PRiSM

A Student Journal of the

Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies

Volume X
2007

Editorial Staff
Editor - Charlene Burns, Associate Professor, Religious Studies
Co-editor - Richard Behling, Professor Emeritus, Philosophy
Editorial staff - Joanne Erickson

2007, Prism, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire

Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies
 PRISM is a student journal published by the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at
the University of Wisconsin—Eau Claire. All manuscripts are submitted by students who are enrolled in
departmental offerings. Differential Tuition monies provide the funding.
Copyright 2007 by the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire. Permission to copy any portion of this
material is granted, provided that: such reproduction is not done for direct commercial purpose; the PRISM
copyright notice, the title of the publication, and its date appear; and notice is given that reproduction is
done with permission of PRISM. To copy otherwise requires explicit, written permission. Requests for
permission to reprint should be addressed to: Editor, PRISM, Department of Philosophy and Religious
Studies, University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire, Eau Claire, WI 54702. Call 715.836.2545, or inquire at
www.uwec.edu/PhilRel.
 PREFACE

This issue marks the tenth year of Prism, and I believe it reflects something of the maturation pro-
cess the journal and department have undergone during the last decade. The essays reflect the diversity
of expertise in the department. Rather than commenting on them in detail here, I will let the essays speak
for themselves; they are very fine works produced for a wide range of courses in both Religious Studies
and Philosophy.
Thanks go first to the authors. Students are often surprised at how much work goes into preparing
an essay for publication, and these young scholars have gained invaluable experience by participating
in the process. I congratulate them for their efforts. Thanks also to Laura J. Jones, a Religous Studies
major who worked with me during Spring Semester, 2007 in the preliminary editing of several of these
essays. We have long talked of increased student involvement in the process of publishing this journal,
and Laura’s efforts have shown me the value in doing so.
Special thanks to the faculty who encouraged students to submit papers; without the support of each
and every one of us this journal would not be possible. My most heartfelt appreciation goes to Professor
Emeritus Richard Behling and his wife, Judy, who continue to provide financial support for the project.
Without Dr. Behling’s help in editing the papers, this simply would not have been possible. He has always
been a strong supporter of the journal, and his humor, encouragement, and great good nature make edit-
ing it with him fun. Finally, there are not enough words to express how much I appreciate the work that
our department associate, Joanne Erickson, does to make this journal happen. Her proofreading skills are
amazing and her technological savvy top-notch.

Charlene Burns
Associate Professor of Religious Studies

 Table of Contents

Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost •

Sarah Spear..................................................................................................................................... 11

An Examination of Our Foundations of Truth: The Gadamer-Habermas Debate •

Chris Dierich................................................................................................................................... 21

Drinking from the Mouth: A Taste of the Gospel of Thomas •

Noah Taylor..................................................................................................................................... 27

The Creation of Music •

Tyler C. Mickelson.......................................................................................................................... 37

A Review of Anselm’s Ontological Proof for the Existence of God •

Jeremy Behreandt........................................................................................................................... 41

Is There a Connection? Hindu Goddesses, Hindu Women and Their Interrelation •

Sarah Hestekin................................................................................................................................ 47

An Ethical Analysis of Database Privacy •

Scott Degen...................................................................................................................................... 55

Scientific and Religious Rhetoric in the Transcendental Meditation Movement •

Jackie Lockerby.............................................................................................................................. 63


10
 Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost •
Sarah Spear

Sarah Spear graduated in December 2006 with a degree in religious stud-

ies. She wrote this paper for Dr. Burns’ RELS 470 class, “The Problem
of Evil” in the spring of 2006.

********************

T he strongest character in John Milton’s Paradise Lost is undeniably Satan, with all his charm,
complexity, and spirit. I will analyze the concept of evil in Milton’s poem, looking specifically at the
character of Satan and the author’s intentions in writing this work. I will also consider how Milton’s
ideas are rooted in the circumstances of his own time and place, and how his thought might have been
influenced by this setting. There is also the question of accountability for the existence of evil in this
world, whether the responsibility lies with Satan or with God. Finally, I will reflect upon Satan’s inner
being and worldview.
At the outset, it is important to note the distinction between the character, Satan, and Satan’s character.
One sees many positive qualities in his disposition. However, his nature and deeds are not inconsistent.
The significance of Satan’s virtues is found in how they are exercised—for good or for evil— since Satan
possesses and displays attributes such as ambition, determination, courage, self-sacrifice, and intelligence.
In this way, “Satan as an artistic creation is the best agent in the story. His actions accord with his ethos”
(Diekhoff 31).
Behold his guile, envy, revenge, and pride (I, 34-7). Yet, he has a somewhat heroic, epic splendor.
Book I, lines 106-9, present him as something more than a merely evil being, as one who holds greatness
and is even almost noble: “All is not lost; the unconquerable will, And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield; (And what is else not to be overcome?).” Milton clothes Satan with
a glory that God, by his wrath or might, supposedly can never force away from him (I, 39, 110-11). His
sins and vices are therefore countered by some significant assets and virtues (Hamilton 9-10).
The serpent is a revelatory symbol of Satan. Satan “consider’d every creature which of all Most
opportune might serve his wiles” (IX, 84-5) and chose one that would be suitable for his purposes. There
11
are qualities in the nature of this creature that make it the “fit vessel” (IX, 89) to serve as the vehicle for
Satan’s evil plot (Hawkes xl). The serpent serves as a symbol for a deadly, subtle, and malicious enemy,
according to Easton’s Bible Dictionary. Luke 10:18-19 reports Jesus as saying, “I saw Satan fall like
lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome
all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.” The serpent was Satan’s instrument for the tempta-
tion, and the serpent itself was the one cursed by God (Genesis 3:14-15). However, though it is the most
subtle and crafty of all God’s creatures, it is Satan who holds the intelligence revealed in the serpent’s
transactions with Eve.
The potential to commit evil is embedded in every person. Satan, the tempter, seeks to lead all
astray into idolatry. His intent is that the worship of created worldly things takes the place of worship of
the one Creator of all. Satan works to tempt humans into embracing what God has created rather than
the Maker Himself. To make the transient things of this world more appealing and more attractive than
the Father Himself takes glory from Him. To do this, Satan must deny that he also was created; he must
be an autonomous and independent being, and “He trusted to have equall’d the Most High” (I, 40; see
also V, 725-26, 763).
To claim equality with God and to deny an existence beyond oneself is to, in a sense, become like
Satan. This is the central factor of a “Satanic consciousness” (Hawkes xxxvii). This is what happens after
the Fall. Notice Eve is first to display this: “O sov’reign, virtuous, precious of all trees In Paradise…Not
without song, each morning and due praise, Shall tend thee…Experience, next to thee I owe, Best guide”
(IX, 795-808). She makes the tree her idol, worthy of her worship and praise (Hawkes xxxviii). So it is
with us all.
Paradise Lost challenges the reader’s view of oneself. One is, from the start, identified with Satan.
As the poem begins in Hell, so also the reader finds himself “within its confines because it is the human
condition and might as well be reckoned with at once.” Humans are all the more confined in this “cave.” It
is where we exist. The fact that we are unaware of it imprisons us even more. It is a reminder that humans
themselves are fallen, just as Satan is. Hell reigns over earth (Webber 110). Just as Satan attempted to
seize God’s throne, humankind also desires to achieve godhood. “Man disobeying, Disloyal breaks his
fealty, and sins Against the high supremacy of heaven, Affecting Godhead, and so losing all” (III, 203-6).
Man is, like Satan, undeniably filled with pride, envy, rebelliousness, and sin.
Satan is manifest in all of us. And, so, “we can relate”! C. S. Lewis described it, thus:
The Satan in Milton enables him to draw the character well just as the Satan
in us enables us to receive it…A fallen man is very like a fallen angel…and
doubtless Milton expected all readers to perceive that in the long run either
the Satanic predicament or else the delighted obedience of Messiah, of Abdiel,
of Adam, and of Eve, must be their own. (101)

Satan is a part of every individual. Milton “was, like the rest of us, damnable, [but] it does not follow that
he was, like Satan, damned” (Lewis 101). All are challenged to identify with Satan, because he is shown
having a conscience and inner spirit and heart that remind the reader of one’s own qualities (Wheeler
103). Milton’s intention, as one critic describes it, is “to make the reader fall in the poem, so as to enable
him not to fall in reality” (Fish Surprised by Sin: The Reader in “Paradise Lost,” quoted in Webber 136).
But humankind will fall, with Adam, as The Father knows.

12 Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost • Sarah Spear

 According to Hawkes, one intention of Milton is illustrated at the very beginning of the poem.
His goal is to write a “third testament,” which is directly inspired by the Holy Spirit, or heavenly Muse
(I, 6). Milton claims to transcend the “Aonian mount,” representing classical literature, in insight and
excellence. Even more, he intends to outdo all poetry and prose. (This potentially includes the Word of
God itself!) He says, “I thence Invoke thy aid to my advent’rous song, That with no middle flight intends
to sour Above th’Aonian mount, while it pursues Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme” (I, 12-16)
(Hawkes xxxiii).
Milton, in telling a story known to everyone, was challenged to deepen and to expand the narrative.
He did this by using flashbacks and “flash forwards,” changing the sequence of events, and also by writing
about what could not have been known to the reader. This includes conversations between the Father and
Son, depictions of man and woman before the Fall, and the life of angels. He searched through numerous
sources to acquire information on these things. He incorporated material from Greek, Roman, and Italian
writings. He also drew from art and science, and from philosophical and theological literature. But Milton
had no sources to rely upon in developing Satan’s rebellion against the Son (Blessington 25).
Today, many do not consider Satan to be an actual or powerful figure in the world. Whether or not
he exists in a literal sense the idea of Satan is robust in today’s society. In Milton’s poem, people actually
tend to sympathize with him because of a common contempt toward the idea of the “authoritarianism”
of God’s rule. Although readers today have a difficult time accepting this concept in Christianity, Milton
did. He, along with his contemporaries, saw Satan as a villain and as the “instigator of all our woe.” To
understand Milton’s poem fully, it is necessary to see where he is coming from, in the context of 17th
century England, and the influences impressing upon Milton in his creation of Satan and of Paradise
Lost as a whole (Blessington 29-31).
Before Milton’s birth, England’s farmers and peasants were being dispossessed of their land and
were thus being driven to become wage laborers. In order to survive, they exchanged their labor (or lives)
for money. This changed the way they thought of themselves. They began to see their work as a thing,
something that was bought and sold like any other product or service, an article of trade. As a result,
humans began to “objectify” themselves, regarding their lives as equivalent to the money exchanged for
them. They saw themselves as “a system of signs—for money, like language, is a medium of symbols
through which human beings impose an artificial, man-made significance upon the world,” which pro-
gressed into an autonomous and self-generating power (Hawkes xv-xvi).
The Reformation, which began a century before Milton’s birth, was a sort of response to this ob-
jectification of humans and to the “autonomous power of representation” (Hawkes xvi). These signs—the
equating of human lives with commodities—were thought to be idolatrous, and an aim of a new move-
ment was to destroy this idolatry in all aspects – political, economic, and religious. When Henry VIII took
the Pope’s position as head of the church in 1534, the English Reformation was made official, and there
resulted an enduring tension between the Church and State. King Henry VIII did not like the Protestant
doctrine and supplied a new ideology that ended up dividing the Anglican faith. Any protests made against
him or the official religion unavoidably also held political connotations since the head of the Church and
the State were one (xvii). Eventually, by the time of Charles I in the 1600s, the king’s rule was reaching
absolutism in secular and religious authority (xviii).
Milton was born in 1608 in the midst of the Reformation’s repercussions. He was fervently pursu-
ing the intellectual life even before his teen years. He “regularly substituted study for sleep, initiating
a lifelong regimen that gives him a reasonable claim to be among the most learned men who have ever

Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost • Sarah Spear 13

lived” (Hawkes xx). At that time, the expected career for the intellectual was the church. However, while
Milton was in his 20s, he became disappointed with the hierarchical organization and the excessive power
given to the bishops and the king (xxi).
Milton’s attitude toward this unwarranted power and authority of the monarchy inevitably is re-
flected in his poem. “War, council scenes, demagogues, and tyranny were part of Milton’s world for 20
years before he wrote Paradise Lost” (Blessington 3). Perhaps Milton would maintain, for example, that,
although God’s reign is justified by his superiority, no human king can rightly claim that power. It is very
likely that Milton’s experience with the political regime is the source of Satan’s revolt and his questions
regarding power (4).
Religion in 17th-century England was inseparable from politics. This is significant in a reading of
Milton’s work because all literature was imbued with religion. God directs the mind, gives man reason,
and, in a sense, wrote Paradise Lost. Every writer of this time considered reality to be religious, and
while Milton wrote many prayers and hymns, his poetry also is filled with Christian thought and ideas
(Blessington 4).
Milton’s own faith and religious fervor had great influence upon his writing. He believed in the
metaphorical truth of the Bible, rather than in a literal understanding. For him, Scripture was to be inter-
preted on different levels, the most important definitely not being the literal. This is important to remember
because the black-and- white reading of the Bible as either literally true or entirely untrue will not assist
one in the reading of Paradise Lost (Hawkes xv, 4).
In his ‘De doctrina Christiana,’ Milton conveyed his understanding of the Bible as sacred, but also
fallible. Scripture, he argued, “particularly the New Testament, has often been liable to corruption and is,
in fact, corrupt” (Forsyth 283). He recognized that the people holding the pens could have supplemented
their own biases and errors, and the corruption of the texts has transpired through numerous untrustworthy
scribes and authorities. The text today is the product of an assortment of manuscripts and divergent edi-
tions. Therefore, Milton distinguished between the “external Scripture” and the “internal Scripture,” that
is, the written word that survives today and the Holy Spirit written on the hearts of believers (283).
Although an understanding of Milton’s attitude toward the Bible is valuable, the poem is not restricted
to religion. Its symbolism and metaphor surpass Milton’s time, his own religious and historical context.
His ideas are rooted very much in his own context and environment, but they may still be relevant and
important in the sense that the thought and beliefs of today’s society are influenced by, and are to some
extent the effect of, its forerunners (Hawkes xv). Paradise Lost is a symbol for human experience: its
desires and ambitions for power, for love and forgiveness, for eternal life. (Blessington 26-27). And, in
this way, read symbolically, Milton’s poem can continue to be significant.
In reading his work, one might wonder as to whom is responsible for bringing the evil in the world.
It has been noted that Milton’s character, the Father, is quite unsettling. In the first place, the angel Ra-
phael brings up the possibility of evil coming from The Father while He was at work on creation (VIII,
222-36). Then too, Adam says to Eve:“Evil into the mind of God May come and go, so unapprov’d” (V,
117-18), meaning that Satan can enter one’s consciousness only by an act of will or approval. And since
Satan does what the Father allows (I, 241, 366), he is serving God’s own purposes. Bryson describes this
as “a disturbingly thin thread upon which to hang the idea that one’s creator is wholly good” (87). Evil
ultimately may originate with the Father, who gives Satan His consent and approval (Bryson 87-8).

