Philosophy: Father William Warthling, Part I

Father William Warthling

In the fall of 1970 Father Warthling was hired as the first philosophy professor at NCCC. He had previously taught at a Catholic high school while on leave from his duties as a priest in the Buffalo Diocese.   Father Warthling also taught part time at Attica State Prison while he was teaching full time at NCCC. 

Ordained into the Roman Catholic Church in 1963, by 1968 Father Warthling was actively serving the poor in an urban church in the Buffalo Diocese. He also was active in the civil rights group “Build”, in which the Catholic Church refused to participate.  The Church hierarchy indicated that they had their own ministries, but Father Warthling apparently thought such ministries were inadequate.

Father Warthling challenged the Catholic hierarchy to become more active in such civil rights issues that were ever present right here, front and center in Western New York. There was plenty of blight and extreme poverty in the city of Buffalo, and Father Warthling had been called to serve the least among us. The Buffalo Diocese responded by attempting to transfer Father Warthling to a parish away from the urban setting that he so passionately served.  Twice the hierarchy attempted, and twice Father Warthling refused to comply.  By 1970 Father Warthling had resigned from active ministry, meaning that he could no longer serve communion or hear confession.

Father William Warthling was my philosophy professor in the spring of 1979.  It was my second year at NCCC, I was 20 years old, and I was quite confident that I knew just about everything - or at least just about everything that was important to know.  Having survived a few college-level science courses, having read part of an Isaac Asimov book, and having looked at a lot of pictures in Scientific American, I suppose that I had a certain smug superiority that comes with a bit of scientific education in one’s youth.

My first impression of the Father was that he was somewhat of an anathema. He referred to the resurrection as the “Jesus myth”, while mentioning that this was a philosophical term, and not necessarily what he believed.  Father Warthling also referred to his priestly garb as his “Jesus suit”, which he always wore to Attica State Prison. There was, of course, a certain honesty about him. The Father was certainly not afraid to speak his mind.

Although the historical record has him confronting the Church hierarchy, Father Warthling was far from confrontational with his students. I remember him as being quite amicable.  Class time was usually spent with Father Warthling introducing some topic, followed by some class discussion. He was always quite animated about what we were talking about. The eminent Catholic writer, G.K. Chesterton, once criticized 20^th century thinkers for being interested in everything but everything.  Father Warthling was interested in everything and everything.  His curiosity was infectious. In the world of ideas, Father Warthling was like a kid in a candy shop.  He apparently never lost his youthful curiosity.

Sometime around mid-semester, Father Warthing spent a class or two discussing cosmology.  He was quite perplexed at why some cosmologists could believe that the universe could be forever expanding.  This was a question of theological importance that had sprung up with the dawn of modern physics in the early 20^th century. An ever-expanding universe pointed toward a definite beginning, which is why the big-bang was initially unpalatable among some (but not all) scientists. I took the time to write him a “reaction paper”, showing how this could be physically and mathematically possible.  Several years after in 1983 Father Warthling took a sabbatical to further his study of such things. He is listed as being a senior fellow in the Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion, where he studied "Post-Modern Science and Theology." He later related to me that he learned, or attempted to learn a lot of math during his sabbatical.

At the end of the semester we did have a final exam, which seemed quite trivial.  I think we had to write something about Plato and Aristotle. He may have even told us what was on the exam. At the time I figured he gave us an exam just to say he did so, possibly to satisfy some departmental requirement.  In retrospect, I suppose the wise professor knew that something much more important was going on than the mere regurgitation of facts on a written exam.

As a fitting tribute to Father Warthling, below is what I learned in class, and what I learned after his class.

Things I remember learning from Father Warthling:

1) Plato was an idealist, and Aristotle wasn’t.

2) Cosmology and metaphysics are interesting.  Cosmology is an interesting interface between science and everything.

3) David Hume and some of the English faculty at NCCC were “empiricist pigs”.

4) Father Warthling was not a pig.

5) People in Egypt don’t eat peanut butter because it looks like camel dung.

6) Plato wrote an allegory about a man in a cave.

