Defining God

One philosophical definition of God could go like this:

You could say that everything we interact with is finite because you can place a limit on it. So your computer screen is finite because it has a limited width, height, number of atoms in the screen, etc. Same for everything else we interact with, of course. Even our imagination is like this. Everything we imagine is limited in at least one way. For example, when I imagine infinity I imagine an object that goes on forever, but that object looks a certain way and thus expresses a limit in the 'drawing' of it.

But what about an 'unlimited' reality where something like e.g. width/height can't exist because width/height expresses a limit? And so on for size, colour, location, dimensions, time, cause-effect, etc?

God is described as without limits in some places of the Bible, and so maybe that idea has something to do with a philosophical definition of God:

Psalm 90:2: Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

Psalm 147:5: Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit.

1 Timothy 1:17: Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

The Bible, after all, does say that God is 'the invisible God' (Col 1:15) and there's only two ways something can't possibly be represented: it's either a metaphor or about a reality where, for example, you can't represent size because size involves a world that deals in limits (hence you can't draw God with an accurate size!) You can't accurately represent something with no limits when you think about our drawing tools.

The problem with this view is that it doesn't convey God's loving personal nature or hardly anything else about God. It's a very abstract and 'irrelevant' God that is described, but at least it talks about God's infinite nature in a way that our reason can grasp at in some way.

Two kinds of infinite

Is there something infinite?
Do you need an infinite to 'start everything off'? Does there need to be an infinite at the foundation of reality?

If the answer to these questions is 'yes', then is there anything that we can conclude about the nature of this infinite? Can we conclude, for example, that it must be a God? Or can it be something like the universe?

Thinking about the infinite, I want to make the case that there are actually two kinds of infinite, that are very different, that could have started everything off. God would be one kind of infinite and an infinitely old multiverse would be an example of the other kind.

The two kinds can be illustrated by a thought experiment. Imagine a chair. Now imagine an infinite number of chairs.

You can't, of course, really imagine an infinite number of chairs. But the idea makes sense on some level.

Anyway, if you could really imagine it, then have you imagined an infinite? Of course, yes, you've imagined an infinite; an infinite number of chairs.

Now, have you imagined something completely infinite?

No. Because although there are an infinite number of chairs, chairs are finite objects.

So there you have a concept that is partly finite and partly infinite. That is, an infinite quantity of a finite thing; chairs.

Can you imagine something completely infinite in every way? Without any finite aspects, unlike with the infinite number of chairs?

Well, just like really imagining an infinite number of chairs, no, you can't. But the idea of a completely infinite thing makes sense.

A completely infinite object would have to contain everything that an infinite should contain, which is, well, 'everything'. But, the thing is, it can't contain everything in a way that splits the infinite into pieces. Then there wouldn't be one completely infinite thing, but two, or three, or an infinite number of infinites, and how can there be more than one of something that contains everything there is? So you can only have one 'completely infinite' infinite and that cannot have divisions and differences within itself. So it has to be an indivisible unity, or continuum. Paradoxically, this means it has to contain everything, somehow, in a way that doesn't allow for differences or divisions. Try to imagine that!

So a completely infinite object has to contain everything in a singular, indivisible continuum, one that doesn't have any distinctions and yet somehow contains everything anyway (so it isn't some content-less 'grey blob').

(Note: presumably, we ourselves don't need to BE the infinite as long as you make an exception: if something within the continuum is caused to manifest real, actual distinctions/differences, then it will stand 'apart' from the infinite while also existing inside it.)

So those, apparently, are the two kinds of infinite you can have.

Now, what, if anything, can we conclude from this?

If the universe, or multiverse, is infinitely old, then the world comes from the first kind of infinite discussed.

If God exists, then the world comes from the second kind of infinite discussed (and somehow the indivisible continuum is a person!)

Okay. Now, do we have any reason to prefer one of these infinites as an explanation of the world to the other?

There isn't any knockdown argument favouring one, as far as I know. But I do think it's a bit neater if the world comes from something completely infinite, i.e. the second kind, rather than something where the infinite and the finite are combined. Because if the universe/multiverse has finite aspects, like a finite number of dimensions, or a finite number of superstring membranes, or suchlike, which it must have, it isn't a 'completely infinite' infinite, and that isn't as, sort of, 'simple' as an idea.