14 Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost • Sarah Spear

 Nor ever thence Had risen, or heav’d his head, but that the will and high
permission of all-ruling Heaven, Left him at large to his own dark designs:
That with reiterated crimes he might Heap on himself damnation, while he
sought Evil to others; and enrag’d might see, How all his malice serv’d but
to bring forth Infinite goodness, grace, and mercy shown On man by him
seduc’d; but on himself Treble confusion, wrath, and vengeance poured. (I,
210-20)
How can God, as omnipotent and wholly beneficent, be justified when He permitted those He cre-
ated to do whatever they desire if He knew that they would rebel against Him and His graciousness? It
is because, without freedom to choose to obey God, their obedience and submission would not be real.
But why did God “set an angelic guard with the specific task of keeping evil out of the Garden only to
tell them when they have failed that they had no chance of succeeding – what is this if not absurd?”
(Wheeler 60, 74).
The possibility of evil coming from God might be what prompted Milton to “justify” God. His
infamous intention, to “justify the ways of God to men” (I, 26), implies something significant that may
have evaded him. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “justify” is defined as “to show to be just
or in the right.” And in the theological sense: “to declare free from the penalty of sin on the ground of
Christ’s righteousness, or to make inherently righteous by the infusion of grace.” Milton’s assertion to
justify the ways of God therefore implies an accusation of unrighteousness on God’s part, thus neces-
sitating acquittal and even forgiveness (Bryson 92).
However, another response to the question of what Milton meant by “justify” is not a defense of a
guilty or an innocent God, but an explanation. It would be arrogant to attempt the former. Perhaps Milton’s
poem is intended merely to present a clearer picture of God – who He is and why He works in the way
He does. This suggests that Milton was writing an apologetic, providing an explanation for why hell and
evil are necessary, instead of just reflecting on and investigating these concepts (Webber 115).
God, according to Milton, coexisted with Chaos and therefore did not create from nothing. He had
to work with “warring elements.” Creation is a separation of form from Chaos, light from dark, and God
from “not-God.” Webber points out that “Creation causes oppositions and the potentiality of evil. Dividing
the light from darkness, God ‘saw the light was good,’ but made no observation about the dark” (113).
For that reason, evil had to be brought forth if there was also to be good. For God, evil is a “by-product
and a building-block.” (122).
Also, Satan has full control over God’s created work. He is the “author of death” and of suffering. As
in the Book of Job, God allows Satan to reign and to do everything he pleases (Blessington 29). Hebrews
2:14 describes Satan as “him who holds the power of death.” He can literally kill – he has that much
power! And even if Satan were ultimately left only with words, his words are still sufficient to kill. Eve
(although retaining her free will) consciously sins because she believes Satan’s words (Blessington 38).
Again, since God is giving Satan this much control, the source of evil could trace back to God Himself.
Even Job, when confronted by Satan, asks, “Shall we accept good from God and not trouble?” (2:10)
Lamentations reiterates Job’s question: “Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calami-
ties and good things come?” (3:38) Ecclesiastes parallels this as well: “When times are good, be happy;
but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other” (7:14). And in Isaiah, God
declares, “I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all
these things” (45:7). The Lord, also, according to John 8:44, seems to have created the Devil as a murderer
and liar: the Devil “was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in
Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost • Sarah Spear 15
him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” Would this not
also trace the origin and creation of evil back to the Father?
Although the passage in Isaiah seems to attribute evil to God, Milton explained his understanding
of the text in his treatise ‘De doctrina Christiana’, justifying God’s ways: “…whatever God created was
originally good, as he himself testifies, Gen. i. God always produces something good and just out of evil
or injustice and creates, as it were, light out of darkness” (quoted in Forsyth 205). However, in his poem,
it would seem that Milton’s God is the creator of evil, or at least of Hell. “A universe of death; which God
by curse Created evil; for evil only good, Where all life dies, death lives…” (II, 622-24). God creates
Hell in his poem, and that “by curse.” Forsyth described it in this way: “It is as if Milton imagines God
uttering that common English curse “Damn!” – and Hell is the result” (205).
Contrary to the biblical statements ascribing evil to the Father, Diekhoff claims that Milton is re-
ally trying to show that Satan is the one responsible for introducing evil into the world. Evil is Satan’s
good, his “sole delight” (I, 160). His purpose is to direct humankind away from God’s purposes: “If then
his providence Out of our evil seek to bring forth good, Our labour must be to pervert that end, And out
of good still find means of evil” (I, 162-65). He has the power, but there’s more to being “God” than he
realizes.
What Satan does not understand is that God is more than all-powerful; He is also all-loving (Frye
23). Satan proclaims, “But I should ill become this throne, O peers! And this imperial sovereignty, adorn’d
With splendour, arm’d with power” (II, 446-47). This is his concern. His whole purpose is “To waste
[God’s] whole creation…Seduce them to our party, that their God may prove their foe” (II, 365, 368-69).
Satan aspires to love, and to glorify, himself more than God, to delight in his own being, seeking to be-
come himself the God of all glory. He cannot handle being “less than” God. Consequently, he rejects his
God-given, God-glorifying nature as Lucifer, as he was intended to be (V, 853-64). Instead, he opts for
absolute darkness (Frye 36). Sin is introduced when Satan denies that God created him, for this indicates
that he is different from God (Webber 114).
Satan’s envy of the God Most High, and His Son, is what got him where he is now, in Hell. It was
his envy and pride that “Had cast him out from heaven, with all his host Of rebel angels; by whose aid
aspiring To set himself in glory above his peers, He trusted to have equall’d the Most High” (I, 37-40).
Therefore, he makes it his eternal duty to live in hatred of the Son and of man both. This “immortal hate”
(I, 107) is the heart of his existence. His ambition is to extend this (his own hostility and hate) to human-
kind, between humans and their God, and also between one another in humankind itself (Frye 32).
Perhaps it could be asserted that Satan created his own Hell. “Unable to bear the appearance of the
Son, he and his angels flung themselves out of heaven, and fell to the place that their own minds contained”
(Webber 117). However, this does not preclude the truth that God’s response to Satan’s disobedience,
defiance, and utter disloyalty is the creation of Hell. What punishment is it? Satan and his friends, in
denial and delusion, see Hell as a satisfactory, ‘up to snuff’ place. Can they no longer repent or be saved?
Unlikely, because “they choose at every moment to be what and where they are” (Webber 111-12). But
did Satan ever regret or grieve over his actions and the consequences?
The only way to truly comprehend Satan’s own outlook regarding his circumstances and fallen na-
ture is to examine his monologues. These are quite revealing because they reveal Satan’s inner struggles,
his own judgments and genuine motives. “These passages are especially important…not only for their
content, but also because of their authority. It is in soliloquy alone that we may believe the Father of Lies
and be sure of ourselves…Self-accusation is trustworthy” (Diekhoff 35).

16 Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost • Sarah Spear

 A soliloquy is a sub-division of monologue. It is an occasion in which the character is alone, at least
as far as he or she perceives. It is an opportunity for the reader to see into the character’s heart or mind,
to overhear the untold words or inner thoughts of the character. In literature, this technique is distinct
from other speeches or monologues that may be used to serve a particular purpose such as deception. In
soliloquy, it can be assumed that the character is speaking sincerely. Typically, a soliloquy is used to reveal
the deepest thoughts, emotions, or beliefs of a character. One may accept these words as being spoken
with utmost conviction and fervor (Gardner). Therefore, only here is the absolute truth and certainty of
Satan’s character to be found. The purpose of his soliloquies is not to deceive, but to speak truth from
his own conscience.
As noted before, the reader is confronted with a nature comparable to one’s own. Through Satan’s
soliloquies, the reader is allowed to identify with Satan’s inner self. And although both the reader and
Satan might admit that God was probably right, it is not God with whom the reader sympathizes (Forsyth
152).
Upon inspection, Satan’s soliloquy in Book IV reveals quite a bit of his initial response to his un-
fortunate fall from heaven. First, Satan admits that he is guilty and that his rebellion was unjustified. He
cries: “Ah, wherefore, he deserv’d no such return From me, whom he created what I was In that bright
eminence, and with his good Upbraided none; nor was his service hard, What could be less than to afford
him praise, The easiest recompense, and pay him thanks, How due” (IV, 42-8). Satan is in the wrong and
his actions unwarranted. He knows that, because he was created by God, he belongs to him as His own
creature, and owes Him much praise. (It’s all He required of him!)
Satan acknowledges that it was not difficult work being God’s angel. “Forgetful what from him I
receiv’d, And understood not that a grateful mind By owing owes not, but still pays, at once Indebted and
discharg’d; what burden then?” (IV, 54-7) Once Satan acknowledges his debt, God would undoubtedly,
graciously free him from it.
Satan wonders as to who might be held responsible and proceeds to concede that he himself is the
offender. “Hadst thou the same free will and power to stand? Thou hadst: whom hast thou then or what to
accuse, But heaven’s free love dealt equally to all?” (IV, 66-8) He has free will, though perhaps he goes
on to draw the conclusion that God’s love is to blame and therefore to be resented.
A prevalent concept in Milton’s poem is free will: The Father continually declares both man and
angel to be free (Wheeler 58). Accordingly, He describes Satan’s fall as being no one’s fault but his own.
He was created righteous and honorable and privileged. Who is to be held accountable but the one who
had all, but chose to fall?
So will fall, He, and his faithless progeny. Whose fault? Whose but his own?
Ingrate, he had of me All he could have; I made him just and right; Sufficient
to have stood, though free to fall. Such I created all th’ethereal powers, And
spirits, both them who stood, and them who fail’d; Freely they stood who
stood, and fell who fell. Not free, what proof could they have given sincere
Of true allegiance, constant faith, or love, Where only what they needs must
do, appear’d. (III, 95-105)

Satan, along with the angels and human creatures, was made blameless and upright, but with the freedom
to choose. In this way, those who did not fall were the true lovers of God and were of proven faith. Satan’s
concession to this reality shows his understanding of this freedom and the consequences of abusing this
privilege.
Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost • Sarah Spear 17
 He realizes that his only real hope is repentance, but unfortunately it would be to no avail because
it would not be sincere. He is prevented from it because of his contempt and pride, these same enduring
attitudes that prompted his rebellion in the first place. “For never can true reconcilement grow, Where
wounds of deadly hate have pierc’d so deep” (IV, 98-9). Alas, how does one change the way he feels? “O
then at last relent: is there no place Left for repentance, none for pardon left? None left but by submis-
sion; and that word Disdain forbids me” (IV, 79-82). It is beneath his dignity. And even though his disdain
forbids him to submit and to repent, he chose this path freely (Blessington 33). Satan himself must rule.
There is no alternative for him.
God acknowledges this truth. There is no chance of mercy and forgiveness being granted to Satan
or his followers. The Father articulates this: “For me I form’d them free, and free they must remain…they
themselves ordain’d their fall. The first sort by their own suggestion fell, Self-tempted, self-deprav’d: man
falls, deceiv’d, By th’other first: man, therefore, shall find grace, The other none” (III, 122-23, 128-32).
But why does God refuse this possibility of repentance? Does it not simply compel Satan and his legions
to despair and revenge, in the end bringing humankind down with them? (Wheeler 103)
In Book II, Sin and Death serve God’s purpose. Sin holds the key to Satan’s exit from Hell. One
might question, “Why does Milton (or his God) give Sin a key in the first place, if Satan cannot, or will
not, be contained?” There is a reason: it is to show that Satan is repeatedly given the chance to repent,
but he freely chooses against it, again and again sinning further in his rebelliousness and defiance (Bless-
ington 41).
Consequently, overwhelming despair and anguish ensue (IV, 86-92). And he is now all the more
committed to carrying out his intentions for evil. “So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear, Farewell
remorse: all good to me is lost; Evil be thou my good” (IV, 108-10). Evil is all he has; there is nothing
left to choose.
Satan’s second soliloquy (in Book IX) presents an altogether new picture of him. He has hardened
a bit, accepted his eternal position, and is now more than ever eagerly ready for his plan of temptation to
commence. At this point, there is no chance of repentance even being considered by Satan. He has lost
hope in happiness or pleasure in anything he does.
Diekhoff explains these changes in Satan’s condition. They include a waning intelligence, height-
ened envy and anger, and a dulled physical beauty. Regarding Satan’s intellectual power, in his loss of
knowledge of the Father, he has developed a distorted view of God’s motives, aligning them with his own.
For example, Satan sees God’s motive for creating man to be a means of retaliation and of punishing His
enemies, instead of being the effect of His desire to fill heaven’s unfortunate loss of angels and followers.
Also, Satan’s envy grows from seeing the earthly creatures created to fill his place in heaven. His anger
increases as a response to angels serving mankind. But, as Diekhoff explains, “This is but another evidence
of his disintegration: true angels find it no indignity to attend to mankind, to do God’s will” (40).
Since Satan cannot directly harm God, he resolves to harm Him indirectly through the destruction
of His beloved creation. Satan’s evil is a deliberate evil, and “again and again we have heard him reaffirm
the choice made first in heaven” (Diekhoff 40-42). He now accepts responsibility for his evil.
Many people today do not believe in an actual Satan. Perhaps they use science as an explanation
or “proof” for the Devil’s non-existence, believing that anything real must be capable of being examined
scientifically. But it is unfair to judge matters unrelated to science by science (Russell Mephistopheles
21).

18 Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost • Sarah Spear

 As time progresses, more and more people view Satan symbolically, not as an actual being. God
is no more scientifically analyzable than is the Devil. Therefore, an educated person might maintain that
neither character has much worth (297). In addition, whether or not Satan exists, this figure does not suf-
ficiently account for the problem of evil in the world. “Shifting the original blame from humans to angels
does not explain the introduction of evil into the world” (260). Even if Satan is to blame, the reality of this
figure still does not answer the ‘why’ for the existence of evil. The problem is the unanswered question
of why God allows Satan to instigate so much suffering in the world. And if this is so, should God not be
responsible? If God is responsible, then is the concept of Satan really necessary? (300)
Whatever one may argue about Milton’s idea of the origin of evil, in the moral sense, Satan is not
responsible, as Forsyth argues. Satan cannot be held accountable for human evil. If humans are free, they
have to be the cause of their own sin. Satan is shackled. His power and strength are “no more Than heaven
permits” (IV, 1008-9). He is the “proximate cause” and only part of the problem. “The real problem is not
the world created by God and perverted by Satan, but each other” (Forsyth 208, 215-16).
Nevertheless, writers frequently feel obligated to point out Satan’s faults and to reduce his charm
and influence, in an attempt to protect readers from the dangers of viewing the poem’s protagonist in the
wrong way (4, 6). However, the “damage” cannot be undone. As Percy Shelley put it, “As to the Devil,
he owes everything to Milton. Dante and Tasso present us with a very gross idea of him: Milton divested
him of a sting, hoofs, and horns; clothes him with the sublime grandeur of a graceful but tremendous
spirit” (Wittreich The Romantics on Milton, quoted in Forsyth 3).
Whether or not Satan is viewed as the poem’s hero—for it is debatable depending on one’s definition
of ‘hero—’ readers should be free to admire him, at least to an extent. (And that is important.) Yes, he
does possess numerous heroic qualities, but that does not mean he has to be one’s ultimate hero or idol.
The reader ought to be able to distinguish between the character of Satan, possessing both good and evil
aspects, and the symbolic or actual Satan as “wholly evil, the negation of all good” (Hamilton 8). One
doesn’t have to like him or to adopt his beliefs and ways, but Milton’s Satan is one to whom readers can
relate and respond. He is also someone who informs the readers, for he presents a particular sort of life,
and this life is also within human choice. It is one’s own job to read and to evaluate.

Works Cited
Blessington, Francis C. Paradise Lost: Ideal and Tragic Epic. Boston, MA: Twayne Publishers/A Division of G. K.
Hall & Co., 1988.

Bryson, Michael. “‘That far be from thee’: Divine Evil and Justification in Paradise Lost.” Milton Quarterly. 36.2
(2002): 87-105.

Diekhoff, John S. Milton’s Paradise Lost: A Commentary on the Argument. New York, NY: The Humanities Press,
Inc., 1958.

Easton’s 1897 Bible Dictionary. www.eastons-bible-dictionary.com.

Forsyth, Neil. The Satanic Epic. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003.

Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost • Sarah Spear 19

Frye, Roland Mushat. God, Man, and Satan: Patterns of Christian Thought and Life in Paradise Lost, Pilgrim’s
Progress, and the Great Theologians. Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1972.

Gardner, Janet E. “Monologue and Soliloquy.” Critical Survey of Drama. 2nd ed. Pasadena, CA: Salem Press, Inc.,
2003.

Hamilton, G. Rostrover. Hero or Fool? A Study of Milton’s Satan. New York, NY: Haskell House Publishers, LTD.,
1969.

Hawkes, David. Introduction. Paradise Lost. By John Milton. New York, NY: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2004.

Holy Bible, New International Version. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996.

Lewis, C. S. A Preface to Paradise Lost. London: Oxford University Press, 1961.

Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Ed. David Hawkes. New York, NY: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2004.

Oxford English Dictionary. www.oed.com

Russell, Jeffrey Burton. Mephistopheles: The Devil in the Modern World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1986.

Webber, Joan Malory. Milton and His Epic Tradition. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1979.

Wheeler, Thomas. Paradise Lost and the Modern Reader. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1974.

20 Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost • Sarah Spear

 An Examination of Our Foundations of Truth: The Gadamer-Habermas Debate •
Chris Dierich

Chris Dierich is a junior at UW-Eau Claire, with a double major in phi-

losophy and history and a German minor. Chris wrote this paper for
Dr. Beach’s PHIL 339 class, “Contemporary Continental Philosophy,”
in the spring of 2007.

********************

H ans-Georg Gadamer, a prominent German philosopher, has taken part in a number of public
debates which received a considerable amount of attention in the philosophical community. Perhaps the
best-known occurred between Gadamer and the French founder of the School of Deconstruction, Jacques
Derrida. Derrida famously argued that the possibility of understanding is a myth, while Gadamer main-
tained that the goal of reaching an understanding through language is a real and fundamental condition
of being human. Ultimately, the two philosophers remained in disagreement. However, a less well known
but much more drawn-out exchange occurred between Gadamer and the prolific Frankfurt school social
critic Jürgen Habermas. The dispute, which began in the 1960’s with Habermas’ review of Gadamer’s
Warheit und Methode (Truth and Method), took place in the pages of a number of publications and lasted
for several decades.1
The implications of this debate are profound. Gadamer writes, “What is involved here…is the whole
question of the foundations of our insights into truth.”2 For Gadamer, truth is to be found in a hermeneutic
interpretation of what he calls our effective history—the linguistic, historic, and cultural complex to which
we belong.3 Habermas, on the other hand wants to elevate truth to a position free from the influence of
effective history and ground it in the a priori conditions of communication.
Habermas raises some poignant concerns about the dangers of grounding truth in our effective
history, and he provides an interesting methodological ground for establishing truth. His primary objec-
tion is that by privileging the authority of effective history as truth’s foundation we become susceptible
to the ideology it contains. If truth comes from the authority of our effective history, then any criticism
of that history based on its own methods (hermeneutic interpretation) is naturally suspect. Habermas’
21
task then, must be to establish a valid methodological foundation for truth, free from effective history,
in order for his program of social criticism to work. However, as will be shown, he ultimately fails to
find a plausible way to transcend the influence of effective history. What follows is a brief explication of
Gadamer’s hermeneutic philosophy and Habermas’ criticisms of it. In the end, while Habermas succeeds
in highlighting the dangers of grounding truth in effective history, he fails to provide a viable means of
escaping these dangers.
Gadamer’s philosophy is primarily hermeneutic in nature. He was once a student of Martin Hei-
degger, and took as his point of departure Heidegger’s concepts of Verstehen (understanding), and the
hermeneutic circle.4 The process by which Heidegger conceived of Verstehen is quite complex but it
may be summed up as an activity that all cognizant human beings necessarily engage in. It is how we
interpret and come to know about the world. The process involves a circular reasoning by which we begin
any inquiry with preconceived notions (prejudices) about that into which we are inquiring. We use these
prejudices as a guide toward a more explicit understanding of the object of our inquiry. This process is
known as the hermeneutic circle, and it is fundamental to Gadamer’s philosophy.
In order to legitimize hermeneutic philosophy, Gadamer had to “rehabilitate prejudice.” He argues
that since the Enlightenment, prejudice had taken on a negative connotation as a barrier to truth. The
Enlightenment espoused rational objectivism, “the project of achieving certainty by means of a tech-
nique available in principle to any disinterested mind,” as the only legitimate means to knowledge.5 A
disinterested mind is one that is free of preconceptions and maintains a critical distance from that which
it observes.
Gadamer thought this misguided because as human beings with a past we inevitably have prejudices,
and interests which can only be understood by becoming more intimate with them. He writes, “Long
before we understand ourselves through the process of self-examination, we understand ourselves in a
self-evident way in the family, society and state in which we live.”6 Furthermore, “It is not so much our
judgments as it is our prejudices which constitute our being. This is a provocative formulation, for I am
using it to restore to its rightful place a positive concept of prejudice that was driven out of our linguistic
usage by the French and English Enlightenment.”7 To be sure, not all prejudice is worth defending, but
Gadamer employs his rehabilitated sense of the word in which our prejudices are starting points and
by no means inflexible or unchangeable. He famously accuses Enlightenment thinkers of maintaining
a “prejudice against prejudice,” and argues that any rational inquiry is always guided before the fact by
human interests.8 Objectivity is therefore a myth.
An example of how the myth of objectivity works can be shown in what has long been held to be the
stronghold of objectivism—modern science. Philosopher of science Carl Hempel describes the problems
with an ideal model of scientific inquiry as “Narrow Inductivism.” The narrow inductivist view holds
that before any hypothesis is made, all of the relevant data must be gathered. This, of course, is impos-
sible because until the hypothesis is made there are no criteria for determining the relevance of data.9 To
determine which data will be counted then, scientists must rely on their prejudgments.
Furthermore, although Hempel does not make the point in his article, it is hard to conceive of any
scientist attaining a truly critical distance when choosing which research problems to pursue. Science has
never been objective in selecting which problems to solve, and has always been guided by the historically
influenced demands of the society and institutions it serves. We can see this in every scientific pursuit,
whether it is the development of more effective weapons of war, better medicines, or stronger shoelaces.
Science is simply not done for the sake of science alone. The interests guiding these pursuits are always

