Arthur Willink (1850-1913) was a nineteenth-century British

theologian Theology is the study of religious belief from a religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of ...

and

clergyman Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...

Biography

His most notable work is ''The World of the Unseen'', a piece in which he argues that the

universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents. It comprises all of existence, any fundamental interaction, physical process and physical constant, and therefore all forms of matter and energy, and the structures they form, from s ...

consists of three

parallel Parallel may refer to: Mathematics * Parallel (geometry), two lines in the Euclidean plane which never intersect * Parallel (operator), mathematical operation named after the composition of electrical resistance in parallel circuits Science a ...

planes Plane most often refers to: * Aero- or airplane, a powered, fixed-wing aircraft * Plane (geometry), a flat, 2-dimensional surface * Plane (mathematics), generalizations of a geometrical plane Plane or planes may also refer to: Biology * Plane ...

: the

earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

heaven Heaven, or the Heavens, is a common Religious cosmology, religious cosmological or supernatural place where beings such as deity, deities, angels, souls, saints, or Veneration of the dead, venerated ancestors are said to originate, be throne, ...

, and

hell In religion and folklore, hell is a location or state in the afterlife in which souls are subjected to punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history sometimes depict hells as eternal destinations, such as Christianity and I ...

God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

, Willink argues, exists on a complete separate, infinite-

dimensional In physics and mathematics, the dimension of a mathematical space (or object) is informally defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify any point within it. Thus, a line has a dimension of one (1D) because only one coordi ...

space completely removed from these three planes. In ''The World of the Unseen'', he wrote: Willink was one of the earliest

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

s to postulate that the world exists in more than the three dimensions we are used to, thus setting the stage for the development of

hyperspace In science fiction, hyperspace (also known as nulspace, subspace, overspace, jumpspace and similar terms) is a concept relating to higher dimensions as well as parallel universes and a faster-than-light (FTL) method of interstellar travel ...

theories A theory is a systematic and rational form of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the conclusions derived from such thinking. It involves contemplative and logical reasoning, often supported by processes such as observation, experimentation, ...

. Paul J. Nahin ''Time machines: time travel in physics, metaphysics, and science fiction'' 1999, p. 135 He was

curate A curate () is a person who is invested with the ''care'' or ''cure'' () of souls of a parish. In this sense, ''curate'' means a parish priest; but in English-speaking countries the term ''curate'' is commonly used to describe clergy who are as ...

in charge at

Wye Church Wye is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Wye with Hinxhill, in the Ashford district, in Kent, England, from Ashford and from Canterbury. It is the main settlement in the parish of Wye with Hinxhill. Hop varieties inclu ...

from 1895 to 1896.

Works

*''Not Death's Dark Night: An Hour's Communion With The Dead'' (1892) *''The World of the Unseen: An Essay on the Relation of Higher Space to Things Eternal'' (1893)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Willink, Arthur British theologians 1850 births 1913 deaths 19th-century British philosophers