of the ways we manipulate and identify matter on the Corporal Plane. When things are simple, the minute details don’t really matter, pardon the pun. But when you begin to closely examine anything corporeal (like in Philosophy or science or high math), you do note that everything is indeed, not as it macro-ly appears. And, for the most part, it doesn’t matter. But in this case, it do, just like to the Eskimos there are many types of snow that don’t just conform to physics. There are interpretive versions, as well.

In this Theseus gedankenexperiment each ship is different because each has not only a different physicality/physics, but a different intent/interpretation. Only one ship was the original. That one was then torn apart and tossed away, but later rebuilt. Ergo and therefore, the owners no longer gave the intent or interpretation of that ship as THEIR operational ship. Therefore it no longer is the “Ship of Theseus.” It has now become a ship of Theseus…or trash, if not rebuilt by that prankster crew of the Scavenger.

The ship that had been juxta positionally rebuilt under the crew’s feet is now the Ship of Theseus. Period.

And, by the way, since “Ship C” was used as a prank (ha-ha, those kidders!), it would also have its own Eskimo name of something more like The Kripyaship of Theseus. Take that, Aristotle…or Socrates—Plato? Ah, hell, they all look alike….

It doesn’t always appear that intent matters, but it does! When you look at anything (food, clothes, someone saving you from drowning, a lawyer trying to prove you’re guilty of a crime…) close enough…intent always matters. I’m assuming you’d prefer to eat something that was intended to be created as nourishing food rather than debilitating or murderous poison.

Hopefully I kept my thoughts straight and didn’t talk myself into a corner…but I’m sure any issues will be suitably pointed out….

The Unmaking of God — Part III

The Unmaking of God, by Dr. William F. Nietmann, University Press of America, Inc. © 1994 and The NIV Bible, © 1978, The New York International Bible Society (My Image © 2020 F. P. Dorchak)

Dr. Nietmann’s stated goal in the Preface was to “…reformulate religious authenticity…[and] show that human existence is essentially religious.”

As I approached the last third of The Unmaking of God, Dr. Nietmann did, by way of Søren Kierkegaard, broach the subject of uncertainty of philosophical thought, in that “The task of evolving meaning reflects what is involved in being human.” Basically, that we’re not perfect and that thought evolves over time and consideration. He also later stated that “Ideas are produced by persons.” I liked to see these two sentiments stated. I also liked this statement: “There is no finality to thought.” And other thinkers, some religious, were also presented, but one thing that kinda bothered me was his notion of “the meaninglessness of human existence.” That was a bit too Nihilistic to me, and I do not subscribe to Humanity being any kind of meaningless. Maybe he was merely presenting trains-of-thought, but it was hard, at times, discerning what was Dr. Nietmann’s thoughts and what was being shown as others’ thoughts.

Dr. Nietmann presented much “evidence” to prove his stated goal (I underlined many passages in the last half of the book), and it was all quite thought provoking, but when he went on to state that “Philosophy often seeks the objective grounds for understanding existence,” well, that caused me to pause. I’m sorry, but all thought is subjective. It all originates from human minds, and given the changes in philosophical and religion thought on the “same topics” over the years changing, how can anything be considered “objective?” Sure, some things may be “more right” than others, but it’s all subjective and therefore subject to interpretation. Granted, he says “seeks,” but religion seeks to give us comfort and answers, seeks answers to the Whys, as well…of course even considers itself to be objective.

All of humanity seeks to do something.

Absolutely everything starts as thought and manifests (seeks to be) physical, depending on the amount of attention given.

So I maintain the same can pretty much be said of religious thought as well, once you disentangle yourself from any Wittgensteinian, Derridian, et cetera constructions/deconstructions/definitions. I am amazed at the thought put into words and signs and meaning, but I think there is an overcomplication that frequently occurs in philosophical thought.

There is a lot more that is presented, but since I’m at odds with much of it, I really don’t want to take the time to detail it all. It’s a continuation of philosophical evidence against religious evidence. To me much of philosophy should be utterly obvious, when it is not, and as I mentioned in my posts on Herr Wittgenstein, I do believe that words are symbolic to the thoughts they represent. As are symbols. As if corporeal existence representative to what’s going on in the incorporeal.

However…I do heartily agree that philosophical thought is far more rigorous (and critical!) than religious thought. Philosophical thought holds no constraints on where it should go and what it should deconstruct, while religious thought is highly constrained to only that material that is within the given-religion’s worldview and canons. There are so many other sources that contradict each and every religion from each and every other religion. And there is this little term of “faith” that pervades them all, when external sources directly contradict religious sources. Yes, this was brought up in the book.