22 An Examination of Our Foundations of Truth: The Gadamer-Habermas Debate • Chris Dierich

rooted in the past, and evaluated on their potential to impact the future. They are never evaluated in any
truly objective fashion.
The well from which these interests and standards of evaluation spring is what Gadamer calls our
effective history. Part of Gadamer’s philosophical inheritance from Heidegger was the notion that we
belong to a past. We are born into a situation affected by a long running history and our interest in under-
standing the past is always oriented towards the future. Gadamer writes, “[T]here can be no doubt that
the great horizon of the past, out of which our culture and our present live, influences us in everything we
want, hope for, or fear in the future. History is only present to us in light of our futurity.”10 This effective
history is the frame of reference through which we all see. It is the foundation for all that we are, and only
through the shared frame of reference which it provides can we understand one another, and the world.
Effective history is not absolute or unchanging, however. Shapiro describes it nicely as a text, “The
effective-history or history of effects of a text is the history of the ways in which a text has been received
and interpreted, and the effects of those interpretations on subsequent interpretations and events.”11 We
are constantly engaged in a kind of dialogue with it, in which it influences us and we influence it. Our
interpretations become a part of the effective history and influence the interpretations of those that come
after us.
Finally, Gadamer thinks that we belong to language and it is through language that we reach under-
standing. He explains, “The consciousness that is effected by history has its fulfillment in what is linguistic.
We can learn from the sensitive student of language that language, in its life and occurrence, must not
be thought of as merely changing, but rather as something that has a teleology operating within it.”12 It
seems Gadamer means that the teleology of language works towards understanding. Language develops
and words accrue meanings over time and with use, becoming part of the effective history. But the purpose
is always towards the end of understanding, which is arrived at through a process of dialogue—“That is
the fundamental dimension of hermeneutics. Genuine speaking, which has something to say and hence
does not give prearranged signals, but rather seeks words through which one reaches the other person,
is the universal human task…”13 This is a beautiful summation of the role of language and hermeneutic
understanding. This teleology of language is also the point on which Gadamer and Habermas seem to
share the most agreement.
Habermas, like Gadamer, places critical importance on dialogue and understanding. He also joins
Gadamer in his rejection of Enlightenment objectivism. Yet to really understand the debate, we must
know what he is after.
Habermas advocates a consensus theory of truth; this consensus is arrived at through free and open
dialogue. He agrees with Gadamer on the existence and influence of effective history, but he is suspicious
of it because he thinks it harbors hidden ideologies that distort communication, thereby precluding any
meaningful consensus. As Paul Giurlanda points out, “What if the very language we speak, the ground
on which we walk, is itself so corrupt that we are not aware…of how we are hiding (even from ourselves)
our complicity in crime?”14 Habermas calls this corruption of language “distorted communication,” and
argues that it must be identified and rooted out because it violates the necessary goal of communica-
tion—understanding.15
In order for the possibility of understanding and for a true consensus to be reached, however, an
“ideal speech situation” free of distortions must be realized:
The ideal speech situation is a situation of communication in which every
possible view or interpretation can be spoken and unbiasedly heard. It is a

An Examination of Our Foundations of Truth: The Gadamer-Habermas Debate • Chris Dierich 23

 situation in which no other motive or interest takes part except for that of pure
or transparent, unbiased communication. It is, indeed for Habermas, only with
respect to this ideal that distorted speech can be understood as such.16
It is Habermas’s task then, to establish the conditions under which this situation can be realized.
The basic criterion Habermas provides for the ideal speech situation is symmetry. That is, the par-
ticipants in the dialogue must be equal and share equal responsibility for the dialogue. He includes three
types of symmetry that each participant must respect and fulfill:
[S]ymmetry of asserting and opposing, by which each partner is equally
free to say what he or she wants and to reject what his or her partner says;
symmetry of revealing and concealing, whereby each partner is confident
in self-presentation and accepting of the self-presentation of the other;
symmetry of rights and duties, whereby neither partner has privileges but
each party expects of the other exactly and only what he or she expects of
himself or herself. 17

If these conditions are fulfilled then the ideal situation for speech is realized.
By actualizing the ideal speech situation Habermas thinks we will be able to obtain truth through
objective methodology thus circumventing the possibility of distortions, while Gadamer is left searching
for truth in the distorted entanglements of the past. Habermas rejects Gadamer’s position because it can-
not get beyond distorted communication. Gadamer cannot systematically critique the biases of the past
and present because his criticism is necessarily enclosed within the authority of effective history through
the hermeneutic circle. The grounding of tradition’s legitimacy “is itself an expression of the ideology it
seeks to legitimate.”18 The ideal speech situation, on the other hand, prevents distortions and inequalities
from becoming a part of the truth by transcending the authority of effective history and grounding truth
in method, not tradition. Habermas thinks that the consensuses reached by this method can be applied as
normative standards in the critique of society.
There are many objections to the soundness of Habermas’s method and its implications, however.
Many have argued that the criterion of symmetry is not enough to account for all of the forces that affect
a dialogue. It is doubtful whether social vacuums can exist in which only the best arguments win. Any
dialogue is likely to be tainted by subtle social factors; “A critical pragmatics of speech events must…per-
form a deeper analysis that includes not only assertions but also implicature, status, gesture, tone of voice,
and even spatial proxemics to fully understand how consensus is achieved.”19 Even if the participants in
a dialogue respect the symmetries of the ideal speech situation these other often unconscious elements
of communication make it doubtful as to whether the ideal speech situation is possible; thus, reducing it
to an unattainable normative standard.
Giurlanda makes a telling criticism attacking the logical validity of the structure of Habermas’
method. He argues that in establishing the norms of symmetry Habermas is guilty of a regress. Giurlanda
writes, “[W]e need norms by which to justify the norms. And if we obtained these norms, we would then
need still more norms to judge the judging norms, etc.”20 He thinks that it is not at all clear, as Habermas
maintains, that these norms are self-evident.
However, Paul Ricoeur echoes Gadamer’s position and makes the most eloquent criticism of
Habermas’s method when he argues that the kind of methodological grounding of truth advocated by
Habermas is impossible because of our inability to transcend effective history. He writes:

An Examination of Our Foundations of Truth: The Gadamer-Habermas Debate • Chris Dierich

24
 We could only completely detach the explanation of ideologies from the
movement by which we clarify the preliminary understanding which we have
of ourselves if a non-historical place existed, one not situated historically,
from where we could consider from a distance and from on high the theater
of illusions, the battle field of ideologies. Then it would be possible to explain
without understanding. But this explanation would no longer have anything
to do with the restoration of our competence to communicate and therefore
with the emancipation of the human species.21

Ricoeur is reiterating Gadamer’s point that we are always involved in the process of understanding.
Habermas’ sanitizing method of arriving at truth, though well intentioned, is impossible because we are
always necessarily entangled in effective history.
It should be apparent by now that the practical possibility of Habermas’ ideal speech situation is
highly suspect. There are many more factors to consider than the three pairs of symmetries he offers for
the ideal speech situation when trying to cleanse a dialogue of distortion. Many of these factors may be
unconscious and therefore out of reach for the partners in the dialogue as well. Regardless of the obstacles
to achieving symmetry in dialogue there is still the problem of infinite regression resulting from the need to
justify the norms that justify the norms. Finally, as Ricoeur suggests, we cannot transcend effective history.
We belong to it and any consensus that is reached free from effective history would be incomprehensible
to us; it would be so foreign because it would not share our necessary frame of reference. Perhaps the
risk of ideological ensnarement is one that humanity must live with and try to mitigate through further
hermeneutic interpretation, not through critical distance. Regardless of where one stands on this issue, it
has proven to be one of the great philosophical debates of the twentieth century.

1
Shapiro, Susan E. “Rhetoric as Ideology: The Gadamer-Habermas Debate Reinvented,” Journal of the American
Academy of Religion, 62, no. 1. 123-150 (Spring, 1994): 123.
2
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. “The Hermeneutics of Suspicion,” Hermeneutics, Questions and Prospects, ed. Gary Shapiro;
Alan Sica (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1984), 54.
3
The term effective history describes our linguistic, historic, and cultural heritage. We are born into it and come to
understand the world and ourselves in relation to it. Effective history structures our experience of the world and
provides a common frame of reference and foundation for meaning. Gadamer, among others, thinks that we can
never transcend effective history; to do so would deprive the experience of meaning because it is only in relation to
our effective history that anything can make sense to us.
4
Heidegger’s use of Verstehen (understanding) is quite different from the familiar use of the word.  It is a herme-
neutic concept he developed to describe the process of how we interpret something.  Understanding consists of
three aspects: “fore-having,” “fore-sight,” and “fore-conception.”  Fore-having signifies the preliminary context or
experiential background with which one approaches the issue at hand (hunger could form such a context ).  Fore-
sight involves recognizing the possibilities that something may have (seeing the potential uses of  an apple tree, for
example).  Fore-conception is a preliminary hypothesis through which one interprets and begins to use an entity
(seeing its potential as the source of a meal among the other uses).  We derive our fore-conception from our fore-
sight, and this is made important by our fore-having.  Heidegger and his followers in contemporary hermeneutics

An Examination of Our Foundations of Truth: The Gadamer-Habermas Debate • Chris Dierich 25

maintain that we always have a fore-having, and that our fore-sight and fore-conception necessarily follow.  This
is meant to show how, as  human beings, we necessarily have pre-conceptions which are then made more explicit
through hermeneutic interpretation.
5
Giurlanda, Paul F.S.C. “Habermas’ Critique of Gadamer: Does it Stand Up?” International Philosophical Quarterly,
vol. 28, no. 1. 33-41 (March, 1987): 33.
6
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Truth and Method, trans. Garrett Barden; John Cumming (New York, NY: The Seabury
Press, 1975), 245.
7
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Philosophical Hermeneutics, trans. David E. Linge (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: Uni-
versity of California Press, 1977), 9.
8
Gadamer, Truth and Method, 240.
9
Hempel, Carl. “The Role of Induction in Scientific Inquiry,” in Readings in the Philosophy of Science: From Positiv-
ism to Postmodernism, ed. Theodore Schick, Jr. (Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company, 2000), 45.
10
Gadamer, Philosophical Hermeneutics, 8-9.
11
Shapiro, “Rhetoric,” 127.
12
Gadamer, Philosophical Hermeneutics, 13.
13
Ibid., 17.
14
Giurlanda, “Habermas’ Critique of Gadamer,” 36.
15
Habermas, Jürgen. Knowledge and Human Interests, trans. Jeremy J. Shapiro (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971),
282.
16
Shapiro, “Rhetoric,” 129.
17
Giurlanda, “Habermas’ Critique of Gadamer,” 37.
18
Shapiro, “Rhetoric,” 124-125.
19
Richard Kearney and Mara Rainwater. Introductory Comment to Habermas´s essay, “Philosophy as Stand–In
and Interpreter,” in The Continental Philosophy Reader, ed. Richard Kearney; Mara Rainwater (New York, NY:
Routledge, 2003), 236.
20
Giurlanda, “Habermas’ Critique of Gadamer,” 38.
21
Ricoeur, Paul. “Ethics and Culture,” Philosophy Today, vol. 17, no. 2. 153-165 (Summer, 1973): 163.

26 An Examination of Our Foundations of Truth: The Gadamer-Habermas Debate • Chris Dierich

 Drinking from the Mouth: A Taste of the Gospel of Thomas •
Noah Taylor

Noah Taylor, a religious studies major, graduated from UW-Eau Claire

in the spring of 2006. He is now attending graduate school at the UN’s
Peace University in Costa Rica. Noah wrote this paper for Dr. Burns’
RELS 240 class, “New Testament,” in the spring of 2006.

********************

T he Gospel of Thomas, along with the many issues that surround it, has proven to be complex
and puzzling. Since its discovery, many of the questions that have been asked of other ancient texts have
been asked of Thomas. The questions of dating, authorship, theology, Gnosis and the gospel’s relationship
to the synoptic gospels all have been raised regarding Thomas. The answers given by Thomas have been
anything but straightforward, and they have left much room for discussion and further study.
The Coptic text of the Gospel of Thomas was found in 1945 near the present-day town of Nag
Hammadi, Egypt.1 It was discovered in the desert by a Bedouin and his sons while they were digging for
fertilizer. It was found in an earthenware jar along with 51 other Coptic texts written on papyrus leaves. As
for the language of the text, Coptic is the Egyptian language originally written in hieroglyphics, written in
a script of all capital Greek letters, having six letters borrowed from Demotic. Thomas is predominately
written in the form of Coptic known as Sahidic, a form common around the Nile area.2 “[I]t is generally
considered that the Gospel of Thomas, in the complete form we have it, was first written in Greek. It is
not known when the translation into Coptic occurred. The manuscript we have is no doubt a later copy of
that translation.”3 There are many words found in the text which were left in the original Greek, because
Coptic did not yet have a translation for some of the more complicated concepts contained in the text. Some
of the words left in Greek were, “gospel, disciple, angel, knowledge, understanding, and mystery.”4
When trying to pin down an exact date and authorship for the writing of The Gospel of Thomas, the
usual pitfalls regarding the authorship of any ancient text await. The opening of the Gospel claims that it
is a written record of the actual words of Jesus, as recorded by the apostle Thomas, suggesting very early
authorship, but scholars’ dating of the text is highly variable. The literature on the issue presents a range of

27
dates from nearly contemporary with Jesus to the late second century, long after Jesus’ death. The dates for
the Nag Hammadi manuscript are a bit more consistent, with most scholars placing it somewhere around
the third century, indicating at least a ‘cut off’ for its origin.5 The scholars who favor earlier dates claim
that there is significant overlap between Q (the hypothetical collection of sayings of Jesus that served as
a common source for the writers of Matthew, Mark, and Luke) and Thomas, but the consensus is that it
was written in its entirety in about 140 CE 6 in Edessa (in modern day Urfa).7
Determining the genre of The Gospel of Thomas is important for understanding both the text
and the context in which it arose. Jesus’ life is often interpreted through his death. Though Jesus’ life is
important, it is on his death that many traditions focus, because it is the means by which sin is forgiven.
Thomas challenges the notion that the focus on the resurrection has always been the prevailing view. It
is difficult to define the Gospel of Thomas as a gospel in the traditional sense of the word. “It contains
no miracles, no account of the life or ministry of Jesus, nothing of His movements, no narrative of the
Passion or of the Resurrection. It is nothing more or less than a collection of sayings and parables.”8 So
it is often categorized as a text of “wisdom sayings” or as a “sayings source” because it is very different
from the standard structure of the other gospels. Thomas contains very little of the narrative element that
is essential to the canonical gospels. Most of the 114 verses are structured in a very simple form: “Jesus
said….” And a few passages are constructed as answers to questions. The sayings are not organized in any
discernable manner, and they seem to be completely devoid of context, although they do seem to assume
both an understanding of the life story of Jesus and of his ministry, as given in the other gospels.
The main focus of the text is revealed in the very first verse: “These are the secret words which the
Living Jesus spoke and of which Didymous Judas Thomas wrote (1) “Whoever finds the explanation of
these words will not taste death.”9 Thomas seeks to communicate knowledge, perhaps a secret knowledge,
through words of the “living Jesus.”
The message of Thomas is set up in the dichotomy between ignorance and wisdom rather than in
the traditional motif of sin and forgiveness. The existence of the gospel, along with the postulation that
at one time a community of “Thomas Christians” might have existed based on its teachings, could lead
to a new understanding of the way in which Jesus’ life is viewed.
An extensive analysis of each of the 114 verses is not only possible but fruitful. Each passage seems
simple yet cryptic, reminiscent of a Zen Koan. Rather than going into lengthy examinations of many
passages, discussion of just one of the passages that seems indicative of the nature of Thomas will be
sufficient for present purposes. One of the more provocative passages in Thomas is the thirteenth verse,
wherein Jesus asks his disciples to compare him to something, to show to him what he is like. Peter is the
first to reply, comparing Jesus to a righteous messenger. Matthew then responds by comparing him to a
wise philosopher. Finally Thomas answers by saying, “Teacher, I cannot possibly say what you are like.”
Jesus then replies to the disciples, “I am not your teacher; you have drunk from and become intoxicated
from the bubbling water that I pour out.” Jesus then takes Thomas aside and reveals to him three secret
teachings. When the other disciples question Thomas, asking him what the teachings are, he replies, “ If
I tell you even one of the sayings that he told me, you would pick up stones and throw them at me, and
fire would come out of those stones and burn you up.”10
This is an interesting passage because at first it seems to be a parallel from the synoptic gospels.
In the synoptic, Peter begins, albeit vaguely, to understand who Jesus actually is. This passage, however,
differs from the synoptic accounts. Pagels notes that “Jesus does not deny what Peter and Matthew have
said but implies that their answers represent inferior levels of understanding.”11 This suggests a progression
in understanding wherein Jesus and his messages can be understood at varying degrees of depth.
28 Drinking from the Mouth: A Taste of the Gospel of Thomas • Noah Taylor
 This passage is often used when trying to make a Gnostic interpretation of Thomas. And note the
similarities between the three levels typical of Gnostic sects—hylic, psyche, and pneumatic—and the
three levels demonstrated by the disciples in Thomas. This passage is often interpreted as being indicative
of the “secret knowledge” that Gnostics claimed to have. This knowledge is the essential key to freedom,
the meaning of which is retained only in the spoken word. By remaining unwritten, it preserves the hi-
erarchical structure of Gnostic groups. By keeping the core of their religion guarded by their own elite,
they could control who is able to disseminate such knowledge. This passage (Verse 13) might be a way
of preserving the authority of whichever school from which the Gospel of Thomas came. It is interesting
that, in a book of secret teachings, there are even more secret teachings beyond the scope of the book.
Some critics have noted that these secret three teachings might be hidden within the text of Thomas. They
might lie in the passage following 13, wherein the secret teaching is mentioned. In verse 14, “Jesus said
to them: If you fast you will bring sin to yourselves, and if you pray you will be condemned, and if you
give to charity you will damage your spirits.”12 If these teachings were, indeed, those secrets spoken to
Thomas, it follows that they would have to have been kept secret. To Jesus’ disciples, predominantly of
Jewish background, orders from a man claiming to have a special relationship with God ordering them
not to fast, to pray, or to give to charity would have been blasphemous. Had Thomas actually told this to
his disciples, he might very well have been stoned.
It is important to consider the relationship of the Gospel of Thomas to the four canonical gospels,
since the four canonical gospels have been, for much of history, the primary source of information con-
cerning the life of Jesus, his teachings, and his deeds. Often throughout the early history of Christianity,
the early Church fathers made references to other non-canonical gospels known today as “Apocrypha”.
One of the primary purposes of these gospels is to fill in information lacking in the other gospels. For
example, some the apocryphal gospels attempt to explain events in the early childhood of Jesus and to
fill in the time between the resurrection and the ascension.
The possibilities for the way in which Thomas is related to the canonical gospels, if they are related
at all, are that 1) the author of Thomas used the synoptic in his writing along with his own text; 2) the
canonical gospels could have used Thomas in their writing; or 3) Thomas could be representative of some
sort of independent tradition. Like the exact dating of the writing of Thomas, its relationship to the other
gospels is unclear, and it is the object of much debate. It could be that Thomas was constructed primarily
from the four canonical gospels; and the author of Thomas added his own work to it. In his book, Studies
in the Gospel of Thomas, Robert Wilson notes: “If this were the case we should expect to find signs of
deliberate arrangement, for example according to topics, and we ought to be able to explain the variations;
but in many cases this is quite impossible.”13 Despite the lack of arrangement, those who seek to prove
that Thomas is constructed from the canonical gospels point to parallels, especially among the synoptic
gospels, that permeated the work. However, Wilson also notes that, despite the differences in the order
of the sayings, there are parallels in Thomas that are similar to the other gospels, yet vary by “expansion,
compression and adaptation,” 14 that also, themselves, vary greatly.
Many other scholars seem to think that the questionable dating of the Gospel, along with the many
differences in the parallel synoptic material, is indicative of an independent tradition—one that may have
preceded the canonical gospels. The nature of this “independent tradition” is also now debated. Some
scholars, including Wilson, think that Thomas might be the record of an oral tradition, similar to the oral
Torah. The evidence for this hypothesis is the very construction of Thomas itself as “…it is generally
recognized that in oral tradition the tendency of the development is toward a rounding and conventional-