Do you need the concept of infinity to answer all 'Why' questions?

Why is there something rather than nothing? Why does anything, God, the multiverse, XYZ, etc, exist? It's hard to come up with a satisfying answer to this question.

The philosopher Immanuel Kant put it this way: "Human reason has this peculiar fate that in one species of its knowledge it is burdened by questions which, as prescribed by the very nature of reason itself, it is not able to ignore, but which, as transcending all its powers, it is also not able to answer."

In the atheist picture, reality is often taken as a 'brute fact' that we cannot really explain. In the religious picture, God is often taken as a 'brute eternal fact' that also does not need explanation.

Perhaps the ultimate answer to the 'Why' question lies in the idea of infinity. Maybe we cannot understand the answer, or cannot accept it, because of the finite nature of our reasoning.

The finite starts from '0' and works its way up to potential infinity, never reaching actual infinity any more than someone can think of the largest possible number. On the other hand, the infinite is unbounded, limitless - it starts from 'infinity' and ends with 'infinity' - it never changes and has always been infinite.

So in infinite reality you're starting position is the infinite rather than '0'. So you're starting position in infinite reality, in a sense, is that there is 'something'. Metaphorically speaking, this means that in infinite reality the 'default position' would be 'something has always existed' and 'there can be nothing' would be a puzzling thought. But in finite reality, we find the existence of something - like the universe - more puzzling than if there was 'nothing' at all. Why? Probably because we start counting from '0' and can easily imagine a complete absence of stuff, which is not something you find in the infinite.

Christians tend to believe that there is a 'real' infinite out there, outside our heads, and that it's a person - God (as well as whatever else it may be). This is meant to undercut the 'Why' question because the infinite (which in religion can be taken to be a person) is fundamentally different to the finite and it doesn't need an explanation in the same kind of way.

A visual argument on the nature of God and the infinite

The picture below is meant to visualise the difference between the infinite and the finite, and thus between God and creation.


Click on it to see it full size

This picture highlights one idea of what the 'finite' is: that the 'finite' is basically about differences/'distinctions' between things. Numbers keep increasing from an original point, let's say -1, 0, and 1. They do so forever. The original point could be thought of as the 'ability' to make distinctions/differences between things. If there are differences, then there can be a lot of numbers to represent those differences.

The same thing applies to finite objects like computers, tables, chairs etc. For example, a computer is made up of a number of parts and each part has a huge number of distinctions you could assign to it, e.g. small, light, electronic, and so on. The idea of a 'location' is essentially a finite concept, where you need to make a distinction between where you are and where you're not.

The infinite is surely different from what I've described above or it seems it would be finite. This picture visualises how the infinite might be different. If the finite is associated with distinctions, then maybe the infinite is associated with 'distinction-less' existence? Perhaps a finite world of distinctions can 'emerge' out of a distinction-less unity, as in the picture. This would imply (although it's hard to understand) an infinite unity that contains everything in a way that doesn't break up the unity into separate parts.

What could that infinite unity possibly be like? Without the finite, there is simply 'oneness', the eternal infinite that stretches from everlasting to everlasting. With no concept of time, place, cause, effect, before, after, and so on, as such are 'distinction concepts'. It is the ultimate 'I AM' - it 'just' exists, from eternity.

If there is such a 'distinction-less existence' underlying the finite, then an interesting conclusion arises. The fact that we are here would imply that this 'distinction-less infinite' is a mind. Otherwise, why would distinction-less existence ever give rise to existence with distinctions, if there was no mind involved anywhere? Because distinction-less existence is so totally unlike existence with distinctions, it makes no sense that it distinction-ful existence would emerge 'naturally' as a natural part of distinction-less existence.

Does this idea of the infinite fit with the Bible? It might. Suppose that the Christian God is this infinite, and that through being infinite God has all the qualities that the Bible gives Him in a way that finite reasoning cannot grasp. Suppose that in a way finite reasoning cannot understand, distinction-less existence has a mind, free will, love, and is a trinity of one person who is three persons. I think it's OK that we don't understand it, because finite reasoning seems very unlike whatever is going on in 'distinction-less existence'. This could be an interesting way of looking at God. But it's important to remember it's just speculation.

