Creationism and Its Critics in Antiquity

By: David Sedley 2007

So how did this book end up on my reading list?  In my journey to find other adults to discuss the classics and how they pertain to modern issues I discovered this book and other resources.  I started my quest by asking friends and family, this then expanded to social groups, and business acquaintances.  One of the librarians was wondering why anybody would want to read that old stuff for fun, it was bad enough she had to read it in college.  One day I was talking to one of my customers, (I own a board game store), he is a professor at University of Cincinnati and he informed me that they have a really good classics department and often host classics presentations that are open to the public.  After checking the schedule online I found when the next presentation was.  I made it a point to be there.  The guest speaker was Dr. Athena Kirk on “The Semantics of Showcase in Herodotus’ Histories”.  In preparation to meet this presenter, I looked up the professor online to see if she had any books that I could read beforehand.  I did not find any, but I found an acknowledgement in Creationism and Its Critics in Antiquity that she had been an assistant to David Sedley.  So I naturally checked my local library for a copy.  So, that is how this book ended up on my reading list.

I quickly realized this was not a casual read, but rather an academic work.  I had to switch gears from a casual reader to a more analytical approach.  Once I had this in mind I read the book through and then went back and reread different sections paying careful attention to notes and references.  I got the feeling that I really wanted to reread Aristotle and Plato to review them in a new light.

The author does not attempt to prove a point for or against creationism.  He is very up front with that.  Instead he presents the different opinions of extant works from the 5^th century B.C. to Galen.  This gives the reader a detailed look at the thought processes and the general conversation as it progressed.

So if you are interested in a detailed look at the earliest known conversation of Creationism and those against it, then this book is for you.  The book starts out with the pre-Socratic thinkers; Thales, Anaximander, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Zeno of Elea, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Democritus, and Protagoras.  It shows the Creationist tendency and tone.  A lot of attention is given to Socrates and how the Timaeus was a very radical work and became a major focus point for many discussions afterward.  I was particularly intrigued with the comparison of how Socrates ideology is compared in Plato’s and Xenophon’s writings.  I have read Plato’s works, but only Xenophon’s March of the 10,000.  I will have to read his other extant works to form my own opinion.  From there we get a look at the Atomists with Democritus and the Epicureans.  This is followed by the Stoics and their “argument from design”.  The book wraps up with Galen and this is aptly appropriate as he writes of both sides of the conflict and gives us a good look at it.

I enjoyed the book and I felt it left me with more detailed questions to be asked.  I will continue my journey and attempt to read the other books the author has written.  The following is a quotation of the last paragraph of the book and the authors own words best summarize what I thought was most important in this book:  What is really important is about us asking the questions and continuing the conversation.

“Throughout this book I have sought to show how the major thinkers of antiquity developed their ideas on our world’s origins and casual structure in a context of open-ended debate.  It is this complex web of interaction that makes the uniquely rich cultural phenomenon of ancient philosophy so much more than the sum of its parts, and it has been my overriding priority to illustrate how the discrete episodes that constitute the whole come adequately into focus only when we arrange them into a continuous history.  The inspiration we can draw from these seminal thinkers has little to do with right and wrong answers, and everything to do with conceptual and argumentative resources, allied with the power of sheer philosophical imagination.  Wherever cosmological science may take us in the future, for these gifts we will always remain in their debt.”