Drinking from the Mouth: A Taste of the Gospel of Thomas • Noah Taylor 29
izing of the material, with the elimination of descriptive detail and the omission of personal names.”15 All
of these features, indicative of an oral tradition, are easily demonstrated in the text of Thomas.
Wilson sums up the debate concerning the independent versus dependent origination of Thomas as
being “…another instance of an old situation in New Testament Criticism: the similarities are too great
for complete independence, the differences too manifest to be explained by mere borrowing on the part
of Thomas”16
The Gospel of Thomas differs from the synoptic gospels in its theology. The nature of the Jesus
presented by Thomas is of a divinity much closer to John than that presented in the other gospels. Inter-
estingly enough, this very high Christology is paired with very mystical elements which are unique to
Thomas. Whereas John’s Jesus is, at the same time, expressed in a high and low Christology, Thomas’s
Jesus is fully divine throughout the entire text. This divinity seems to be of a different flavor than the
divinity expressed in John. In John, Jesus is eternal and has existed with God coeternally since before
the beginning. Thomas presents a fully divine and mystical Christological vision. This is a Jesus who is
coeternal with the Father, present within every aspect of creation, and within the individual human. This
“cosmic” figure would exist in the mundane and in the supra-mundane worlds as a “living Jesus,” who
endures beyond his own death and resurrection. He is one who lives on through his teachings and who
arises within each moment as the seeker longingly looks within to find further that he and his teacher
are one.
What the Gospel of John requires for one to be saved is belief in Jesus. Thomas does not seem so
concerned with belief in Jesus, but rather in the seeking of God within oneself. Finding God within the
self is made possible because, at the core of our being, we are essentially the same as Jesus, the same as
God. This theology of “going within” is found in the references in the text to the first creation story in
Genesis.17
There is a sense of apocalypse throughout the Gospel of Thomas. This apocalypse is not an end-of-
days scenario wherein complete destruction is imminent. Rather, Thomas suggests a much more apparent
form of apocalypse. For the author of Thomas, the kingdom of heaven is “…an immediate and continuing
spiritual reality.”18 Jesus, in Thomas, speaks out against any other way of understanding the Kingdom
of Heaven in the third verse:
Jesus said: If your leaders say to “Look! The Kingdom is in the sky!” then
the birds will be there before you are. If they say that the Kingdom is in the
sea, then the fish will be there before you are. Rather, the Kingdom is within
you and it is outside of you.19

And again in verse 113:

They asked him: When is the Kingdom coming? He replied: It is not coming
in an easily observable manner. People will not be saying, “Look, it’s over
here” or “Look, it’s over there.” Rather, the Kingdom of the Father is already
spread out on the earth, and people aren’t aware of it.20

Both of these verses seem to confirm one of the most overriding themes in the text of Thomas and in the
theology derived from the text, namely, the imminence of the kingdom of God and its location within
everyone.

Drinking from the Mouth: A Taste of the Gospel of Thomas • Noah Taylor
30
 With Thomas’s very high Christology and mystical leanings, it has been accused of being a Gnos-
tic text. Gnosticism and its relationship to the Gospel of Thomas is an issue of great debate. The debate
seems to be divided predominately into three camps. Some scholars think that Thomas was not intended
to be a Gnostic text but was only used by later Gnostics. Others think that Thomas was originally written
without Gnostic intentions, but later editors wove them into the text. The minority of scholars think that
Thomas was originally written by a Gnostic author for a Gnostic audience. Wilson notes, in support of
Gnostic use of Thomas rather than Gnostic authorship, that “…there is no cosmology, no procession of
aeons, no pre-mundane fall, no explicit reference to a Demiurge. Much of the book indeed could be read
by any orthodox Christian without suspicion; it may perhaps be not altogether fanciful to suggest that
this was part of the author’s purpose.”21
There are many reasons that the issue of Gnosticism is brought up in regards to The Gospel of
Thomas. One of the predominate issues is the theme repeated again and again in Thomas that seems,
as Pagels notes, “…[to] suggest that everyone, in creation, receives an innate capacity to know God.”22
This theme, along with the text’s emphasis on secret knowledge as being essential to salvation, provides
theological grounds from which to launch the accusation that Thomas is a Gnostic text.
Regardless of whether or not Thomas was written by a Gnostic, the Gospel of Thomas has greatly
changed studies in early Gnosticism. Until its discovery, the only resources for the study of Gnosticism
have been in their “refutations written by the early Fathers, and of such Gnostic material as they chose
to quote, together with the merest handful of original Gnostic documents.”23
A quick look at any New Testament Bible of today will reveal that The Gospel of Thomas is
excluded. Thomas was written, and most likely known about, by the early Church fathers before the
canonization of the New Testament. The reasons Thomas didn’t make the cut, whatever they were, are
significant because, had it been included in the canon, it could have dramatically changed the shape of
the history and theology of Christianity.
The reasons for its exclusion are unclear. It is almost certain that it was, and might still be, regarded
as a threat to the organized church. Not many scholars seem to put forth a hypothesis of a full-blown
conspiracy in its repression. But even many conservative scholars have noticed that “…there has been a
considerable uncoordinated effort to make the Gospel of Thomas go away” or “to have it become completely
intellectually irrelevant.”24 The gospel’s exclusion owes most likely to a combination of many reasons
and agendas. It was condemned by the bishop Irenaeus of Lyon.25 It might have been deemed unauthentic
or perceived as a Gnostic text. Its emphasis on individual spirituality might have been seen as anathema
to the church. It also might have been used primarily by those who did not have much influence in the
hierarchical structure of the Church, perhaps by those outside the Athanasius of Alexandria.
What would have been different had Thomas been included in the canonization? What if the
Christians of today had developed a faith wherein Jesus was much more “personal,” while still being
divine? What if this faith saw that Jesus is in fact identical with each individual? What would such a
faith look like? Such a difference in Christianity could very well have dramatically affected the history
of the modern world.
As a result of the way in which the New Testament was canonized, many Christians came to read
the rest of the New Testament through John’s lens, “with the conviction that Jesus is: Lord and God”26
In her book, Beyond Belief, Elaine Pagels discusses one of the effects the canonization of Thomas would
have had on the interpretation of the other gospels. Had Thomas, but not John, been included in the canon,
people would read the New Testament differently. Just as many people today understand the synoptic

Drinking from the Mouth: A Taste of the Gospel of Thomas • Noah Taylor
31
gospels in the light of the theology of John, they could have just as easily been influenced by reading the
other scriptures with a Thomistic interpretation as their lens. 27 John’s and Thomas’ Jesus do share many
traits—they are quite otherworldly, for example—but in Thomas, the emphasis is on comprehension of
the inner transformation of believers that comes with attainment of genuine gnosis, or knowledge.
Some scholars and believers think the impact Thomas might have had, were it canonized, would
have extended beyond Biblical interpretation. In the forward to Steven Davies’ translation of The Gospel
of Thomas, Andrew Harvey sees the exclusion of Thomas from the canon as a “betrayal by the churches
erected in Jesus’ name”28 and “one major reason for our contemporary catastrophe.”29 He goes on to
explain that the Gospel of Thomas contains “…the alchemical secret of transformation that could have
permanently altered world history.”30 The Jesus found in the Gospel of Thomas is much more radical than
the one found in the Synoptic Gospels. The Jesus here is offering truth, but not in the form of doctrine
or in the promise of an afterlife. This is the truth found only by seeking. This truth is that the Kingdom
of Heaven is right here, even now.
The Jesus we see in the Gospel of Thomas saw and knew this world as the
constant epiphany of the divine Kingdom and knew too that a wholly new
world could be created by divine beings, once they had seen this and allowed
themselves to be transformed and empowered as he was, by divine wisdom,
ecstasy and energy.31

What the Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas is suggesting is a vision that results from a “fusing together a
vision of God’s divine world with knowledge of how this divine world could emerge into, and transfigure,
the human one.”32
Perhaps, if Christianity had developed with this understanding, it would have avoided some or all
of its violent and intolerant manifestations. The crusades and inquisitions in particular were unfortunate
times in Christian and world history which saw violence and cruelty on an immense scale. This was a
time characterized by
mass burnings, bindings, and hangings, the catapulting of body parts over
castle walls, the rapine, the looting, the chanting of monks behind battering
rams, the secret trials, the exhuming of corpses [and] the creaking of the
rack.33

If a more tolerant form of Christianity had held sway in the Middle Ages, we might have preserved
not only some forms of Gnostic Christianity, but also Christianities that now have been forever lost to
history. It is possible that present-day Christianity might have even resembled some of these forms.
Had it not been for events such as the Albigensian Crusade, Christianity today might have very closely
resembled the Cathar faith, “a pacifist brand of Christianity embracing tolerance and poverty.”34 It was a
faith such as this that would have changed both the social hierarchy and the status of women in society.
The Cathars held such radical beliefs as that a noble man in one life might be a milkmaid in the next, or
that women were fit to be spiritual leaders.35
The faith of the Cathars ran directly counter to many of the underpinnings of medieval society. They
were strict dualists. This world was seen as profane, completely irrelevant to the world of God.

Drinking from the Mouth: A Taste of the Gospel of Thomas • Noah Taylor
32
 The god deserving of Cathar worship was a god of light, who ruled the
invisible, the ethereal, the spiritual domain; this god, unconcerned with the
material, simply didn’t care if you got into bed before getting married, had a
Jew or Muslim for a friend, treated men and women as equals, or did anything
else contrary to the teachings of the medieval Church.36

The history of Christianity has affected the history of the modern world. It is very likely that a
dramatic change early on in the development of the religion such as the canonical inclusion of the Gospel
of Thomas would have altered the history of the world. Perhaps such a change would have kept Chris-
tianity in closer contact with its mystical side. Commune with the fountain head of religion might have
very well prevented religious stagnation. The evolution of the faith might have proceeded much more
rapidly than it has.
The Gospel of Thomas is a mystery for Biblical scholars, Christians, mystics, and people of diverse
faiths. Despite the research since its discovery, issues of its dating, authorship, Gnostic elements, theology
and relationship to other gospels occasion much debate. The complexity of such a seemingly simple text is
perhaps part of its mystery and mystique, part of the reason for its continued existence and discovery.
The Gospel of Thomas is a different type of Gospel, written by a different group of people, for a
different group of people. Like all of the other gospels, it sought to answer the questions of “who is Jesus,
and what is the ‘good news’ about him?”37 It brings a taste of the cryptic and the mystic. The gift it brings
is its message of possibility. And it might well be that we are not as far removed from it as one might think.
The Gospel of Thomas suggests to us a new understanding of the Christian message. Offered a path to the
direct experience of Jesus’ message, the seeker can be fully present in the awe and mystery which is the
fusion of the sacred and the profane: the meeting place of the personal and the divine. The Gospel serves
as a reminder that, even in the depths of darkness and the bleakness of this violent and unjust world, there
remains the possibility of world transformation through a personal encounter with the divine.

Works Cited
Dart, John, and Ray Rieget. The Gospel of Thomas. Berkeley: Seastone, 2000.

Davies, Steven. The Gospel of Thomas Annotated and Explained. Woodstock: Sky Light Paths, 2004.

Davies, Stevan, trans. The Gospel of Thomas. Boston and London: Shambahala Publications Inc., 2002.

Ehrman, Bart D. Lost Christianities: the Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. Oxford: Oxford UP,
2003.

Guillaumont, A, H.-Ch Puech, G Quispel, W Till, and Yassah ‘abd Al Masih. The Gospel According to Thomas. New
York: Harper and Brothers, 1959.

Hoeller, Stephan A. Jung and the Lost Gospels: Insights Into the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Library.
Wheaton: Quest Books Theosophical House, 1989.

Drinking from the Mouth: A Taste of the Gospel of Thomas • Noah Taylor
33
McGregor Ross, Hugh. Thirty Essays on the Gospel of Thomas. Great Britain: Element Books, 1990.

Meyer, Marvin. The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus. San Francisco: Harper, 1992.

O’Shea, Stephen. The Perfect Heresy: The Revolutionary Life and Death of the Medieval Cathars. New York: Walker
and Company, 2000.

Pagels, Elaine. Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas. New York: Random House, 2005.

Turner, H.e. W., and Hugh Montefiore. Thomas and the Evangelists. Naperville: Alec R. Allenson, Inc, 1962.

Wilson, Robert. Studies in the Gospel of Thomas. London: A. R. Mowbray & Co. Limited, 1960.

Wilson, R. Mcl. Gnosis and the New Testament. Blackwell, 1968.

1
Ross Hugh McGregor, Thirty Essays on the Gospel of Thomas. (Great Britain: Element Books, 1990), 8.
2
Ibid.
3
Ibid.
4
Ibid.
5
Robert Wilson, Studies in the Gospel of Thomas. (London: A. R. Mowbray & Co. Limited, 1960), 7.
6
McGregor, 20.
7
Marvin Meyer, The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus. (San Francisco: Harper, 1992), 9.
8
Wilson, 4.
9
The Gospel According to Thomas, Log 1, translated by A. Gullaumont, H.-CH. Puech, G. Quispel, W.Till and
Yassah ‘ABD Al Masih, 3.
10
Stephen Davies, The Gospel of Thomas Annotated and Explained. (Woodstock: Sky Light Paths, 2004), 15.
11
Pagels, 47.
12
Davies, 2004,17.
13
Wilson, 47.
14
Ibid.
15
Ibid., 143.
16
Ibid., 15.
17
Pagels, 39.
18
Ibid., 49
19
Davies, 2004, 5.
20
Ibid., 137.
21
Wilson, Studies, 12.
22
Pagels, 46.
23
R. Wilson, Gnosis and the New Testament. (London: Blackwell, 1968), 28.
24
Stephen Davies, trans. The Gospel of Thomas. Boston and London: Shambahala Publications Inc., 2002, xxxiii.
25
Wilson, Gnosis 19.
26
Ibid., 38.
27
Pagels, 39.
28
Davies, 2002, xi.
29
Ibid.
Drinking from the Mouth: A Taste of the Gospel of Thomas • Noah Taylor
34
30
Ibid.
31
Ibid.
32
Ibid.
33
Stephen O’Shea, The Perfect Heresy: The Revolutionary Life and Death of the Medieval Cathars. (New York:
Walker and Company, 2000), 7.
34
Ibid.
35
Ibid., 12.
36
Ibid.
37
Pagels, 39.

Drinking from the Mouth: A Taste of the Gospel of Thomas • Noah Taylor 35
36
 The Creation of Music •
Tyler C. Mickelson

Tyler Mickelson is a philosophy major, religious studies minor. The in-

spiration for this creative piece came to him during the spring semester
of 2007 as he studied the history of Early Christianity with Dr. Burns
and readings for Dr. Beach’s “Critiques of God”.