Søren Kierkegaard

In Chapter VI, we get into Kierkegaard, whom I’ve always enjoyed. I like the way he thought…though there are elements in many philosophers I liked (including Plato), but, overall, I think Kierkegaard has perhaps been my favorite in the deconstruction of religious thought. To Kierkegaard, he viewed religion as beginning and ending as a reflection upon one’s existence as a human being. Søren appears to agree with much of Dr. Nietmann’s positions, such as that religion describes our finitude and not the metaphysical. Kierkegaard defines “subjectivity” as human existence (Ha! Further fuel for my fire, see the above paragraphs!). And as such that we all need to “…find a way into subjectivity without becoming objective“…by way of confronting ourselves through “indirect communication.” And that further, which I liked when I first read about it in Dr. Nietmann’s “Philosophy of Religion” class, back in 1983, Kierkegaard says that “For Christianity is a fine belief to die in, the only true comfort, and the moment of death is the appropriate situation for Christianity.” In other words, to profess your belief in God and accept Christianity at death is the way to go.

Life Is Essentially Religious

Dr. Nietmann did lay this out by saying that religious thought should be better defined as addressing one’s existence (or “finitude”), and not be bothered with defining God. That instead, religion should be more concerned with the searchers for God. To “…[be] there to see a person who perpetually exists in his/her own thinking.” How are they living their lives? Dealing with each other? That religion should leave it to philosophical thought to answer all the more esoteric concerns. He goes on to state: “The truth of religious language is to be found in its capacity to frame and unfold human existence, not in whether its propositions are objective enough to be believed.” He says that not doing this, but in continuing to depict objective “truths” about the Universe hides and even obliterates the world of human experience…and it is exactly that human experience that religions should be addressing. Nothing more. But, instead, religion has became “subverted” by “philosophical theorizing.” And his book has tried to build that case.

Agape

Agape is a Greco-Christian term that referred to the highest form of love…the love of God for Humanity and of Humanity for God. Dr. Nietmann feels that agape should not entail concern for the realities of the Divine or an Ultimate Being, but should instead be the “…shaping force in the articulation of one’s being….”

Again, it all comes down to one’s finitude.

Revelation

In his section titled Revelation, he goes where I was dying to see him go: he flat-out stated that “Ideas are produced by persons,” and said that if religious language were to see itself as providing knowledge, revelation would be a “sneaky way” of claiming religious imagery/dogma as facts, and never being held accountable for doing so. Basically just saying something is real without needing to provide any proof whatsoever. Again, this is not religion’s mission. It’s mission is to address Humanity’s subjectivity.

I also really liked how he ended his Unmaking of God dissertation in “The Silence of God” section, but I will not recount them here, because they are powerful to his entire claim, and I don’t want to steal anymore of his thunder without readers reading the book for themselves. I’ve borrowed quite enough of his salient quotes already. I do feel he actually has done a great job of proving his point, yet I question how much actual philosophical consideration were employed in reality over the two-thousand-year creation and management of Christian religion. There is so much I want to get into with this point, also about religious origins, but am not going to for one reason or the other. Maybe in some other post. So, while I do appreciate what Dr. Nietmann presented regarding the philosophical and religious…

Yes, But…

When I studied under Dr. Nietmann at NAU (1979 – 1983), I would constantly engage him in counterpoints. This would then invariably lead into fifty-minute discussions of much back-and-forth…usually between him and me. So…as I read The Unmaking of God, I was instantly struck by a counterpoint that something seemed “off” about his entire argument. As I stated above, Dr. Nietmann wanted to “…reformulate religious authenticity…[and] show that human existence is essentially religious,” and while that is a lofty, most noble (and I maintain, largely academic) goal, I don’t see that ever happening, if not for the most basic reason that religion (and since Dr. Nietmann limited his discuss to Christian versions of it, that’s what I’ll also refer to here) has become utterly not only ingrained into a formidable emotional, politicized, and weaponized institution, but also heavily monied. You think it’s tough to change or reign in tremendously large corporations that rake in huge amounts of remuneration from their ills forced upon the environment and Humanity, well, religions are far larger than all of them put together, and not in a numbers way.

In a notional way.