A discussion on whether being infinite = God not needing a beginning, and not being complex

A lot of skeptics would argue that if the universe needs an explanation for its existence, then God needs an explanation as well. Moreover, God sounds a lot more complicated than the universe, so how did we end up with such a complex God?

From a discussion... other person is in [] brackets

I think one helpful way of thinking about this issue hinges on whether God is infinite. We know that in the finite 'world', any kind of thinking or computing requires a lot of complexity. From a calculator to a human brain, finite intelligence needs to be pretty complex to do stuff. The key is whether 'infinity' brings a whole other group of considerations into play. So for example, infinite stuff doesn't behave like finite stuff. Infinity plus infinity plus infinity equals infinity, but 1 + 1 + 1 = 3. Georg Cantor thought that there might be an 'absolute infinite', a kind of existence without distinctions (like 1, -1, 2, -2, 3, -3) that somehow contained every possibility in its being in an absolute unity. A personification of that reality - God - would be 'everlasting to everlasting' and would know everything without being complex.

[But why can't infinity be complex? If the universe was infinitely old, for example.]

If the universe was infinite in the sense of being infinitely old then it would be infinite and complex. There would be an infinite number of things that have happened in the past. This is one kind of infinite, and seems to create a lot of paradoxes. When we try to imagine an infinite that is built out of finite things then it is a lot like trying to imagine the highest number. It's arguable we can't really imagine it.

Another idea of the infinite tries to treat the infinite as a completely different sort of number or (if you talk about 'infinite reality') plane of existence. In the second approach, by saying that the infinite is fundamentally different to the finite, it does sort of make sense without some of the difficulties of the first approach. The second sort of infinite might help God 'escape' the complexity problem, by making it so that we can't talk about complexity in the usual way there.

The latter kind of infinite is based on a logic that contradicts finite logic (e.g. 1 + 1 = 2) but which makes sense within its own 'world'. So it's a development of an alternative logic that makes sense but which is not like finite logic. For example, the members of a 'proper subset' of an infinite set is as large as the whole set altogether, whereas the members of a subset of a finite set cannot be as large as the whole set, because it is just a subset. So while this criticism applies to the first sort of infinity, it may not apply to the second.

[1 + 1 + 1 = 3 no matter where you are.]

Well, no matter what universe you're in, 1 + 1 + 1 always equals 3. No matter the environment. But if infinity actually exists (and isn't just an idea in people's heads) then in 'infinite reality' 1 + 1 + 1 = 1. Infinity plus infinity plus infinity equals infinity. So assuming the reality of infinity, there can be some very strange stuff going on mathematically.

[Mathematically, perhaps, but not physically.]

But if there is really a God then infinity is not an idea in people's heads but is 'out there'. Infinity could not be contained in a trillion multiverses. It would exist, but would be 'too much' to be contained in physical reality. We could not know it through finite reason except in the most general way.

[God would still need a beginning or explanation for His existence, just like the universe.]

It's always strange to finite reason for something to always exist because finite reason starts at '0' and goes upwards forever (1, 2, 3, 4, etc), from the starting point of nothing. But maybe the infinite 'starts' at the infinite ∞ and never changes, so to God maybe it is puzzling that humans ask why there would need to be a starting point for everything.

[How can God just 'be'?]

If God personifies this infinite world then He is something like a 'distinction-less unity' that encompasses everything, but somehow in a way that doesn't entail differences/distinctions within what He is encompassing. A person like this is 'everlasting to everlasting' because there are no 'distinctions' like 1, 2, A, B, cause, effect, time, in God (or 'infinite reality') that would allow us to talk about a 'beginning' to Him.