********************

A Note from the Editor: For those unfamiliar with it, Gnosticism is an ancient system of thought based
on the belief that knowledge of transcendence can only be achieved through intuitive means. Gnosticism
rests on personal religious experience that was often expressed in the form of myth. Gnostics taught that
the world is flawed because it was not created by the ultimate and transcendent God, who is beyond all.
The True God did not create anything, but “emanated” or brought forth from within Itself the substance
of all there is. The basic Gnostic myth has many variations, but all of these refer to Aeons, intermedi-
ate beings who exist between the ultimate One and humanity. They, together with the One, make up the
realm of Fullness (Pleroma) where the full power of divinity operates. The Fullness is in contrast to our
state of existence, which is sometimes called emptiness. One of the Aeons, named Sophia (“Wisdom”), is
central to the Gnostic world view. In the course of her wanderings, Sophia came to emanate from herself a
flawed consciousness. It is this being who created the cosmos, which is flawed in reflection of its creator.
This being imagined himself to be the True God. All of creation contains within it aspects of the divine,
“sparks” which must be released from imprisonment in matter through spiritual practices.1
Tyler’s creation is a product of his own intellectual and spiritual journey. He has, as he puts it, “been
greatly influenced and blessed by the Trinity of Philosophy, Religion, and Music,” particularly Jazz. He
has played the saxophone and guitar for many years, and believes that “there is a Jazz Mind…it is soft
and sensitive to the changes…a perfect compliment to philosophy and religious studies…playing and
practicing it yields realization, liberation, connection, and celebration.”

37
 A Note from the Author: “The Creation of Music” is a sister-story to Ptolemaeus’ Valentinian
Gnostic creation myth.2 Strands of Neo-Platonism and Buddhism not found in the original pervade this
version. Syncretizing these religions and philosophies under the umbrella of music gives rise to both seri-
ous and funny tones, almost as if East and West were tied tightly together with silly string.
The voice or language of the myth is folkloric in nature. Since it is stylistically similar to myths of
ancient oral traditions, reading the work out loud will enhance the reader’s understanding of it. Enjoy.

Let all those with two ears listen!3

Before the Beginning, Sound rested in perfect silence with Frequency. Sound was im-
mutable and unborn. Frequency was immutable and unborn. There was no motion. There
was no holy psalm.

Sound and Frequency composed the Original Consonance.

The Original Consonance rested in perfect silence within Form, the Father. Inside the
Father dwelt innumerable subordinate forms.4 Each form was paired to another. Sound
and Frequency was a pair, Listen and Speak was a pair, Motion and Discontent, the
famous Wisdom and Will…. Such were the pairs that arose.

One day Motion desired to hear the celestial Music of the Father. Motion broke away
from her partner and searched for Listen. Her search was doomed from the Beginning.
Motion did not know that Listen did not listen.

Motion and Discontent composed the Original Dissonance.

The Original Dissonance rested in perfect silence until Motion left Discontent alone in
the Father. Imbalance hurled all forms into chaos. Motion and Sound collided, Wisdom
and Sound collided, Listen and Sound, Speak and Sound, Wisdom and Frequency, Listen
and Frequency, Speak and Frequency, Motion and Frequency….

By desire and chaos all things were made. From the Father all good things came.

In the Beginning the Father emanated noise, note, rhythm, harmony, melody, song,
music; sound, dissonance, dynamic, quality, articulation, consonance; frequency, pitch,
overtone, timbre, intonation, resonance; beat, meter, measure, repeat, tempo, notation,
The Creation of Music • Tyler Mickelson
38
rest; progression, cluster, chord, interval, degree, tonic; contrary motion, similar motion,
parallel, oblique, unison…

When man came to be, man, like Motion, desired to hear the celestial Music of the Fa-
ther. Many desired to listen but few were able to hear. One day two good ears, Jesus of
Nazareth’s (Son), heard the Original Consonance. Jesus then went on to instruct man-
kind to hear the pleasant music of the Father. On another day two good ears, Siddhartha
Gautama’s (Son), heard the Original Dissonance. Siddhartha then instructed mankind
to hear the unpleasant music of the Father.

The Sons, Jesus and Siddhartha, heard the Music of our emanated Father.

Jesus and Siddhartha desired to end desire. Through crucifixion Jesus conducted man-
kind to end desire and hear the Music of our emanated Father. Through the Four Noble
Truths Siddhartha conducted mankind to end desire and hear the Music of our emanated
Father.

In silence and in stillness (Holy Spirit) there is Music from our Father. In resonance and in
unison, there is the holy psalm. In work and in suffering, there too is the holy psalm.

Music is our refuge.

1
Stephan A. Hoeller , “The Gnostic Worldview: A Brief Summary.” http://www.gnosis.org/gnintro.htm
2
The original version can be found in “The Valentinian System of Ptolemaeus” in Gnosticism: A Source Book
of Heretical Writings from the Early Christian Period, edited by Robert M. Grant (New York: Harper and Row,
1961), 163-182.
3
Adaptation of “Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear” (verse 8 and elsewhere) in the “Gospel of Thomas” in The
Nag Hammadi Library in English, translated by members of the Coptic Gnostic Library Project of the Institute
for Antiquity and Christianity, edited by James M Robinson, 3rd edition (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1817),
124-138.
4
Neo-Platonic adaptations of Valentinian mythic notions “Pleroma” and “aeon” in “The Valentinian System of
Ptolemaeus” found in Grant.

The Creation of Music • Tyler Mickelson

39
40
 A Review of Anselm’s Ontological Proof for the Existence of God •
Jeremy Behreandt

Jeremy Behreandt is a philosophy minor at UW-Eau Claire and will

graduate in the fall of 2007. Jeremy wrote this paper for Dr. Greene’s
PHIL 236 course, “Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy” in the spring
of 2007.

********************

S t. Anselm (1033-1109), Archbishop of Canterbury, made his most famous contribution to phi-
losophy by arguing that God, by definition, could not be conceived not to exist. W. H. Kent, author of The
Catholic Encyclopedia’s entry on Anselm, records the drama of this argument’s discovery:
[Anselm] could think of nothing else for days together. And when at last he
saw it clearly, he was filled with joy, and made haste to commit it to writing.
The waxen tablets were given in charge to one of the monks but when they
were wanted they were missing. Anselm managed to recall the argument, it
was written on fresh tablets and given into safer keeping. But when it was
wanted it was found that the wax was broken to Pieces. Anselm with some
difficulty put the fragments together and had the whole copied on parchment
for greater security (Kent).
�������
Anselm’s proofs would receive little better treatment after publication. The argument was first critiqued
by a monk, Gaunilon, and later picked up by Descartes. As noted in the introduction to Anselm’s Basic
Writings, this proof of God has been bandied about by such philosophical giants as Spinoza, Locke,
Leibnitz, Kant and Hegel (ix-xxv).
In chapter two of the Proslogion, Anselm defines God as “a being than which nothing greater can
be conceived” (Basic Writings 7). Against the fool who denies God����������������������������������
—the atheist—���������������������
Anselm says the fool
understands the definition, so “what he understands,” —�����������������������������������������������
������������������������������������������������
that is����������������������������������������
,���������������������������������������
God (���������������������������������
����������������������������������
as Anselm defines Him������������
)—����������
exists in
the fool’s���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
(atheist’s)���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
understanding, even though the fool does not “understand it to exist” in reality (7).
Anselm uses the example of a painter to explain the distinction between existing in understanding and

41
existing in reality. A painter, he says, conceives of an idea for a painting in his or her mind, but does����� n���
����
o��t
believe it real because he or she hasn’t yet �������������������������
painted
���������������������
the idea (7).
Anselm’s next move is to �������������������������������������������������������������������������������
assert�������������������������������������������������������������������������
that it is greater to exist in reality and in the mind than to exist in
the mind alone (8). If God exist�������������������������������������������������������������������������
s������������������������������������������������������������������������
only in the mind, then a being which exist�����������������������������
s����������������������������
both in reality and in the
mind could be conceived. This latter being would be greater than God; yet that would be an absurdity,
since God is a being “than which nothing greater can be conceived” and cannot be surpassed (8). Hence,
God “exists both in the understanding and in reality” (8).
Anselm seeks to prove that God “cannot be conceived not to exist” in chapter three of the Proslogion
(8). He does�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
no����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
t use the distinction between necessary and contingent existence, but if God cannot not
exist, he must ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
(necessarily) �������������������������������������������������������������������������������
exist. In contrast, a contingent being would be one that could be conceived of
as not existing, such as the ����������������������������������������������������������������������������
dodo, an extinct being.�����������������������������������������������������
Anselm holds that a necessarily existing being “���� …���
is
greater than one which can be believed not to exist” (8). If God can be thought of as not existing, then it
is in contradiction to God’s defined greatness. Therefore, God exists�������������������������������
, and exists�������������������
necessarily (8-9).
In chapter four, ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������
Anselm tries to explain how the �������������������������������������������������
atheist������������������������������������������
can think on the concept of God yet deny
Him “in his heart” (9). Anselm distinguishes between conceiving a “word signifying” an object on �������
the
one hand, ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
and conceiving “the very entity” itself on ������������������������������������������������������
the other (10).
�����������������������������������������
So the name or signifier we employ
to denote God could be otherwise: Jehova���������������������������������������������������������������
h��������������������������������������������������������������
, Allah, and so on. The concept of “that than which a greater
cannot be conceived” can�����������������������������������������������������������������������������
no���������������������������������������������������������������������������
t be denied its
���������������������������������������������������������������
real
�����������������������������������������������������������
and necessary existence when properly
�������������������������
understood
����������������
(10).
Gaunilon, a monk of Marmoutier and a contemporary of Anselm, provides the first critique of the
proof in his “In Behalf of the Fool” (Basic Writings 145). Gaunilon primarily focuses his attention on the
argument given in chapter two of the Proslogion, much to Anselm’s dismay. Couldn’t it be, Gaunilon asks,
“that I have in my understanding all manner of unreal objects, having no existence in themselves because
I understand these things if one speaks of them, whatever they may be?” (146). Unless the concept of
God is unlike other concepts which exist in the mind and not in reality, then it is possible that God could
be like “all sorts of things whose existence is uncertain, or which do not exist at all” (147).
Gaunilon uses the example of being told a man exists of whom he was previously unaware (148).
Through species and genera, Gaunilon could conceive the nature of this man, and yet it could be that this
man does not exist in reality. The definition of man is a concept developed after we have examined species
and genera of things existing in reality. For example, man is an animal �������������������������������
(species) ���������������������
capable of reasoning�
(genera)���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
. Anselm’s definition of God does not seem to function in this same way, as it proceeds from
conceptual to actual existence (148-149).
Gaunilon raises his famous counter-example of the Lost Island. There is, he imagines, an island that
cannot be found and is considered the best because of its riches (150-151). By the same logic of Anselm’s
argument, Gaunilon maintains, it could be shown that the Lost Island exists also in reality because it is
greater that
����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
it does so exist�������������������������������������������������������������������������������
(151). In response to Anselm’s position that “the non-existence of this being
is inconceivable,” Gaunilon says it would be more accurate to maintain������������������������������������
��������������������������������������������
that
�����������������������������������
������������������������������
the non-existence or possible
non-existence of God is unintelligible (152). According to Gaunilon, “unreal objects are unintelligible”
(152).
Anselm’s Apologetic argues that the concept of God is different from the concept of a Lost Island
in that����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
,���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
whereas the island could be conceived as non-existent, it is impossible to conceive of God as not
existing, since necessary existence is greater than contingent existence (Basic Writings 155). Anselm
disputes Gaunilon’s prioritizing of actual existence to conception: “�������������������������������������
[W]����������������������������������
hatever at any place or time does
not exist” can be “conceived to exist nowhere and never” (155). Anselm is not convinced that Gaunilon

42 A Review of Anselm’s Ontological Proof for the Existence of God • Jeremy Behreandt
could really conceive of such a superlative island, as a detailed working out of its qualities could easily
lead to imperfections. After all, since contingent beings�����������������������������������������������
,����������������������������������������������
like a lost island���������������������������
,��������������������������
can be though������������
t�����������
of as not
existing—coming into and out of existence in time—they are not comparable to “that than which a greater
cannot be conceived” which cannot “at any place or at any time fail to exist as a whole” (156).
Anselm accuses Gaunilon of misinterpreting his argument by using ���������������������������������������
a phrase that he himself did not
there is a being “greater than all other beings,��������������������������������������
use: that������������������� ” when Anselm’s argument really uses “a being
than which a greater cannot be conceived” (162). Conception is important to the question of whether or
not a being could not exist.����������������������������������������������������������������������������������
���������������������������������������������������������������������������������
If God could be thought not to exist, �������������������������������������������
He�����������������������������������������
would not be greater than “all existing
beings” (162). But that�������������������������������������������������������������������������������
i�����������������������������������������������������������������������������
s absurd. Anselm asks Gaunilon how he can hold that nonexistent objects like
a lost island can be understood������������������������������������������������������������������������������
. And, further,���������������������������������������������������������������
that if something doesn’t exist in reality i������������������
s�����������������
why
����������������
it can’t
���������
be
conceived (165).
The question is then how the qualities of Gaunilon's Lost Island differ from the qualities of Anselm's
greatest being. Kenneth Hima explains that Gaunilon's Lost Island is based on qualities that do not have
maximums (4). If a good island has hot springs or fruit, there is no upper limit on the abundance of these
items; a better island with more hot springs or fruit could always be imagined (4). Anselm wants to say
that God is "just, truthful, blessed, and whatever it is better to be than not to be" (Basic Writings 11). Hima
allows that power, knowledge and goodness have maximums, however there may be some uncertainty as to
whether God can be omniscient, omnipotent and omnibeneficient all at once without inconsistency (Hima
13). Anselm tried to answer these concerns later in the Proslogion, but they will not be addressed here.
Charles Hartshorne, a modern-day defender of Anselm’s argument, admits that the concept of God
suffers from a “serious danger of ambiguity or contradiction” (Anselm’s Discovery 26). One ambiguity
lies in Anselm’s use of the word “greater.” Any conceivable number, Hartshorne points out, referring to
Leibnitz, has a greater conceivable number (27). So, greatness probably means qualitative, not quantitative
greatness. Secondly, “none greater can be conceived” could mean “no greater individual” or “no greater
thing or entity” (28-29). In the former case, “the same individual cannot be conceived superior to itself”
(29). Hartshorne refers to this doctrine as having a Platonic origin: since any change in a perfect being
would be only for the worse, “the perfect cannot change at all” (29). The capacity to lie would not be an
extension of God’s power but rather a corruption of it. Hartshorne sees in the acceptance of this Greek
Philosopher God the loss of faith. If, on the other hand, God can be surpassed by Himself, then “He can
include quantity in His quality” (29).
St. Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) could perhaps offer another approach to Hartshorne’s worry
about proving a Platonic philosopher’s god instead of the Christian God. In the first part of the Summa
Theologica, Question II, article 1, Aquinas addresses part of Anselm’s argument. Anselm wants to argue
that by understanding the concept of God, His existence is self-evident to us; Aquinas, however, makes
a distinction between two kinds of self-evident propositions. The first is self-evident in itself and to us.
For example, the statement “Man is an animal” is self-evident to us and in itself since we can understand
the essence of the subject of man, which by definition contains “animal” (11). However, the statement
“God exists” is self-evident in itself but not to someone like the Fool of proverbs, because the Fool cannot
comprehend the essence of the statement’s subject, an entity such as God (11).
For Aquinas, humans can know God, since He is “man’s happiness,” but can only know in a vague,
general way. To hold this general conception is “not to know absolutely that God exists, just as to know
someone is approaching is not to know the same as to know Peter is approaching, even though it is Pe-
ter” (11). Though he makes no mention of quantity and quality, Aquinas’ distinction between a someone

A Review of Anselm’s Ontological Proof for the Existence of God • Jeremy Behreandt
43
and Peter seems to parallel Hartshorne’s distinction between an entity and an individual. Since Aquinas
believes that the concept of God is not self-evident to reason in the way that Anselm does, he believes
God’s existence needs to be argued through demonstrations of God’s effects (11).
The argument drawing God’s existence from a concept receives its name, the ontological argument,
from one of its most notable critics, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant
argues that “being is obviously not a real predicate, i.e., a concept of something that could add to the
concept of a thing. It is merely the positing of a thing or of certain determinations in themselves” (567).
Kant uses the phrase “God is omnipotent” as an example. The predication combines the concept of God
with the concept of omnipotence. Saying “God is” adds nothing to “God” and all the predicates added
to Him (567).
Norman Malcolm takes up Kant’s critique in the present, uncovering an ambiguity in Anselm’s
line of reasoning about existence in reality and in the mind. Anselm might have meant that “(a) existence
in reality by itself is greater than existence in the understanding, or that (b) existence in reality and exis-
tence in the understanding together are greater than existence in the understanding alone” (42). Anselm’s
privileging of existence over nonexistence as “remarkably queer” (43). Malcolm illustrates this oddity by
saying that it makes sense to say “My future child will be a better man if he is honest than if he is not,”
but it does not make sense to say “he will be a better man if he exists than if he does not” (43).
However, as with Aquinas, the conflict boils down to a difference between Kant’s philosophical
foundation versus Plato’s. Through Plotinus and Augustine, Anselm has inherited a Platonic doctrine.
According to Gregory Schufreider, Anselm believes that even in intuiting the universal essence of a thing,
reason is aiming to comprehend a singular thing, though not in its singularity per se, but in what Anselm
thought to be its greatest reality, that is, in its participation in a form... which could be shared by many
possible things (An Introduction to Anselm’s Argument 77).
For Anselm, humans can intuit an entity “by means of rational understanding” (75). Kant, on the
other hand, confines human access to the phenomenal realm. In response to Kant’s critique, philosophers
like Hartshorne have “insist[ed] that while Kant is right in claiming that existence is not ordinarily a
predicate or property, modality of existence is always a property and so is always deducible from the
definition of a thing” (Grant 793). Since necessary existence moves the argument beyond Kant’s critique,
for Hartshorne necessary existence can be seen as a perfection of God.
Still, the argument faces objections from many different camps. Some, like Graham Oppy, ques-
tion Anselm’s theory of understanding. Oppy uses the example of a fictional entity, “the smallest really
existent Martian” to show that we entertain ideas of entities without believing that they really exist.
Anselm’s argument, Oppy claims, “pays no attention to this distinction between encoding and attribut-
ing—i.e., between entertaining an idea and holding a belief” (22). Another question regards Anselm’s
description of God, whether the God he wants to prove is an individual or a type of entity. It’s odd to
attempt to define a unique individual, like Socrates, but in the other case, the divine entity proven may
not specifically be the Christian God.
Philosophers such as Malcolm and Hartshorne have attempted to rescue Anselm’s argument from
the abuse it has suffered throughout the ages by showing that the argument extends beyond chapter two
of the Proslogion and incorporates necessary existence as well as a theory of human conception. Yet the
proof is no less disputed in the postmodern age. The Continental philosophers Heidegger and Derrida
would probably dismiss Anselm’s project. For Heidegger, efforts to establish a foundational being, such
as God, forget the most basic question, what does it mean to be? Derrida dismisses all metaphysics as

A Review of Anselm’s Ontological Proof for the Existence of God • Jeremy Behreandt
44
a futile search based on a prejudice for presence over absence, a search for an entity that has meaning
in itself without difference or deferral. Still, philosophers such as Kurt Gödel and Alvin Plantinga have
developed formalized arguments in modal logic which return to the ontological basis for God’s existence.
Anselm’s legacy may depend on the analytic tradition of philosophy to develop where the argument suc-
ceeds and where it needs revision.