And notions are hard to kill let alone change. Once you get away from the “Holy Seats” of religions, where the leaders physically reign, you also have to get past the emotional and faith-based anchors of all the followers: people have been unapologetically killed for speaking out against religious orders, and let’s not even talk about all the torture inflicted in the name of religions and their Gods. When you start picking at one’s internal and core beliefs (and I’m not talking religious leaders, here, I’m talking the masses), you cut to the quick, and things turn ugly fast. As Dr. Nietmann also said in his Preface that his wife likes to avoid all things philosophical because “It creates dissention, and she believes in living with peace with others.”

Yes.

Unfortunately, very few people can calmly and intelligibly discourse with those of conflicting faiths and beliefs. But that notwithstanding, people of faith simply discount any provable facts that go against their religious tenets, because of their faith, so it is usually an exercise in futility to even try to, unless you are trying to mine their beliefs and not challenge them. This is from my experience. I simply no longer go there.

But I sensed a deeper, perhaps more insidious counterpoint that took me the length of the book to more positively formulate, because, well, I did have to finish the book to see where he was going with it all. And, yes, he did eventually bring in some external sources, but still not much in the way of the Biblical creators and heavy religious thinkers. The Dead Sea Scrolls, or more of the apostles. Those who actually built Christianity from the sand up. And perhaps that is sparse and dangerous territory, because there are so many theories about exactly how the Bible was physically written, and how Christianity was physically manifested, including all the many religions of Christianity, once you look away from the Bible as a factual source. There are even Biblical scholars who question taking the Bible as literal, so it’s not just one or two of us.

Dr. Nietmann wanted to create a more sterilized version of not only philosophical, but religious thought. Again, noble, but again, not gonna happen. It’s a great academic goal for universities and the like, but it just will not gain any traction until some global “inciting incident” (yes, here I’m talking about an actual, no-shit, you-can’t-avoid-it, “Second Coming”)…or, maybe, once most of the Old Guard die off and such new thought percolates through all institutions and becomes the new quorum. Who knows how long that might take. I could go out on a limb and maybe say if not a hundred or two-hundred years, maybe 1-2,000 years?

But even more so than all of the above, I have this issue with Dr. Nietmann’s well-thought-out and well-presented arguments: all of this…religious thought, philosophical thought, and all their permutations thereof…are all human-derived considerations.

Obvious, you say? Perhaps it’s so obvious it actually does bear pointing out. He did mention it above (“Ideas are produced by persons“), though didn’t take it as far as it really should have been taken.

And in terms of religious and philosophical thought, I also disagree with Dr. Nietmann in the limitations he had placed upon what religious and philosophical thought are supposed to be. In my experience neither of the two can ever be sterilized, because both are human generated. And from what I have discovered and researched since taking an interest in the subject as a teenager, both religion and philosophy came about precisely because of trying to explain our place in the universe. Period. You can tweak and dial and contort everything anyone has ever said about both, mess with word and symbol definitions, but the reality I see and experience is that both factions have been trying to explain Why and Where and Who since humans first began reflective thought. They are two arms of the same curiosity. One is called “religion” and one “philosophy.” One is more rooted in the emotional and the other in logic. One is more rigorous, the other simply is not.

But you see, as I learned long ago and experienced in the workforce, that the same set of numbers can be used to both prove and disprove the same set of “facts”…and so can words.

Absolutely everything can be twisted around to prove a conflicting set of facts. It’s about interpretation and repetition. Some don’t even bother with trying to logically deconstruct anything, but just feel if they SAY it…say it enough…say it loudly…it’s Truth. A fact. Even in the face of outright contradictory “factual,” logical, and empirical evidence. It’s simply and patently ignored. And some feel that placing certain words before and around other words logically proves their points-of-view.

But, for crying out loud, how do you explain all these differing factions claiming to be right? They all cannot be “right” given the same sandbox they’re all playing in.

People continue to believe what they believe. And so it goes.

Is that wrong?

I used to think it was entirely incorrect. Obfuscating proper living.

What I now believe and what I’m pointing out in my counterpoint here is that both religious and philosophical thought should not be about who is “right”…but about how humans deal with their finitude, if I may borrow Dr. Nietmann’s term. What it is to be human.

