What we're seeing in this quest for ultimate reality of the ancient

pre-secratics is really what we would call the pursuit of God.

And in Greek philosophy, the idea of monotheism is a relatively late development.

Whereas to the Hebrew thinker, he starts with the infinite and the eternal

in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

To study the history of human thought, the work of philosophers is often to observe

what R.C. Sproul just called the pursuit of God.

It's to see people seeking to make sense of the world, and many times, sadly,

doing it outside of a biblical worldview.

But that's not something reserved for philosophers' ancient history.

People do the very same thing today.

Hi, I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and you're listening to Renewing Your Mind.

Ideas have consequences, and this week R.C. Sproul is tracing the history of Greek

philosophy and the consequences of those ideas.

Yesterday, we met Thales, and his idea that water was ultimate reality.

Well, many others would follow him and disagree and come up with their own

interesting answers to that question.

Here's Dr. Sproul as he introduces us to these ancient philosophers.

In our first session, we took a brief overview of the first man who is usually considered

to be the father of ancient Greek philosophy, namely Thales, and we saw that Thales had

his quest for the R.K. or the ultimate reality that it would explain everything else,

and he found that in water.

...