Bibliography

Anselm. Basic Writings. Trans. S. W. Deane. 2nd ed. La Salle, Illinois: Open Court P����������
�����������
ublishing
Company, 1962.

Aquinas, Thomas. “Summa Theologica.” Trans. Fathers Of The English Dominican Province. Great
Books of the Western World. Ser. 19. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1952.

Grant, Colin. “Anselm’s Argument Today.” Journal of the American Academy of���������
Religion 57.4 (1989):
��������
791-806.

Hartshorne, Charles. Anselm’s Discovery: A Re-examination of the Ontological Proof for God’s�
Existence. La Salle, Illinois: Open Court Publishing Company, 1965.

Himma, Kenneth. "The Ontological Argument." The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 02 June
2007 <http://www.iep.utm.edu/o/ont-arg.htm>

Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. Paul Guyer and Allen M. Wood. Ed. Paul Guyer and
Allen M. Wood. Cambridge UP, 1997.

Kent, W. H. “Saint Anselm.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. 13 May 2007

<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01546a.htm>.

Malcolm, Norman. “Anselm’s Ontological Arguments.” The Philosophical Review 69.1 (1960): 41-62.

Oppy, Graham. "Ontological Arguments." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 02 June 2007

<http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ontological-arguments>

Schufreider, Gregory. An Introduction to Anselm’s Argument. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Temple UP,

1978.

A Review of Anselm’s Ontological Proof for the Existence of God • Jeremy Behreandt
45
46
 Is There a Connection? Hindu Goddesses, Hindu Women and Their Interrelation •
Sarah Hestekin

Sarah Hestekin is a senior with a double major in religious studies and

women’s studies. Sarah wrote this paper for Dr. Lowe’s “Hinduism”
class in the fall of 2006.

********************

H indu culture has a long history of subjugating women, while at the same time revering the
feminine aspect of the divine. The feminine divine, manifested in a plethora of goddesses, is seen as an
integral part of Hinduism, giving a balanced face and character to Hinduism’s spiritual reality. Yet, through-
out history, these goddesses have had little influence on Hindu women’s lack of autonomy. Is revering the
Hindu feminine divine the same as revering Hindu women? Or does revering the Hindu feminine divine
result in assigning an inferior social status of Hindu women, as accorded by basic Hindu tradition? With
so many representations of the feminine divine through Hindu goddesses, one could assume a positive
correlation. An analysis of the goddesses themselves, and of Hindu women’s lives, is needed to come to
a plausible conclusion.
Western feminism argues that if Hindu women embrace the goddesses and their characteristics,
then those women find healing and strength through their representations. By repossessing the goddesses,
women can change ethical social structures and renew their personal and cultural worth.1 Western femi-
nism also seeks to abstract the image of the Hindu goddess from her original form so as to fit Western
ideals of the female divine in order to inspire and to support Western feminists.2

HINDU GODDESSES

The feminine representations in the Hindu pantheon are numerous, varied and, many times, in-
terchangeable. Often generically referred to as the “Great Goddess,” Maha Devi, or simply as Sakti, the
complexity of definitions, personifications and interpretations of Hindu goddesses leads to confusion as

47
to how the Hindu feminine is to be understood. However, the idea of the feminine does draw upon some
common concepts throughout Hinduism.
The theological ideals of the goddesses are prakrti (nature), maya (creative/mysterious/illusion) and
sakti (divine energy). The goddesses’ prakrti is visible, active, and compliments the male gods’ pure and
inactive purusa. The goddess embodies both maya and its bondage to this illusionary realm of “reality.”
In Hinduism, every god has at least one consort in the form of a goddess. She tends to act as a mediator
to the god: activating his power through her sakti, and communicating and connecting through him as his
consort. Although most goddesses are identified with only one God, the individual goddesses’ degrees
of autonomy varies. Being viewed as “consorts” implies that they are inferior to the gods, when actually
many times they are the stronger, more dominant deities. Either way, the goddesses are always viewed
to some extent in relation to men.3
Through centuries of sacred Hindu texts, the feminine principle has evolved to become quite a
recognizable and prevalent theme with many intersections and offshoots. In the early texts of the Vedas
(1500-600 B.C.E) there are few mentions of goddesses, and none is prominent. A few of these lesser-
regarded deities include Prithivi (the earth), Aditi (the unbounded), Usas (the dawn), Nirrti (destruction),
and Vac (speech). Some of the early goddesses have survived Hinduism’s religious evolution, although the
stories associated with them have grown, and their names have often changed, such as Nirrti, who may
now be known because of many later tales as Kali.4 There are theories which posit that, in Vedic times,
women may have had a higher status than in more modern times, even though the feminine divine was not
nearly as prominent.5 After the Vedic period, many “local goddesses” gradually became assimilated into
the Brahmanical (“orthodox”) sphere of Hinduism, and many others survive in rural areas even today.6
By the time the Puranas were written (500-1200 C.E), goddess mythology became thoroughly
incorporated into Hindu theology, and all goddesses became traceable to one “Great Goddess.” In the
Devimahatmya Purana, strong Durga, ferocious Kali and the all-encompassing Devi took center stage.
The Devibhagavata Purana went a step further to exalt Devi to the highest place in the cosmos as the
one “Great Goddess.” She is said to have retrieved feminine power (sakti) from the male authorities and
made it her own.7
In the Tantras (500-1800 C.E.), many of the ideologies of the goddesses grew into their own sects.
Tantric Hinduism utilizes the feminine energy in the form of sakti in ritual worship, ideologies and various
states of consciousness. There are various groups that grew out of this tradition, which use the goddesses
as central figures. The two early and most recognizable groups are that of the gentle, auspicious goddess,
the Srikula group, and that of the ferocious, black goddess, the Kalikula group. Also encompassed under
Tantrism are the cults of Kali, who is said to transcend Siva; the Srividya group, in which the main god-
dess is Sri/Laksmi, who is worshiped through yantra diagrams (representing the deity and the cosmos)
and through mantra chants, such as the word “aum,” (said to be the cause of the creation of the universe,
as well as its destruction); and the “left-handed” group, which is also associated with the Kali cults, that
utilizes impurities in ritual worship and is the source of common Western associations of Tantrism with
sexual union. In this strain, followers believe that women’s sakti is more powerful than men’s energy, and
it is used in sexual intercourse to serve as “connector” or “messenger” to the divine realm.8
Again, the Hindu goddesses are numerous, and many overlap conceptually. The origins of many
goddesses are confused, in that myths and ideologies have been assimilated into other, more predominant
ones. Attempted here is a list of the prominent conceptions of these goddesses and their associated charac-
teristics: Sakti is both depicted as the divine feminine energy (sakti) and as a solitary Goddess—through

Is There a Connection? Hindu Goddesses, Hindu Women and Their Interrelation • Sarah Hestekin
48
the divine energy, she manifests herself in all other goddesses and women. She consorts in order to activate
the masculine divine energy that is otherwise benign. Saraswati is associated with the lord Brahma, and
she is connected to the earlier goddess, Vac, (or speech)—she is the muse of creation, influencing poetry,
music and learning. Devi is often a generic term used to refer to “The Goddess” of Hinduism, although
it also refers to a specific deity; she is seen as the supreme, independent goddess, although in many tales
she is the consort of Siva. Parvati is a benign goddess, associated with the God Siva; she is said to be an
incarnation of the all-powerful Goddess. Durga, who is sometimes Siva’s consort, is a form of the divine
energy, although she is difficult to access on a spiritual level; she is strong and independent, as depicted
in the myth portraying her as the “slayer of the buffalo demon.” Kali is said to have sprung forth from the
head of both the two former goddesses, depending on which myth is referred to; she is associated with
Siva as well, and she is a violent deity, slayer of illusion and attachments.9
Sri/Laksmi is a loving, forgiving goddess associated with Visnu for whom she functions as an
adornment and yet is autonomous; she is the bringer of good fortune and wealth, and she is most often
depicted on the lotus, symbolizing purity. Radha, the divine lover of Krisna, who is an incarnation of
Visnu) is a passionate, devoted “goddess” to Krisna. Yet, surprising for Hindu theology, he is as devoted
and passionate to her as she is to him, going so far as to worship her in his divine love; she remains
autonomous while still attached to him. Sita is quite the opposite of Radha; she is solely the devoted,
subservient wife to Rama (another avatar of Visnu), who gains “goddess standing” through her utmost
devotion to her husband.10
Other forms of goddesses vary in importance and in breadth. The Ganges River is seen as the
Mother Goddess, flowing from heaven, through earth, and into the netherworld. The Ganges is the most
prevalent and worshiped of the goddesses. “She” is associated with both Siva and Visnu. There are also
many groups of goddesses, such as the “Mothers,” who are generally ferocious and regarded as having
lesser value than the strong identities of those discussed above. Many local goddesses are worshiped as
well. Generally, they specialize in a mundane aspect of human life and descriptions of their characteristics
vary from region to region.11
Hindu goddess worship is recognized and ritualized by the orthodox Brahmin priests, although
much of that worship is done within localities, by domestic pujas, or rituals and prayers. Hinduism does
not necessarily recognize or associate with one specific goddess or god; rather, it allows for the worship
of all, some, or only one. It is individual preference as to whom a person chooses to align with spiritually.
The wide variations of beliefs, depending upon the sect, the region of India, and the caste of the worship-
per make a personal choice of deities a necessity.12
There is a duality in character that is apparent through study of the various goddesses, one which
may serve to regulate the socio-religious depth of the Hindu community. When a goddess is benevolently
associated with a male counterpart, as are Saraswati, Laksmi, Parvati or Sita, she is viewed in a positive,
gentle frame, offering help to those in need and sought for assistance and protection. These goddesses
tend to be viewed as mothers, the source of life, passive, demure and placated. When a goddess retains
her autonomy, like Durga or Kali, even if associated with a male consort, she is viewed negatively, incit-
ing fear and thoughts of destruction. These representations are generally viewed as terrible, malevolent,
dangerous, aggressive and insatiable.13

Is There a Connection? Hindu Goddesses, Hindu Women and Their Interrelation • Sarah Hestekin
49
HINDU WOMEN

The idea of the Goddess and her energy needing to be constrained in order to make her docile and
subdued carries over into the way of life for Hindu women. There are many resources that outline the
inferior status accorded to and subordination of women in Hinduism. There are but a few proclaiming
the relative independence women have come to possess. The traditional view of Hindu women that is
presented to the West is undoubtedly that of a large, oppressed group. As for the individual lives of these
women, it is difficult to ascertain the degree of subordination, although the vast preponderance of literature
concerning Hindu women suggests a deeply-rooted patriarchy functioning within that society.
There are two main principles, apart from Hindu theology, that work together to perpetuate women’s
inferiority. The first is the concept of dharma, which details the socio-ethical obligations and duties that
are the path of each individual. Following one’s dharma ensures a positive accumulation of karma, which
determines a person’s rebirths. The second principle is that of patriarchy, which lays the foundation for
home, work, and community. This prescription of duties, along with the hierarchical structure of patri-
archy, legitimizes not only the inferiority of women, but also the caste structure and social inequality in
general.14
Traditionally, although slowly changing, the separate sexes are relegated to separate spheres: the
men in the public domain, the women in the private realm. This places women in the home, surrounded
by commitments to family life, with many expectations placed on them that reinforce their subordina-
tion. Women are meant to be compliant, docile, meek, self-sacrificing, and selfless. They are dominated
and depersonalized, overworked and undervalued.15 According to the Laws of Manu, Hindu women
are prescribed to be subordinate; and their duties are accompanied by fulfillment of family obligations
without independence, thus atoning for being born female, which is seen as a result of negative, past
karma.16 The Laws of Manu (circa. 1500 B.C.E.) specifically states that “[a woman’s] father protects
(her) in childhood, her husband protects (her) in youth, and her sons protect (her) in old age; a woman
is never fit for independence.”17 Sadly, this ancient patriarchal ideal has lasted into our modern age and
is still normative.
As daughters, females in Hinduism are viewed as a burden upon their family, even though they
may well be the favorite children. Because male children are needed for rituals to sustain and to nourish
a family’s ancestors, and because the dowry system can induce economic hardship, female babies are not
always a cause of joy. Female infanticide has always been a problem with Hindu followers throughout
history, but more and more parents are opting for sex determination tests before a child is born, and many
female fetuses are subsequently aborted.18 India now has a high male to female ratio, at 1.06 males for
every female.19 As daughters, Hindu females are necessarily inferior, even a burden, to their families.
The dowry system, which has been outlawed but still prevails, encourages this imposed inferiority. Many
families, especially those of lower income, see the necessary marriage of their daughters as a financial
burden, but since failure to marry daughters off would bring humiliation to the family, this must be done
regardless of the burden.20
When the daughters are married off, they generally find themselves in a far more inferior position
than they would be within their own families. As wives, Hindu women are expected to view and to treat
their husbands as their gods. These women are never to see themselves independently of their husbands,
putting his needs before theirs. Thus, Hindu wives lose their identities and tend to develop and sustain
low self images. Even in sexual relations, intercourse is seen as a man’s pleasure and a woman’s duty.
Is There a Connection? Hindu Goddesses, Hindu Women and Their Interrelation • Sarah Hestekin
50
Extended families are still the norm in Hindu culture, therefore subjecting a wife, not only to her hus-
band, but to his family as well, including his mother and superior wives of other sons. This can result
in a harsh and confined living arrangement, making the burden of family even more difficult to bear.21
It is said that the feminine divine energy, or sakti, within all females, is what helps them endure their
subordination and misery.22
Once a woman bears a child, especially a son, her status increases, although she is still treated as
an inferior within the family. There is much praise for mothers of sons in Hindu culture, as it continues
the family’s line, ensures ritual activity for the ancestors and is generally a show of positive karma for
the mother.23 Mothers are regarded as the “highest gurus” for their children, since it is the mother who
rears them and teaches them social and ethical mores.24
After a husband dies, a Hindu wife sees her status fall to new depths. Widows are seen as impure
and the cause of their husbands’ early death, owing to their bad karma. They are denied the comforts of
life and not included in many family and public affairs. The outlawed practice of sati, or immolation on
the husband’s funeral pyre, is still regarded as the best social and spiritual option for widows. Thankfully,
sati is no longer widely practiced, although, as of late, there has been a modest revival of this practice
in some areas of India.25
Religiously, women are seen as ritually impure, weak, and emotionally unstable, as opposed to the
conception of men as ritually pure, strong, and emotionally mature. While menstruating, pregnant and as
widows, women are not allowed to practice rituals or worship; and their touch, even presence, is viewed
as unlucky and polluting. The one safe haven for women, both socially and religiously, seems to be as a
true devotee or saint.26 In this context, women do not marry and are seen as the wives of the god whom
they worship.27

INTERRELATION

The question is, “How are such powerful and popular depictions of female deities reflected, if at
all, in Hindu women and their lives?” The West seems to see such pervasive female representations as
empowering for women. Yet, is this the case for Hindu women? Or are the understandings of these god-
desses already endowed with social prescriptions that support women’s subordination?
Looking back at the duality within the Hindu goddesses’ characters, the answer seems easy: both
goddesses and women are benevolent when partnered as inferiors to a god or to a man, just as they are
seen as impulsive, unpredictable and dangerous when they are superior or independent. The social pre-
scriptions for Hindu women seem to follow precisely what Hindu goddess theology implies.28
An analysis of two major goddesses shows this duality. The story of Sita, the devoted, chaste wife
of Rama, portrays ideal family bonds and social roles, conforming to the Brahmanical ideal of perfect
female behavior. By following her dharma as a subordinate wife, Sita is able to receive her feminine
power so as to become goddess-like. She uses her sakti throughout her story to help her husband, and she
remains chaste when under capture, only to be banished and swallowed by the earth (thus proving her
chastity) after her husband heard rumors that she might not have been chaste. She is honest and devoted
in her marriage, never letting her duty to her husband go unfulfilled. This being one of the most popular
tales in Hindu theology, Hindu girls are taught to conform to their social prescriptions in order to fulfill

Is There a Connection? Hindu Goddesses, Hindu Women and Their Interrelation • Sarah Hestekin
51
their dharma, as chaste and devoted wives. Very young girls are taught to be cheerful and uncomplaining,
and to suffer through injustice and misfortune, just as they are taught not to defy or berate men or even
to expect much from them.29
The story of Kali, however, is quite different. It is popular in Hinduism, but it serves mostly as a
warning for females. Kali is conjured up as a weapon to fight the demons of samsara by Siva, who needs
her divine energy to defeat them. She is by no means inferior to Siva, and she is depicted as standing on
his chest, with human heads and arms as adornments. She is perceived as the black Goddess, dangerous
and fierce. Kali is the epitome of what is not appropriate for a female, and she is a symbol of the destruc-
tive power of the feminine when it is not constrained or controlled by men.30
Thus, when a goddess or a woman is without a dominant male counterpart, her sakti can become
dangerous and unpredictable. Even when this energy is sought after by males, it is only for their own
benefit. Therefore, the sakti is not so much seen in Hinduism as an empowering tool for females to gain
autonomy, but rather as a tool to be utilized and contained for the purposes of men.31 Sakti, though, is
said to help women transcend their suffering through their dharma of inferiority and subservience.32
With these dualities in mind, it is obvious to see how Hindu Goddess theology can be used to work
against the empowerment and raising of status of Hindu women, and that it functions instead as a means
of keeping women in social and ethical subordination. Hindu women are taught from an early age that
a virtuous woman is expected to be docile, dependent and reverent to her male counterparts, whether
fathers, husbands, sons or otherwise.
If the theoretical progression of Hindu goddess worship does align with Hindu culture, it is ironic
that females might have once held a higher status in Vedic times, with the near absence of the goddesses,
as compared to the prevalence of the goddess in modern times.33 As asserted, this interrelation must owe
to the representations used to convey the feminine divine. Goddesses have become prominent in Hindu
culture, although they instill a message of idealism in femininity, which has proved to help subordinate
women into upholding that ideal, rather than utilizing spirituality to strengthen and to empower the
feminine.
Although some Western feminists assert an empowering connection between the Hindu Goddess
and women, some see a problem in asserting that the Hindu goddesses are necessarily empowering for
Hindu women. Instead, they recognize the potential for these goddesses to be strong, influential figures.
By appropriating new meanings to the traditional goddess representations, these deities have the ability
to become empowering for women, both in Eastern Hinduism and in the West. Thus, the adoption and
reinterpreting of the goddesses, outside of their original social context, might well serve to fill a void in
Western women that is not provided in Western religions.34
Recasting the goddesses to fit Western idealism uses the Goddess for functions alien to her own.
Hindu hierarchy is based on the inferior and subservient representations of the Goddess and reinterpreta-
tions of the goddesses are misplaced and misguided.35 For example, an Indian feminist, Rajeswari Sunder
Rajan states: “…for ‘elite’ intellectuals to recommend the ‘use’ of religious symbols in social movements
for change, in the absence of personal religious conviction…is, literally, bad faith.”36
Thus, it is strange that the feminist-West attempts to claim and to reconfigure the Hindu goddesses
for their own benefit, or to ask the question: “Why are these goddesses not empowering for subjugated
Hindu women?” It is obvious, with the patriarchal and hierarchal social codes in place and the ideologies
of dharma, karma, and the goddesses, that these goddesses function, not to liberate Hindu women, but
rather to help contain them in the social strata of subservience and impurity. With the goddesses’ ancient

Is There a Connection? Hindu Goddesses, Hindu Women and Their Interrelation • Sarah Hestekin
52
comparative nature in place, how can educated Western feminists assert empowering claims for Hindus,
or contrive to utilize these representations for feminists’ own empowerments? The goddesses have not
done well for their true worshipers. An attempt to recast and to restructure them in ideology does not
recognize their disempowering nature.