One is not…less-right…than the other, for they are all about beliefs. Even philosophy. You have to believe something in order to discuss anything, especially to pick something apart (e.g., believing in one thing over another in order to be critical about the other). Philosophy and religion are both attempts at humanity to comes to terms with itself: God, violence, origins—you name it. The premise that religions should keep God out of it, I find well-meaningly flawed, I’m sorry, Dr. Nietmann. All I have ever learned and researched about religious origins was that was precisely why religions originated, and to remove that aspect from religion is the major reason why religions sprang up to begin with, despite all your well-presented arguments. That was why I was looking forward to more religious-thinkers presented. Whether or not Christianity originated from the oppressed seeking personal or spiritual valuation or piggybacking upon current philosophical considerations of the day (or…something else…), pretty much most of the religions I can think back to started because of some different God Concept. Or, if they didn’t start out that way, quickly migrated toward it and wholeheartedly embraced it. And doing that is still, as I see it, an inherent part of defining our “finitude,” and to surgically remove that one aspect of religion predicated upon all your presented just seems utterly artificial, and none of it came together enough for me at the end of the book to really believe it. Given all your presentations, all the definitions and hermeneutics, none of it dealt with that version of Why you say philosophy should be one way and religion another.

But that doesn’t make The Unmaking of God a wasted effort!

You are contributing your own version of Humanity’s understanding of Finitude.

Unlike you, I don’t blame philosophy for incorrect religious thought. I don’t blame religion for being “incorrect.” Both are exactly what they are, and perfectly so.

Both are necessary and critical paths to each of us understanding our place in the Universe. In understanding ourselves. And just like there are followers of Freud or Kierkegaard or Christ…they are all trying to do the best with what they have…what they know. Believe to be true. And in understanding either or all of the above, just the intent of doing so is part of the learning experience of BEING HUMAN. What we must all go through while walking this rock. It is the intent of bettering our lives…giving due consideration to what we believe in and how we behave.

How we treat others.

So, Dr. Nietmann—in my most humble of opinions—your dissertation on philosophical versus religious thought is one more way that we learn how to deal with both issues. As Humans.

And, hopefully, lead better lives because of it.

The Unmaking of God Posts

• The Unmaking of God — Part I
• The Unmaking of God — Part II
• Dr. Nietmann’s 2019 Interview

The Unmaking of God – Part II

The Unmaking of God, by Dr. William F. Nietmann, University Press of America, Inc. © 1994 (My Image © 2020 F. P. Dorchak)

As I continue to read The Unmaking of God, by Dr. William F. Nietmann, I’m amazed at how philosophy really does seem to have directly influenced religious doctrine. Unless I’d forgotten about being instructed in this back in my university days, I don’t ever remember learning this. I just thought that whatever religion was created was by whomever created it (and I mean the Earthly representatives who actually “codified” the religion-in-question, notwithstanding the Divine Word inspiration attributed to religions). In this book, it’s mainly directed at Christianity. But the more I read and consider these arguments, the more it makes total—if inferred—sense: whomever was alive at a certain era will most likely have been somehow impacted by the current trains-of-thought to their era. How could they not? If they’re aware enough of a perceived need for a new religion [at the time], I’m pretty sure they’re also aware of at least some of the philosophical considerations of the day, because they would have been quite aware that something was missing from those other points-of-view, thereby impelling them to create a new train of thought-cum-belief. Yeah, it makes sense.

So when I read what Dr. Nietmann presents, I have to take it for granted that he did his research and wasn’t just stitching together philosophical considerations of the time into a “thread” that was then presented alongside Christian thinking in an attempted circumstantial synchronization of philosophies.

A Concern

Yet…I do wonder…because, so far, while there are a smattering of Biblical quotations, I haven’t seen any direct presentation from the Christian “theorists” of the eras under discussion, e.g., those of the author Apostles, Biblical authors (here comments relating to the Dead Sea scrolls would be useful) and any of the in situ theologists/scholars, wholly or in part, besides the early Platonic or Aristotelian considerations when people created the religions of Christianity. Granted information exchange back then was sparse and mostly limited, but still, word gets around in enlightened circles. Anyway, I do hope that Dr. Nietmann presents them later in the book, though I am halfway through it now and see no evidence of that—even when scanning through the advance pages. There are plenty of quotes from the likes of Kant, Hegel, et cetera, with a smattering of biblical quotations, but still, some 100 pages into the book, and I don’t see the same considerations given to the creators of the Christian religions. Nothing from those who created Catholicism, Lutheranism, Protestantism, et cetera. Perhaps they will come later.

Also, the more I consider the above, I very much also consider that he perhaps constructed this book so that he used philosophical inductive reasoning to prove his point and then never had to get into the heads of the humans behind Christianity, which thereby mitigated heated arguments over what so-and-so “might have been thinking.” This I see could very well be his point, though (unless I missed it) I don’t see that stated in the opening.

