The Dynamic Conception of the World

[Haganrix]

The dynamic conception of the World, in our days it is brought to us by the theory of evolution. But this theory recently is disputed by the Evangelicals as well as fundamental Muslims. All the traditional monotheist religions, no difference if jewish, christian or muslim, maintain a static conception of the world, as we can find in the Genesis: man created in a day's time, woman just from his rib, the whole world raised in six days. And every modification after the Genesis is blamed as a deviation and a sin.

Considering this it's very interesting what we find in Plato's dialogue Cratylus about the philosophy of Heracleitos who maintained that the whole material world always developed and that all things are still moving. The following quotation was saved for us by Simplikios, one of the followers of Damaskios, the last director of Athen's Academy. It is considerd as the abstract of the whole treatize of Heracleitos:



panta rhei - everything flows


(first the ancient text in latin letters, than the translation):

402 a
"SÔKRATÊS: ton Hêrakleiton moi dokô kathoran palai atta sopha legonta
atechnôs ta epi Kronou kai Rheas a kai Homêros elegen[/I].

HERMOGENÊS: pôs touto legeis?

SÔ: legei soi Hêrakleitos hoti PANTA CHÔREI KAI OUDEN MENEI

kai potamou roêi apeikazôn ta onta legei
hôs DIS ES TON AUTON POTAMON OUK AN EMBAIÊS

HER: esti tauta.

Sokrates: "I believe to realize Heracleitos decovers old wisdom, obviously the same from Cronos and Rhea what Homeros said before."


Hermogenes: "What do you mean by that?"

Sokrates: "Heracleitos states: »everything flows, nothing remains where it is"«
and by comparing every existing thing to a flowing river, he says, that »you can't step into the same river twice«.

Hermogenes: "That''s what it is."


(Quoted from the German edition by Hans Zimmermann, Quellen zum Thema "Schöpfung" und zum Weltbild der Antike und des Mittelalters, Berlin 1903, deutsch von Hans Zimmermann, 2007)