1
Sara S. Mitter, Dharma’s Daughters: Contemporary Indian Women and Hindu Culture (New Brunswick: Rutgers
University Press, 1995), 178.
2
Rita M. Gross, “Is the Goddess a Feminist?” in Is the Goddess a Feminist? The Politics of South Asian Goddesses,
edited by Alf Hiltebeitel and Kathleen M Erndl (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 104-112.
3
J.S. Hawley and D.M. Wulff, The Divine Consort: Radha and the Goddesses of India (Berkeley: Berkely Religious
Studies, 1982.
4
Gavin Flood, An Introduction to Hinduism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.) 174-197.
5
Scott Lowe, Hindu Goddesses (Eau Claire, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin, 2006), class lecture.
6
Flood, 174-197.
7
Ibid.
8
Ibid.
9
Flood, 174-197. Hawley.
10
Ibid.
11
Ibid.
12
Flood, 174-197.
13
Ibid.
14
Mitter.
15
Vanaja Dhruvarajan, Hindu Women & the Power of Ideology (Massachusetts, Bergin & Garvey, 1989.
16
Mitter.
17
G. Buhler, translator, The Laws of Manu. in the Internet Indian History Sourcebook,
<www.fordham.edu/halsall/india/manu-full.html> (accessed 8 January 2007).
18
Mitter.
19
C.I.A. World Factbook <www.cia.gov/publications/factbook/fields/2018.html> (accessed 17 January 2007).
20
Mitter.
21
Dhruvarajan.
22
Mitter, 119.
23
Dhruvarajan.
24
Geoffrey Parrinder, Sex in the Worlds Religions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 24.
25
Dhruvarajan.
26
Ibid.
27
Flood, 174-197.
28
Ibid.
29
Mitter.
30
Hawley.
31
Dhruvarajan.
32
Mitter.
33
Lowe.

Is There a Connection? Hindu Goddesses, Hindu Women and Their Interrelation • Sarah Hestekin
53
34
Tracy Pintchman, “Is the Hindu Goddess Tradition a Good Resource for Western Feminism?” in Is the Goddess a
Feminist? The Politics of South Asian Goddesses, edited by Alf Hiltebeitel and Kathleen M Erndl (New York: New
York University Press, 2000), 187-202.
35
Stanley N. Kurtz, “In Our Image: The Feminist Vision of the Hindu Goddess.” in Is the Goddess a Feminist? The
Politics of South Asian Goddesses, edited by Alf Hiltebeitel and Kathleen M Erndl (New York: New York University
Press, 2000), 181-186.
36
Rajeswari Sunder Rajan, “Real and Imagined Goddesses: A Debate.” in Is the Goddess a Feminist? The Politics
of South Asian Goddesses, edited by Alf Hiltebeitel and Kathleen M Erndl (New York: New York University Press,
2000), 282.

54 Is There a Connection? Hindu Goddesses, Hindu Women and Their Interrelation • Sarah Hestekin
 An Ethical Analysis of Database Privacy •
Scott Degen

Scott Degen is a junior at UW-Eau Claire, with a major in computer

science. Scott wrote this paper for Dr. Greene’s PHIL 308 class “Ethics
in Computing and Engineering” in the spring of 2007.

********************

I n the beginning of human history, a merchant had to scratch basic shapes into stone tablets in order
to keep track of quantities of items bought and sold. Keeping detailed records of transactions and clients
was so impractical that it was not thought of as a business consideration. In today’s world, businesses
large and small have the ability to retain as much data as they can think to save, with extremely low costs.
A transaction can be made in New York and, seconds later, an accounting department across the world
can access quantities, names, and any other information regarding that transaction. Even today’s small
businesses have large technological departments such as Information Systems and Database Administra-
tion, whose only jobs are to manage the storage and viewing of business data. The sky is the limit on data
storage these days. But, whereas no problems concerning the ability to retain data have been eliminated,
new problems have arisen. For example, what data should be retained? Not many people will admit to
feeling comfortable knowing that every action in their lives will be logged somewhere. Is it wrong to
store certain information?
Sensitive data is stored every day during business transactions, while the user has absolutely no
idea that his or her information has been retained. Every month there is a story about thousands of credit
card or social security numbers being compromised because of a security hole or a computer virus. Is
it really worth the risk to society for businesses to retain personal information without a clear need?
Storage of private data has many serious implications that many uninformed organizations don’t even
carefully consider.
A database is a large, complex computer file that stores information. A database has many tables,
each describing a certain type of information. Each of these tables has both rows of entries and columns
55
that classify the data preserved by these entries. In fact, the organization of these databases is not far from
that of ledger books, which were a primary means of storing data only decades ago. However, databases
allow us to store more information faster and less expensively than ever before. Once the data system has
been set up, and data servers have been purchased, the only financial consideration regarding the reten-
tion of data would be the cost of electricity used to run database servers. With such little concern over
expenses incurred by storing extra data, it comes as no surprise that database owners will often try their
best to store as much data as possible, ‘just in case’ it later becomes useful. When a written document
could be read only by two or three people at once (and only if they were reading over others’ shoulders!),
there really are no limits as to the number of people who can access a database. In 2005, Wikipedia, an
online encyclopedia website, recorded an average of 200 million database reads daily. That’s over two
thousand per second! (MySQL). Allowing access to a database from the internet is also a powerful tool
for communications. An internet database makes it possible for an organization to communicate with
customers or other organizations from around the world. However, this raises an obvious question. If
businesses are tracking extremely large amounts of data, and anybody can access database information,
can an ordinary person obtain confidential information through the internet?
The internet is a source of a vast quantity of personal information. And sometimes this wealth of
information can be extremely invasive. Through a simple query through a search website such as Google,
anybody can find every circuit court case or traffic ticket you’ve ever received. Free! Any prospective
employer is able to know more about an applicant’s court history before he or she ever sets foot into an
office for an interview. This access might have its benefits, as when a delivery service could avoid hiring
an applicant who has logged DUI convictions. However, with such private information on public display,
some could argue that it would be difficult to hide from mistakes. In his Database Nation, Simson Garfinkel
tells the story of the controversial 1987 hearings of Robert Bork, a nominee for the Supreme Court:
Looking for dirt, a journalist from Washington, D.C.’s liberal City Paper
visited a video rental store in Bork’s neighborhood and obtained a printout
from the store’s computer of every movie that Bork had ever rented there.
The journalist had hoped that Bork would be renting pornographic films.
As it turned out, Bork’s tastes in video veered towards mild fare: the 146
videos listed on the printout were mostly Disney movies and Hitchcock
films. (26)

Although the reporter in this story did not find what Bork’s enemies had hoped to discover, the implica-
tions here are clear the amount of personal information available to the public is extremely discomforting.
Whatever the implications of this might be, other public information blunders exist.
In January of 2007, a woman was able to find a record of her traffic ticket posted on the internet by
the Ohio state government. Personal information such as her social security number and driver’s license
number were listed for the public to see. A group of identity thieves was able to take this information
and use it to create bogus transactions, causing mayhem (Myers). If our own government is making such
blunders with personal information, what does this suggest about commercial organizations? The outlook
looks very bleak.
Unfortunately, stolen credit card numbers and identity theft are a common fear. In 2006, over
4,000 credit card numbers were leaked from a Rhode Island government web site. A security breach in
the government database had exposed these credit cards to malicious hackers (“Credit Card Numbers

56 An Ethical Analysis of Database Privacy • Scott Degen

Stolen”). In early 2007, TJX (the company that owns TJ Maxx and other smaller stores) stated that over
45 million credit card numbers had been illicitly accessed from their database. On March 29, two people
were arrested for using these stolen credit card numbers. Over a million dollars in fraudulent charges had
already been placed with stolen TJX credit card numbers (“At Least 45.7 M Card Numbers Stolen.” ABC
NEWS). All that the credit card owners had to do to get their information stolen was make a purchase at
a TJ Maxx store. In November of 2006, UCLA stated that hackers had gained entry into their databases,
thus exposing over 800,000 people’s personal information, including social security numbers (Trounson).
Because UCLA did not clean out its database for alumni information, alumni social security numbers
were also compromised.
These are just a few examples of internet privacy breaches in the past few years. A person could eas-
ily spend weeks compiling lists of recorded credit card breaches. But the number of reported information
breaches isn’t the only concern here. In 2002, over 140,000 false credit card transactions were processed
in a validity test by a credit card thief (Sullivan). Luckily, this large transaction did not go unnoticed and
the cards were cancelled before any large-scale mayhem ensued; however, the intimidating consideration
is that nobody ever determined how and from where these credit card numbers were stolen. If nobody
discovered where these card numbers came from, that means that nobody fixed the source of the leak.
The security breach might still be open! The reporters of the TJ Maxx breach commented that the credit
card numbers had been leaked over the course of a couple of years. [As if the number of reported identity
thefts isn’t sufficiently concerning! How many of today’s databases are being breached, supplying personal
identification to clever hackers? This thought is indeed chilling.]
So if businesses are at such risks of security breaches, why do they continue to retain their users’
data? There are a couple of reasons. The most obvious one to point out is carelessness. Since there are
practically no limitations to database size, many organizations see no disadvantage to retaining all data
used. Indeed, it often requires more effort to delete unneeded data from the database than to just allow
it to sit. A sales website will need to retain one’s credit card information after a purchase in case it needs
to refund money. However, after the sale is completed and the product has been received in acceptable
condition, the sales company probably doesn’t need that credit card number. But for how long does it
retain that number? How long after the sale is it properly assumed that the product will not be returned?
It is difficult to determine a reasonable time period. And, for tax purposes, a company needs to keep track
of its employees’ social security numbers. Even if an employee quits, the company still needs to retain
this W-2 information for at least the rest of the tax year. But at what point does the company know it will
no longer need this information? Many companies skate by these questions by taking the easy route: by
retaining all data. Forever.
However, carelessness can’t be used as an excuse for most large-scale data retention. After a second
look at commercial data storage, a researcher will find that most organizations will go through extra effort
to retain as much data as possible, even data that is not necessarily used during the “lifetime” (transaction
period, etc.) of the data collected. Often, companies will go through the extra work of setting up additional
databases beyond the “normal use” employed in a process called data warehousing (Greenfield). Data
warehousing consists of saving as much data as possible to apply to one’s business activities. Clearly, if a
business is going to go through the work of retaining this data, it must have some use for it. What would
make a business owner do this work of retaining data?
Much historical data (past transactions, etc.) is retained by organizations to be used in a research
process called data mining. Data mining is the process of using computer algorithms to analyze sets of

An Ethical Analysis of Database Privacy • Scott Degen 57

data so as to realize trends and relationships amongst that data. The rise in popularity of online business
made significant changes to the nature of business. Before the internet, a businessperson had to secure
expensive capital such as a storefront before conducting business. Now, an effective online business can
be run by anybody from his or her basement. Also, in the past, no matter how impressive was a New York
store, a bookstore in Los Angeles would not consider it as competition because the stores served different
clienteles. Today, however, in order to open up a good book selling business, a businessperson must try
to compete with successful businesses from around the world. Consider Amazon.com. With more busi-
nesses having a larger customer base, business competition is stiffer than ever.
In order to keep up with such competition, it is appealing to draw conclusions from customer trends.
If an auto parts store notices that customers who buy brake pads often purchase rotors with them, they
might consider selling brake pad/rotor packages to make the sale a bit easier for the user. This of course
is a relationship that is probably quite obvious to the auto parts store’s employees. However, for less
obvious relationships, programmers write complex algorithms to dig through the databases’ information
so as to discover relationships that might be sent to businesses for further analysis. The intent is that this
will allow the business to realize trends in the industry, allowing them to make more competitive busi-
ness decisions. Often the companies themselves don’t do the data mining, but sell the information that
could be used in determination of trends and behavior to contracting companies that in turn then sell the
conclusions gleaned from this data to the highest bidder (Sahidi).
The ability to analyze historical data allows businesses to provide many helpful services. For
example, by analyzing customer trends, sales websites are able to recommend other items that are com-
monly purchased with a product that one might consider buying. It provides a way to draw conclusions
about what aspects of their businesses users do and do not like without thereby bothering the user with
surveys. Also, storing data allows businesses to make things easier for return customers by associating
both addresses and order tracking with usernames. This practice allows online purchasing to be greatly
simplified.
But despite any potential advantages to retaining data, the extent of possible customer humiliation is
immense. In fear of the business growing too large, credit card companies contract third parties to handle
parts of the credit card transaction process. In the summer of 2005, CardSystems, a company that processed
a large percentage of credit card transactions from major providers such as Visa, Mastercard, and Discover,
announced that hackers had gained entry into their database, thus exposing more than 40 million credit
card numbers. That a company whose only job was to process sensitive information was yet unable to
secure its data is in itself unsettling. However, this is not the worst part. Visa and Mastercard’s agreements
with CardSystems firmly stated that CardSystems was to be disallowed from retaining information about
its cardholders once the transactions had been completed. The sensitive information that CardSystems
had retained and compromised had been retained against its business agreements. Not surprisingly, Visa
and Mastercard withdrew their affiliation with CardSystems shortly after this incident (Sahidi). Currently
even CardSystems’ webpage appears to have vanished off the face of the virtual earth.
Such secrecy in data persistence definitely leaves a negative impression of the practice of data stor-
age. If Visa and Mastercard did not know that CardSystems was saving customer data prior to the breach
investigation, surely the sales outlets that used CardSystems for transactions did not know. And even
more surely the customers did not know of the risks they were taking when they made purchases. This
problem is everywhere. Online businesses are quick to inform the user of security encryption measures
put in place to make sure that information transfers aren’t captured, but those businesses never bother to

An Ethical Analysis of Database Privacy • Scott Degen

58
 inform the user that his or her data will be held indefinitely in a repository, just waiting to be exposed. A
user has no way of knowing that, in purchasing a $5.00 paperback book online, her information might be
retained for years, then to be exposed to hackers who steal her identity and credit card information.
Is it ethical for a business to dig through one’s personal information in order to draw conclusions
based on one’s actions? In order to decide, we must weigh the pros and cons of current methods of data
storage. A cursory analysis of the situation at hand definitely makes it seem as if there is an imbalance
between the benefits and detriments both of the storage and of the mining of sensitive data. The company
gets the benefit of learning information about customer activities, while the user assumes the risk created
by this retention of information. Aside from perhaps a slightly more user-friendly interface on his or her
favorite company’s website, the user never really sees any benefit from this endangerment. Such analysis
can lead to embarrassment of an innocent person as well. Take the video store records story above, for
example. What if, in the process of analyzing video rental information, an analyst discovers an incrimi-
nating movie rented a decade ago by a prominent political figure? Any major news service would jump
at the opportunity to pay for this sort of information. The subsequent media blitz would at least humiliate
the political luminary, all because a video store tries to analyze what videos sell best.
Even the mere act of saving the data puts innocent people at risk. Carelessness in database secu-
rity can encourage hackers to compromise personal data, but the truth is that, considering how fast the
power of technology is changing, no matter how much attention is paid to securing data, there is no way
to guarantee that it is completely safe. Not, that is, unless the data itself is never stored in the first place.
Is it ethical for companies to keep our personal information without informing us? The benefits to the
company definitely do not seem to justify the risks to which the public is subjected? Because of the way
that companies are handling the storage of information, it’s now almost pointless to try to avoid identity
theft. As long as companies continue to retain private and personal data, problems concerning the com-
promise of this data will continue to burden society.
So what solution is best? What road do we take in order to fulfill the dictates of this ‘hedonic
calculus’ in order to find the greatest pleasure and the greatest happiness? We have already decided that
the current methods of retaining data are not worth the overall cost to society. But is choking the ability
to learn from information really the best means to happiness? If the risks of the current warehousing of
information aren’t worth the burden to society, and preventing the storage of this data hinders the contri-
butions provided by data mining, it appears that we will have to dig deeper into the subject than choosing
one of the more obvious solutions.
In finding the most effective solution to our ethical dilemma of data storage, we must find a way to
eliminate, or, at least, to reduce, the risks involved without thereby sacrificing the benefits realized. The
risks of retaining information in data warehouses are that personal information might be compromised
to malicious parties. The knowledge gained through data mining of these warehouses is knowledge of
human behavior and trends. Clearly placing further emphasis on security and privacy of this sensitive
information would be helpful, but, as stated before, it is impossible to guarantee such safety.
An interesting observation about this analysis is that the private data that is at risk has really no
impact on the research of human trends—a customer’s age, gender, and location might be important in
researching who buys certain types of products online, but a credit card or social security number has
no value for these research purposes. If we were to eliminate the private information from the equation,
society’s sensitive information would not be at risk, while the database holders would still be able to
reap the benefits of the information obtained! It seems that this solution would clearly create the most
happiness. We have found our winner.
An Ethical Analysis of Database Privacy • Scott Degen 59
 As solutions are found to problems in our world, they almost always create new problems. Although
databases have allowed us to store and to track data more easily than ever before, the problems with
data exposure are real and need to be addressed. As news stories of credit card fraud and identity theft
increase, it is becoming apparent that things need to change. People’s data is being exposed from places
that consumers never knew about. These companies are retaining this data for reasons, the importance
of which pales in comparison to the risks involved. More care and consideration needs to be put into
what data is and isn’t stored in companies’ data repositories. If organizations were to simply discontinue
the practice retaining unnecessary personal information from their databases, it would save society from
enormous amounts of risk and inconvenience. But, unfortunately, these organizations have very little to
gain from taking the extra time to sort what data should and shouldn’t be saved. Something needs to be
done in order to enforce a new standard of data storage, one that puts more consideration into what private
data should be sacrosanct. Once we have sorted out what data should, and shouldn’t, be stored, we will
eliminate a large amount of unnecessary risk to society, while allowing companies to continue to gain
desired information.