Having said all of the above, I did really like one section I just read in Chapter V, page 90:

World Spirit and Religion

There is much at the beginning of this chapter that talks about how impossible (even futile) it is to get behind Reason and the Divine, because all we can know are our interpretations of it, not any so-called ultimate actuality of It, because, how could we? We are not able to “glimpse behind the curtain” (my term), and so all we can see is what we can see in front of our faces…things we can touch. And further (again my words), I say that since we have so many philosophical interpretations by all the Great Thinkers of our Humanity, how can they all be right? They (just as with all religions) even contradict each other. So, there is obviously a mechanism to Life that allows all these High Philosophies to exist, whether in thought or action. No discussion is given to that here, or even, as I think back to my philosophical instruction at NAU, in my classroom instruction. Since all this is “in the mind” I feel that is an extremely salient point. How can “How The World Is” keep changing? Philosophers place such a premium on their thoughts and logic yet no one attacks this very basic, I maintain obvious, conundrum. And given that all of it is focused on only the corporeal—though arguments are made for the incorporeal—all philosophy is corporeally based, and therefore subject to debate.

How can such discussion be anything other than corporeal based?

Good question—hence the birth of metaphysics—which, of course is roundly decried by the corporeal thinkers. Humans love their “Logic”…as long as it proves their points.

But…there is one section, as I mentioned above, that I really liked that starts at the bottom of page 90 and continues onto page 91:

That everyone and everything may be properly understood as a manifestation of the Divine.

The next page then goes off in that direction, and that section ends with “Life in its entirety was religious.”

That, actually is how I look at The Divine, short of the “religious” designation, but more so it lines up with Dr. Nietmann’s statement about religion being about one’s finitude.

I see that everything about life is metaphysical. The incorporeal as expressed in the corporeal.

Consider my belief this way: that whatever is going on in the background of Life at a nonphysical, metaphysical/theological level is “pressing up against and into the materialism of physical expression (the corporeal). It would look exactly like pressing into an opaque piece of malleable rubber and looking at it from the opposite side (physical Life) to which the pressure is applied. The FORM (the corporeal) there is what it is as a result of being pressed into the material. So all that is going on in the background to Life takes on the forms we see and experience as they are expressed (“pressed into”) physical existence.

Hence all of physical life is as expressed from the metaphysical, therefore all of Life is metaphysical—or, in this case, “religious.” Granted, perhaps not exactly as Dr. Nietmann may have meant it, but still….

So, yeah, I really liked that section.

Back To The Beginning

Now, all of the above stated…it still, according to Dr. Nietmann’s wonderful premise, does not matter!

Because he states that religion is not about finding answers…it’s about addressing “our finitude“!

That just means religion in the strictest terms, according to the good doctor, is about explaining our personal lives…how we live and die, make our Life choices, and define our personal place within it on a daily living basis. Our personal relationship with LIFE. Are we ethical? Are we good? Are we striving for the better in all things? There are no answers, per se, but a constant drive toward Human betterment. An active hermeneutical dialogue.

The Unmaking of God – Part I

The Unmaking of God, by Dr. William F. Nietmann, University Press of America, Inc. © 1994 (My Image © 2020 F. P. Dorchak)

A Little Background

I had begun reading a book I’d started back in 2015. It’s called The Unmaking of God, and it’s written by a professor emeritus I’d studied under at Northern Arizona University, Dr. William F. Nietmann. The book appears out of print, given the heinous pricing, so I consider myself fortunate to have an original—and signed—hardcover. As I’d mentioned in a previous post, I’d greatly enjoyed my philosophical studies at NAU, far more than my major and minor of Physics/Astronomy and German. As I look back on my life I would have changed my major to Philosophy were I even half the “who I am” I am now…then…but obviously that sentiment is ridiculous, since I was not then who I am now, and obviously had different goals and a different mindset.

Okay, let’s just say that in another life, I would have pursued a Philosophy degree…a Ph.D (in an effort to bolster that claim I present that in my senior year of high school, one of my [printable] nicknames was “The Philosopher“).

Now…while working my current Work In Progress (WIP), I’d referenced Dr. Nietmann and his book as a form of respect and thanks for all that he’d impressed upon me back then. And since thinking about Dr. Nietmann, I’ve since picked his book up again to complete reading it. As I write this, I’m four chapters into it. When I first began the book back in 2015 (or earlier), I never got beyond the Introduction. To be honest I was just too mired in my day job (which had been a handful) and working on my own books—novels—so time was fastidiously limited. What I was reading involved the novels I was researching. I’ll also admit that Dr. Nietmann’s words were (and are), well . . . challenging.