Some (but not all) of the philosophers I read/read about subsequent to Father Warthling’s class:

1) St. Thomas – read G.K. Chesterton’s book instead of wading through the Summa.

2) St. Augustine – Never made it through City of God.  I was more interested in his influence on Martin Luther. An interesting quote: “Nothing is too absurd to have been said by a mathematician.”

3) Blaise Pascal – A devoted Catholic who anonymously wrote The Provincial Letters, which was an attack on abuses in the Church.  I am sure Father Warthling liked Pascal.  An interesting quote: “Nothing is too absurd to have been said by a philosopher.”

4) David Hume – I had to find out more about the empiricist pigs. I concluded that empiricism, and my sophomoric version of logical positivism was more of a mood than a tenable philosophy. Empiricism, if followed to its logical conclusion, collapses into solipsism.  One cannot even prove empirically that one's memory is valid.

5) Carl Sagan – Technically not a philosopher, but many look to him for their complete world view.  Notre Dame philosophy professor, Fr. Ernan McMullen, used to point out the numerous historical mistakes Sagan made. Fr. Stanley Jaki also pointed out numerous mistakes Sagan made.  Carl Sagan wrote history the way he thought it should have happened. 

6) Carl Hempel, Carl Popper and Father Stanley Jaki – Father Jaki makes the case that the realist metaphysics of St. Thomas laid the proper foundation for the birth of modern science several hundred years hence. I read six of his books. Father Jaki had a Ph.D. in physics and a Ph.D. in theology. Science does rest upon metaphysics, logically as well as historically.  Popper deconstructs the notion of a proven scientific theory, but heaves us hanging.  Hempel tries to save science as an autonomous enterprise, but fails.

7) G. K. Chesterton, George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells – Ferocious debaters in the early 20^th century, and good friends off the court. Refreshingly honest.  I still read Chesterton, and watch the G. K. Chesterton show on EWTN.

8) Bertrand Russell – a very vocal skeptic and materialist who was as interesting as dirt.  His skepticism at one time collapsed into solipsism. Most of his later thought seems quite arbitrary.

9) Bertrand Russell and Gottlieb Frege – Analytic philosophers I discovered through foundations of math.  I can’t imagine reading Russell and Whitehead’s Principia Mathematica.

10) C. E. M. Joad – British skeptic who converted to Christianity at age 52.   Joad was very good at simplifying philosophical ideas for the man on the street.  He has some very straight forward ideas on ethics and theism.

11) Moritz Schlick, Adolf Carnap, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Albert Einstein and the Vienna Circle – I learned the most about Einstein by spending about one hour reading ‘Cosmic Religion”, which was a collection of Einstein’s short essays.  I purchased this book at a garage sale I stopped at while riding my bike. Although a nominal Jew, Einstein was accused by his positivist friends of being a Catholic.  Einstein considered himself a meta-physicist, more so than a physicist.

12) C. S. Lewis – Lost one debate in his whole life.  Debated weekly at Oxford with the Socratic club he founded.

13) Alvin Plantinga – He rejects St. Thomas’ foundationalism, and developed what he calls “reformed epistemology.” Plantinga is a Calvinist who teaches at Notre Dame.  He tackled the problem of evil, and other objections to theistic belief.  Plantinga claims that theistic believe is “properly basic” in his work God and Other Minds.

14) Richard Dawkins – I didn’t spend very long before I realized this was a new permutation of an old set of ideas.  He is stuck in the sophomoric, positivist rut I was in at age 20.  He really rehashes a lot of old ideas, packaged in a shiny new book with a lot of science mixed in to give an air of respectability.  I’ll bet he became rich off of his books.  Largely the same shtick as Carl Sagan.

It has been twenty some years since Father Warthling's death at an early age.  Fortunately I had the pleasure of being his colleague for a short time.  On more than one occasion students were overheard walking the halls, or in line in the cafeteria, talking about the latest adventure into the world of Father Warthling.

Here is a link to a repository of old newspapers. There is plenty of information about Father Warthling's plight, but you have to search for it: http://fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html

Part II coming soon.......