Works Consulted

“At Least 45.7M Card Numbers Stolen.” ABC News. 29 Mar. 2007. ABC. 8 Apr. 2007 <http://abcnews.
go.com/Business/wireStory?id=2990845>.

“Credit Card Numbers Stolen Off State Web Site.” MSNBC. 27 Jan. 2006. MSNBC. 9 Apr. 2007 <http://
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11064775/>.

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An Ethical Analysis of Database Privacy • Scott Degen

61
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 Scientific and Religious Rhetoric in the Transcendental Meditation Movement •
Jackie Lockerby

Jackie Lockerby graduated in May 2007 with an english major and reli-
gious studies minor. She wrote this paper for Dr. Lowe’s seminar course,
“Modern Religions in the US” in the spring of 2007.

********************

T ranscendental Meditation (TM) is a popular meditation technique that was derived from Hindu
Advaita practices and was introduced into the United States in the 1960s by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Al-
though it was originally little more than a meditation technique, TM has become a world-wide movement,
teaching a variety of Hindu practices to dedicated TM practitioners. The TM movement has attempted
to disassociate from its Hindu roots and ally itself with science in the Western world, and in doing so it
has made its promotion of Hinduism somewhat covert and more convincing to an American audience. In
what follows, we will examine the progression of language, from religious to scientific and pseudosci-
entific, used in the movement’s literature as it relates to a Hindu nationalist goal (called “Hindutva”) of
establishing Hindu superiority over the West.

Background of TM

TM is a technique that was introduced to the Western world by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1959.
The basic technique consists of sitting quietly for twenty minutes, twice a day, and repeating a mantra
provided by a trained instructor. Each meditator is given his or her own “unique” mantra (although man-
tras were frequently reused), which is said to be tailored specifically to reap the most benefits for each
practitioner (Shannahoff-Khalsa, 709). In spite of its centrality to meditation, the mantra itself has no
significance beyond use as a sound on which to focus (Gilpin, 13). After the initial teaching of medita-
63
tion and bestowing of the mantra, meditators are encouraged to check in with a TM center monthly for
“checking and fine-tuning” to ensure correct practice (Jackson, 135).
The ultimate goal of regular meditation is to reach a state of “Transcendental Consciousness,”
which is defined in What is Transcendental Consciousness as “the field of maximum energy, creativity,
and intelligence.” However, other benefits claimed by TM practitioners range from claims to lower blood
pressure to decreased stress levels and even extend to decreased global terrorism (TM Official website:
Discover the Benefits).
TM was introduced by Maharishi originally as a largely religious and philosophical movement, and
in spite of the vehement protests of Maharishi and TM adherents, it is still categorized as a Hindu religious
movement by many scholars (Aravamudan, 243; Jackson, 135). Soon after its introduction, however, it
became obvious that only a small portion of the United States’ population was interested in participating
in a new religious movement. In the early 1970s, Maharishi changed his method of promotion to include
heavy emphasis on the scientifically verified benefits of meditation, thus attracting many more people
to meditation so as to “reduce stress or for self-improvement” (Humes, 54). The majority of the esoteric
religious and philosophical language was replaced with scientific and quasi-scientific terms. Although
reportedly often equally incomprehensible to the audience, scientific language provided Maharishi and
TM with an air of authority that they previously lacked (Aravamudan, 243).
After the introduction of scientific authority, TM entered its heyday of popularity in the United
States, beginning with much-publicized visits from the Beatles and other celebrities to Maharishi’s schools
and retreats (Gilpin, 14). Although its popularity has waned in recent decades, TM still has a forceful
presence in the United States, as is evidenced by the growth of Maharishi’s teachings and the estimated
6,000,000 people who were claimed on the movement’s home page to be practitioners.
The original teaching of the TM movement was simply the technique of mantra meditation known
as “transcendental meditation.” However, as its popularity grew, more teachings were incorporated into
the movement (Gilpin, 21). The TM-Sidhi program includes not only the most publicized claim of teach-
ing meditators to levitate with “yogic flying” but teaching “the power to become invisible, the ability to
walk through solid walls, the ability to find lost objects, and the ‘strength of an elephant’” (Gilpin, 21).
Maharishi currently teaches a variety of techniques to be incorporated into the dedicated meditator’s
lifestyle, from Vedic medicine to Vedic architecture and astrology. All of these techniques are included
under the blanket term, “The Science of Creative Intelligence” (SCI). SCI ultimately aims to bring medi-
tators to “live in accordance with Natural Law,” which is promoted as being the most fulfilling, healthy,
and ultimately perfect lifestyle (TM Official website: Explore Related Programs). In addition, Maharishi
has started his own university (Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa), political party
(the Natural Law party), and city in the United States (Maharishi Vedic City, Iowa, approximately five
miles from Fairfield).
The TM movement, although begun as a simple spiritual practice of mantra meditation, has evolved
into a complex system of practices, beliefs, and precepts that the movement claims are scientifically
valid. Although recruitment has decreased since the movement’s peak in the 1960s and 1970s, the many
outlets for the TM movement and SCI indicate that it is still powerful and it has the potential to change
the lives of many Americans.

64 Scientific and Religious Rhetoric in the Transcendental Meditation Movement • Jackie Lockerby
Hindu Nationalism and Science

Hindu nationalism, or Hindutva, views India as a Hindu state and draws heavily upon the idea that
the discoveries of Western science were made centuries ago in India and, in particular, by Hindu practi-
tioners. This way of using science began as a reaction to colonialism and, in particular, to missionaries
who (before Darwin) claimed that Western science proved the superiority of Christianity (Oddie, 81–2).
Once Darwin trumpeted natural selection and Christianity became embroiled in conflict with science,
Hindus began using science to justify their own beliefs. As science had been used to prove truth by Chris-
tian missionaries, Hindus began to argue that Western science was contained within their own scriptures
(Oddie, 82). This Hindu science, which derives from an examination of the Vedas, is a huge part of the
TM movement today, and rhetoric about Vedic science permeates its website.
Hindu science has a significant place in India today, as it did in the time when Maharishi studied
physics at Allahabad University (Nanda, 71). However, Hindu and Vedic science often differs dramatically
from Western science. According to Meera Nanda, an Indian trained in Western science, “Vedic science
literature eschews definitions in favor of grand and sweeping statements. Overall, the tendency is to classify
all systematic attempts at acquiring knowledge, whatever the method of the subject matter, as ‘science’”
(64). In TM, Vedic science takes the form of astrology, architecture designed specifically to keep out evil
spirits, health treatments that are based entirely upon the patient’s pulse (although the pulse is a different
and more inclusive concept in TM than it is in traditional Western science), and much more.
Although Vedic science does not follow the same procedures, or value the same methods, as does
Western science, the prevailing trend in India is currently to see Vedic science and Western science as being
basically identical, but with different names (Nanda, 71). This has led to numerous “scientific” claims in
support of Hindu ideals and supremacy, which would not be supported by Western science alone. These
principles, from God being a force of nature to matter being sentient, are taught in some Indian schools
as science (Nanda, 73, 83, 104).
Early Hindu nationalists such as Dayananda Swarasvati and Vivekananda had a major influence
on the idea of Vedic science. Dayananda made claims that the Hindu scriptures showed ancient knowl-
edge of modern science, often in places where people outside of the Hindu nationalist movement saw no
connections. In the same way, Vivekananda often placed passages of Hindu scripture against scientific
knowledge that described similar outcomes, claiming that this similarity proved the scientific truth of the
Vedas. Vivekananda also “borrowed scientific terms to expound his philosophical speculations because of
the near veneration of science at the turn of the century,” and in doing so he began the tradition of using
scientific terms to justify Hindu beliefs, a practice that is continued by Maharishi in TM (Oddie, 84).

Scientific and Religious Language in Transcendental Meditation

From the time that Maharishi began using scientific rhetoric to attract Westerners to TM, Hindu
nationalist sentiments were visible in his writings. Many of the same techniques used in his books and the
TM website were used by Dayananda and Vivekananda; devotees who follow the TM program soon find
themselves immersed in a world governed by Vedic, not Western, science. While these sentiments have
become less explicit in new writings that are used primarily to attract new members, both Maharishi’s
earlier writings and the current writings (intended for an audience already dedicated to TM) are much

Scientific and Religious Rhetoric in the Transcendental Meditation Movement • Jackie Lockerby 65
more openly religious. This progression of language, from openly religious to explicitly scientific but
subtly Hindu, shows a growing sophistication in using scientific rhetoric to convince Westerners of the
significance and value of Hinduism.
When Maharishi first began publishing books about TM in the United States, his teachings could
be said to be wholly spiritual and Hindu. His On Love and God, published in 1973, devotes its pages
to poetry and praises of Swami Brahmananda Saraswati, Maharishi’s guru, of God, and of love. At this
point, scientific language had just begun to creep into the TM movement. The metaphors and language
used in On Love and God to describe the Divine, love, and Enlightenment are remarkably similar, and
in places they are identical to the modern TM website’s references to, and explanations of, the forces of
Creative Intelligence and Transcendental Consciousness.
This book can be seen as one of the last fully and obviously religious works, marking the end of
TM’s religious era. Through the 1960s, Maharishi had capitalized on the interest in self-help and Eastern
religions, and at this point the movement was beginning to progress towards a scientific façade. The term
“Science of Creative Intelligence” was introduced in 1966 to attract students, suggesting that Maharishi
had realized and begun to capitalize on educated America’s faith in Western science (Johnston, 344). Sci-
ence and technology are given far more authority than is religion in much of America, and TM’s status as
a religious movement would have kept it out of certain venues such as public schools, where it has been
taught as a stress management technique in some regions of the country. In addition, the use of science
was a marketing technique designed to draw in more general practitioners who were interested in gain-
ing the health benefits that TM promised. The slide towards emphasis on scientific language is clear in
the Science of Creative Intelligence for Secondary Education: First Year Course book, used in schools
to teach the Science of Creative Intelligence during the 1960s and 70s. Although religious concepts and
rhetoric are still present in that book, both are somewhat overshadowed by the scientific and pseudosci-
entific language used to explain the technique.
The textbook used in New Jersey schools (before New Jersey courts ruled that the TM course was
devotional and should not be taught in public schools) demonstrates the early use of scientific language
and claims, although many of the concepts contained in this book are still abstractly presented, using
philosophical or logical proof. For instance, the textbook refers to “a state of fulfillment, where everything
would be of maximum value” as the goal of TM, rather than today’s specific goals of stress reduction,
increased health, and world peace (19). These abstract ideas are given pseudoscientific names, such as
replacing “enlightenment” with “Transcendental Consciousness” and references to God or the Divine
with “Creative Intelligence” (Jackson, 136). This allows the authors of the textbook to introduce Hindu
religious ideas under the name and authority of Science. In fact, to clear up any possible misunderstand-
ings of the character of TM, the book specifically defines it as a science (13).
Unfamiliar scientific jargon and references to specific studies are used sparsely, although familiar
scientific concepts such as evolution, DNA, and stress are used throughout. Each of these concepts is
used to explain the way that Creative Intelligence works in the world, from suggesting that life evolves
and grows to comparing DNA and Creative Intelligence as forces that are present in a variety of forms.
Science is here used largely as a metaphor for Maharishi’s god-concept of Creative Intelligence, a com-
mon feature in the movement’s use of scientific rhetoric (Cara, 276–7).
The religious ideas presented in this book are thinly disguised, although their presentation is
considerably more professional and less devotional than in previous works. Scientific language is used
frequently as a metaphor to explain religious ideas such as the goal of “fullness of life,” and the religious

66 Scientific and Religious Rhetoric in the Transcendental Meditation Movement • Jackie Lockerby
terms have been replaced by either pseudoscientific jargon (e.g., “Creative Intelligence”) or terms not
specifically associated with religion (e.g., “fullness”).
While this book shies away from overt religiosity, it still lacks much of the sophistication of the
scientific claims and language used in the movement today. When TM was thrown out of New Jersey
schools in 1977, the court’s decision made mention of the idea that teaching religious concepts (such as
the Divine) through the use of scientific language does not remove its religiosity (Malnak v. Yogi).
Since this court decision, the TM movement’s use of scientific and religious rhetoric has become
considerably more sophisticated, as is demonstrated by the language in TM’s current website (www.
tm.org). Because the majority of Maharishi’s latest works have been published on the internet, the TM
website is a good source of information regarding the movement’s most recent claims.
The website uses a great deal of scientific jargon and scientific research in support of the movement.
The goal of TM has been firmly aimed at reaching “Transcendental Consciousness,” and both the state of
Transcendental Consciousness and the benefits to individuals who reach this state are explained in highly
scientific terms, many of which may well be incomprehensible to the average American. But the use of
these terms lends an air of authority; scientific study is seemingly important to Americans. Terms such
as “somatosensory stimuli,” “basal skin resistance,” and “blood lactate” are used in the explanations of
TM’s benefits, and these terms are often left unexplained. When these difficult scientific terms are defined,
however, it is often by using religious language or metaphors. For instance differences in alpha waves
and high frontal EEG coherence are explained as a byproduct of developing a transcendental Self through
TM (Travis). The comparison between unintelligible science and refreshingly simple religious language
indirectly asserts the superiority of the Hindu religious metaphor over the Western science that is used to
justify it, since the science is incomprehensible to most readers without the explanatory metaphor.
Overtly, the website focuses on TM as a technique to gain specific health benefits. These benefits
are justified by research studies, quotations from scientists and other authorities, and quotations from cur-
rent practitioners. There is ample evidence that TM is the best way to gain these health benefits (at least,
among the other ways that are presented). This science is emphasized throughout the website, but credit
for preserving and creating the technique is given to the Vedic tradition. While Hinduism is never directly
mentioned — ensuring that Americans can continue to look at TM as a scientific rather than a religious
practice — credit is often given to the Vedic tradition for preserving these teachings. This emphasis on
the wisdom and prudence of those who preserved the Vedic tradition is strikingly blatant. Western sci-
ence is shown as a tool to verify TM, but the Vedic sciences first created the practice. In a way, readers
who accept Western science’s support of TM must also accept the superior wisdom of the Vedas (i.e.,
Hinduism) for creating and passing on this tradition.
The language and rhetoric on the website show that the TM movement has evolved to fit the condi-
tions set by the American public and the New Jersey court to become a scientific, rather than a religious,
movement. The focus has been shifted nearly entirely towards specific, scientifically verified benefits; its
religious concepts have been reframed in more scientific language; and the term “Creative Intelligence”
has even been nearly entirely removed from the rhetoric. In spite of these changes, TM still subtly en-
dorses Hindu ideas.

Scientific and Religious Rhetoric in the Transcendental Meditation Movement • Jackie Lockerby 67
Conclusion

In the years that TM has been promoted in the United States, the language and rhetoric of the move-
ment have changed drastically. These changes have served both to reach many people and to persuade
them of the importance of Hinduism. Originally, during the 1960s when many Americans first became
interested in Eastern religious movements, TM was portrayed as a religious movement and a technique
for gaining enlightenment. Even at this point, however, Maharishi was promoting scientific research to
defend his movement. As time passed, this focus on science grew with the popularity of TM. The scientific
language allowed TM to enter into the public sphere in New Jersey schools, and the resulting lawsuit led
to further refinement of the movement’s language. TM is now sold primarily on its scientifically proven
health benefits, although religious language still permeates it. This is quite characteristic of Hindu na-
tionalism, wherein Western science is used to support and to prove the truths of the Vedas. Maharishi’s
methods are more subtle than were those of many of the original Hindu nationalists, but the TM movement
uses scientific language and terms to justify Hinduism and suggests that the valuable science has been
contained for centuries within the Vedic tradition. These methods have today become far more subtle,
making it difficult for some Americans to discern quickly the religion driving the movement’s science.
Scientific language has, in this case, even concealed its religious character well enough so that TM is
being accepted as a rehabilitation technique for some convicts (Americans United, 3–4). For instance,
Judge David Mason recently sentenced a woman in Missouri to TM training as a means to rehabilitation,
in combination with community service (Americans United, 3–4). TM’s new status as a “science” has
given it a fair amount of persuasive power. The effects thus far of its evolving language indicate that TM
could gain more influence as it continues to incorporate scientific language and research in support of
its Hindu ideals.

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