(Picture expressing this idea below, click to enlarge)

Discussion on what it means to say an 'infinite God'

I had a discussion on a forum on the idea that infinity = existence without distinctions (as opposed to with distinctions) and whether that's the kind of person that God is. I thought I'd collect the points together in case people are interested in some depth in one promising account of what 'infinite God' means (link to discussion). A summary of the other person's point is in [brackets]. My opening arguments:

1. Take a plain of grass that's infinitely wide and infinitely long. With respect to horizontal location, you cannot find your place on it because it goes on forever in every direction. That distinction has been lost. Maybe the infinite involves the loss of every distinction in a similar way?
2. We can imagine numbers going up and up forever to infinity, but not reaching infinity. For there to be an absolute infinity there must be some kind of radical 'break' with the potentially infinite. But where can we find such a break? Perhaps from an 'existence without distinctions', which contains every possible number 'distinction-lessly'.
3. It explains the infinity + infinity = infinity intuition that we have (you can only get one infinite). If infinity is distinction-less, then you cannot separate a part of infinity from another part, or make another infinity, because there are no distinctions between anything.
4. This theory of infinity could explain how an apparently complicated God is really simple. If God personifies a world without any distinctions, then God must be the simplest thing possible. A leap of faith can let you believe that this entails a conscious, three-in-one God.
5. Explains why there can only be one God - Deu 6:4 (from points 3 and 4).

Thoughts?

1. Take a plain of grass that's infinitely wide and infinitely long. With respect to horizontal location, you cannot find your place on it because it goes on forever in every direction. That distinction has been lost. Maybe the infinite involves the loss of every distinction in a similar way?

[Someone posted: what about Cartesian coordinate systems (wikilink). They could solve this problem.]

I think I know what you mean. Let's say you put a wooden pole into the grass at some random location, then you could tell where you were by looking over your shoulder (let's say) at the pole in the ground. But isn't it interesting that you can only locate yourself because you've created distinctions in the plain of grass, i.e. you've made your area of interest/concern a finite area. If you don't put down the wooden pole (e.g.) then you're lost and there's no way of distinguishing your position from any other. So I would submit that in terms of showing that infinity takes away distinctions it still works as an example, although maybe a better one can be found.

[But you could distinguish where you are from the different blades of grass. And also, this example doesn't work because no plane (of grass or anything else) can be infinite.]

Instead of saying a plain of grass imagine that it's an empty, grey plane, like in a computer program. You can have horizontal locating coordinates if you mark your location in the plane, which is essentially creating a finite space within the infinity. But if you deal with the whole infinity then you've lost SOME information compared to a finite plane. You've lost the ability to say something like 'This plane is 5x5 metres' which you could do if the plane was finite. So on the basis of the fact you've lost information I think that the example does show infinity tends to take away distinctions.

Here's a graphic I made on this (below, click to enlarge):



[Explain the graphic.]

I guess the way God created distinctions out of distinction-less existence is something like placing a pole down in an grey plane that goes on forever in every direction. When you place the pole you've created a finite area within an infinity, and you can then do all the stuff included in human ideas (which are finite). So let's say there's this distinction-less reality, and suddenly God says 'Hey I'm going to allow for the concept of differences between stuff', and then suddenly God has a mathematical toolbox to make the laws of the universe based on finite numbers.

[So what's my argument?]

If there's a tree that's ∞ metres high, then you have a tree but no specific information about what height, because there is no such distinction. But if you have a tree with a finite height, then you have a tree and specific information about the height, which is a distinction. So by analogy, if you carry this process on as the core aspect of infinity, then infinity is distinction-less existence which distinction-lessly contains every possible distinction.

A 30 metre high X has more distinctions as a concept than an ∞ metre high X, because an ∞ metre high X 'holds off' putting a distinction like a specific height as yet (to use anthropomorphic language) for the sake of distinction-lessly containing every possible distinction in that concept.

2. We can imagine numbers going up and up forever to infinity, but not reaching infinity. For there to be an absolute infinity there must be some kind of radical 'break' with the potentially infinite. But where can we find such a break? Perhaps from an 'existence without distinctions', which contains every possible number 'distinction-lessly'.

[What's the difference between potential and actual infinity in this view? There is no difference in contemporary mathematics. Infinity means that you never stop counting.]

This is from the wiki on potential and actual infinity:

Aristotle also distinguished between actual and potential infinities. An actual infinity is something which is completed and definite and consists of infinitely many elements, and according to Aristotle, a paradoxical idea, both in theory and in nature. In respect to addition, a potentially infinite sequence or a series is potentially endless; being a potentially endless series means that one element can always be added to the series after another, and this process of adding elements is never exhausted.