Yes…he’s a career academician, so, of course he’s going to use “big words”—even for me! So I thought I’d have to have a dictionary on-hand while I read it and would be referencing it every other word, and that was just a wee bit too much at the time. But…as I am presently retired and finishing up my current WIP, I have taken it back up…and I’m glad to have done so, for it’s not as difficult as I thought it would be. Sure, it’s not an “easy” read, but I never expected it to be, and these kinds of topics never are.

Dr. Nietmann, by necessity, employs terms most of us do not come into even a periphery of contact—nor ever will! He uses terms associated with “hard” philosophical investigation, secular, religious, and academic (such as “hermeneutics” and “eschatological“).

This is as it should be.

I am now four chapters into it and I am once again enjoying his instruction and “arguments.” I really do find myself virtually feeling I am back in one of his university sessions! How I’ve come to…remember…missing those years of instruction! His was such a wonderful mind to engage didactically!

In doing some research on the good doctor, I found very little! And I found that as frustrating as that was, I also found that I actually liked that, because it showed a man NOT socially connected, and I took rather great comfort in that! Wished I were the same, actually. As much as I enjoy contact with my friends and family, especially in this heinously instigatedly surreal world we currently live in. It harkened back to the “good old days” where everyone was not “connected” except by hardcopy letters and landline phone calls, which, yes, I miss. I don’t write as many letters as I’d like (e-mail takes care of that), but I will curtail my comments on that for now. What I did find on the Professor Emeritus was a blog he was interviewed for in 2019 and a section to some NAU FAQs he had written, so I’ve presented them here:

NAU Philosophy Overview: https://nau.edu/philosophy/about-overview/

A Philosophy of Religion Blog (there’s a great image of him in this post, which was terrific to find!): http://philosophyofreligion.org/?m=201903

Note

Though Dr. Nietmann breaks his book up into two parts, and though I have labeled this post “Part I,” my posts are not going to mirror his book structure. I will post as I get to good breaking points.

The Unmaking of God

On to the book!

If I may borrow the opening phrase from the Preface, Professor Emeritus Nietmann states:

“The religious concepts of Christianity have a checkered pedigree, essentially because its framers moved beyond authentic religious concerns to seek philosophical legitimation.”

How’s that for some mental fodder?

It brings up all kinds of issues, not the least of which are:

• What “checkered pedigree?”
• “framers?”
• “authentic religious concerns?”
• “philosophical legitimation?”

All valid terms for those ensconced within the religious framework. After all we have all been taught that religion was bestowed upon Humanity by the Word of God (or Buddha or the Angel Moroni, or…). But what Dr. Nietmann shows is that religion—mainly the Christian religions—and philosophy are oil and water, yet religion was greatly influenced by philosophy. He also contends that one (philosophy) should not define the other (religion), but, yet, that has indeed been the case, as much as many out there might not like to consider this. But even if this is the case, none of that matters, because as Dr. Nietmann postulates it is that religion is about describing the finitude of Humanity’s existence…not about explaining Life, the Universe, and everything in it. Religion is about explaining one’s life. Anything else religion may try to explain in terms of God or reality, according to Dr. Nietmann, is in the realm of philosophy: the nature of knowledge, the “I” who knows, Truth itself, and parameters of that which are “ultimately real.” And further, that the search for God has nothing to do with religion, but instead “plays to our philosophical desires.” That Christianity has used philosophy to its own ends, to justify a “God,” as I interpret his discussion up to this point, is incorrect.

Interesting, to say the least.

And none of this lessens the value of religion. Its human impact. What it (religion) should do, as I read these pages, is better focus what the real Zen of religion should be: about one’s limited self in a limited world. Not about the secrets of the universe or the proving or disproving of God or defining ultimate rights and wrongs.

This is how I see Dr. Nietmann’s journey evolving.

Now, I might be slightly off, but this is how I’m seeing his book shape up.

The professor begins by showing the influences of Plato and Aristotle, which I am not even going to try to duplicate here, but which describe “why things move,” or strive, which was, indeed, adapted into religious theories, as one can clearly imagine . . . “striving” leads to “finding God” . . . which leads to “perfection.” He also goes into other discussions about other philosophers , including the Greeks who “laid claim” to deriving the “true nature of reality” that First- and second-century Christianity did, indeed, incorporate into their ways of thinking. I am now at the point where he describes Immanuel Kant’s ethical and moral theory, which is also fascinating.

So far, all in all, Dr. Nietmann, I love where you’re going with this discussion!