Unification Theology
Dylan Perry

Dylan Perry, one half of the Perry twins, is a freshman Religion and Philosophy major. This paper was written for Dr. Maloney’s Ancient Philosophy class. Later in life, Dylan plans to be a Professor of Theology

The question of what the single unifying concept of the world is has been the focus of many of the early schools of philosophy. That single and absolute governing principle for the existence of all things is referred to as the Arché. The Arché is an omniscient, amorphous creator that will be referred to for the remainder of this work as “God.” Many problems arise in defining the Arché when differentiating between the truth (logos) and the physical world (doxa) and the ways in which people perceive these two realities.

Certainly, the early Greek philosophers were all looking for the one thing that governed the universe. This precept was called the Arché but can more easily be understood by a modern audience as God. The structure of the Olympian pantheon was conceived in such a way that if these writers were to call this power a god it would not have been enough to encompass the greatness of the Arché; the term “god” did not carry the same meaning as it does in reference to the Judeo-Christian God. As Xenophanes said, “Homer and Hesiod have ascribed to the gods all deeds which among men are a reproach and a disgrace: thieving, adultery, and deceiving one another” (Reeves, 8). The Olympians were born of the Titans, and seeing as the Arché is infinite, it could not have been a god as they understood the concept. These men were searching for a way to describe an Arché that was more absolute and permanent.

Perusing this further, the Milesians used elements of the natural world to define the Arché. For instance, Thales defined the Arché as Water. (Reeves, 2). However, it is most likely the case that these philosophers, bound by the confines of their society and language, were simply presenting slightly inadequate analogies of what the modern world easily understands as a monotheistic creator God, a god that “All of him sees, all of him thinks, all of him hears” (Reeves,8). Water has certain poetic characteristics that relate it to God such as its fluidity, grace, abundance, usefulness, necessity, and beauty. A student of Thales, Anaximander, began to develop a divinity to the Arché by calling it “the indefinite”; he recognized the inadequacy of the language to ever fully describe such a thing (Reeves, 2). Anaximines, although defining the Arché as air, believed that the air was a god (Reeves, 3). This clearly shows that the early philosophers were merely struggling to offer a sufficient definition of an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent deity.  Their language simply lacked apt terms, and their society lacked the concept of God as the modern world understands it in its entirety. They recognized that there must be a divine aspect to the Arché.

Admittedly, the difficulty that the Greeks had with the Arché stems not only from its vastness and its difficulty to define but also from a key distinction in the Ancient Greek language: the difference between logos and doxa. These two words are both used in reference to the world but doxa refers to a judgment or opinion, specifically an opinion as opposed to actual knowledge (Liddell, 178). It was used in reference to the physical world of appearance, which they considered a world of illusion. However, what was considered to be real in the world was the truth called the logos. Logos is a term referring to inward thought or reason itself. (Liddell, 416). Thus, the Arché would have to be both part of the physical doxa and the metaphysical logos to be the oneness that unites and governs all things material and immaterial. Like God, the Arché must exist in the doxa and the logos; it must be transcendent of the physical and part of it simultaneously.

Furthermore, the Pythagoreans began to address the broadness of the Arché by putting it in the spectrum of the cosmos and the heavenly bodies; the relation of the Arché to the cosmos the relation of the Arché to God may be why people think of God as being in the sky (Reeves, 5). Progressing from the analogies relating the Arché to things in the doxa, Pythagoras said that the Arché was an abstract concept, and thus part of the logos. He said, “This is why they call number the substance of all things” (Reeves, 4). By defining the Arché as numbers, Pythagoras uses them as an analogy for God.  Like God, numbers are apparent in the doxa but not perceivable to the senses in the doxa.  Nonetheless, numbers are an objective truth of the world. Around the same time as Pythagoras was teaching, Xenophanes actually broke through the wall of vague metaphors and introduced the novel idea of a new sort of divinity that was in no way like the Olympians (Reeves, 7). Xenophanes pushed against the mores of his society and realized what his predecessors had not: the Arché is a supreme and all powerful God.  Additionally, he too addressed the problem of doxa and logos. People at this time had trouble not anthropomorphizing deities. The God imagined by Xenophanes was immobile and amorphous, but still all powerful. The problem with doxa is that “Ethiopians say that their gods are flat-nosed and dark, Thracians that theirs are blue-eyed and red-haired” (Reeves, 8). Different cultures tend to interpret God by their own standards. The God of the logos must necessarily be the same for all people if it is to be objectively true. He can have no human characteristics. It must be “not at all like mortals in body and thought” (Reeves, 8). Assuredly, it must be a God that cannot be fully understood or explained in human terms.

Consequently, God cannot be explained in human terms. Also, “god” had a different meaning for the ancient Greeks. Hence, they called the supreme power the Arché. Philosophers used analogies to explain the Arché, and these analogies describe an all powerful deity. That divine influence is the single principle that governs life, the universe, and everything.
 

Works Cited

Liddell, and Scott, comps. “Doxa,” “Logos.” Greek-English Lexicon. Oxford: Clarendon P, 1990.

Reeve, C. D. C., and Patrick Lee Miller, eds. Introductory Readings in Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy. Indianapolis: Hackett Company, Inc., 2006. 2-8.

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