[But ideas have advanced since Aristotle. Actual and potential infinities are now regarded as the same thing.]

3. It explains the infinity + infinity = infinity intuition that we have (you can only get one infinite). If infinity is distinction-less, then you cannot separate a part of infinity from another part, or make another infinity, because there are no distinctions between anything.

[Comment about Cantor's multiple infinities. Cantor the mathematician basically showed that there are an infinite number of infinities. Wikilink.]

Maybe there's appearance and there's a reality behind the appearance that we can't get at. Because of finite reasoning, the appearance will be of multiple infinities, no matter what. But behind the appearance there is a reality of only one distinction-less infinity. You've probably seen this approach elsewhere, it's a Kantian way of answering questions. This argument is circular in terms of establishing the infinity is distinction-less to someone else but internally it would make sense of the multiple infinity thing.

[How do you know this?]

I guess one argument that there's really only one infinity if mathematics shows otherwise, is that when you ask the average person (I remember this from a podcast) almost everyone has an opinion of infinity even though most of them wouldn't know many concepts from 'finite' mathematics. And intuitively we feel that there can't be more than one infinity. I think it's possible that the concept of infinity in our minds is an unconscious concept of distinction-less existence, which everyone has without needing to define it. But then again, if you look at infinity mathematically it appears as though there are lots.

One reason I like it is that a person who 'personifies' distinction-less existence - if that's possible - is truly eternal. That person could be seen as infinitely old - the first and the last. You can't ask where He/She/It came from. He/She/It simply is. That's an attractive concept for God it seems to me.

[But intuition is often wrong; like in the Monty Hall problem. It seems this theory is just speculation.]

The main problem with the idea seems to be that modern mathematics supports the idea of multiple infinities. To get around that, one needs to adopt a Kantian way out, but that is ultimately not going to be convincing to someone who doesn't agree initially.

I guess at the end of the day this is an interesting idea of infinity, that MIGHT be true, and it certainly works well with ideas about God, but in the end is simply not provable. Considering how hard it is to define actual infinity in a philosophical sense, this may not be so bad for the idea, since it is a hard thing to get one's head around, but it can go no further than interesting conjecture.

[Then that's all it can be.]

[Another point: also, the idea of God being distinction-less existence is like saying that God is a square circle. It's logically impossible.]

How so? If you're referring to the difference between distinction-less existence and the concept of a person/consciousness, in the sense that 'Why would such an existence be a godlike person' then that has a decent answer.

The way humans think is in terms of distinctions, so we work out 1+1=2 through distinctions, and the difference between smart and dumb is how many distinctions someone can order in the best way. But if you try to use that kind of distinction-ful reasoning to understand the distinction-less (excepting what I've said above because it's so general) then that's like putting a piece of paper through paper shredder and then trying to read the resulting mess. Distinction-ful reasoning has almost no power to understand the distinction-less, which is why we can't see that a) distinction-less existence is conscious, b) love, and c) a three-in-one God.

That's why we need to relate to God as a person rather than as an intellectual idea.

[I mean in the sense of distinction-less existence being logically impossible.]

Well, maybe I would define it in the sense that e.g. Cantor seemed to believe in an absolute infinite that was God, that 'transcended the transfinite numbers'. However, since I don't know the details I can't really say in what sense this was held as an idea of God/infinity. Cantor did say that the absolute infinite was a distinction-less unity (link). Even to Cantor it was kind of a mystical idea that resolved the paradoxes of infinity in God.

Unfortunately, the fact there appears to be multiple infinities does present an obstacle to this - maybe the Kantian way out works for that...

[Where does Cantor say this?]

It's not directly referred to but I think it's implied in the first one: "it is the single, completely individual unity in which everything is included, which includes the Absolute, incomprehensible to the human understanding."

Also I think we're talking about two different meanings of the word illogical.

2+2=5 is illogical because according to the rules of 'finite existence', 2+2 has to equal 4 by definition.

The absolute infinite is illogical according to the rules of finite existence as well. But this is the difference: the absolute infinite is not in finite space in any way. It's in infinite space. So such illogical aspects do not count against its truth and existence, as it's not in 'finite space', like they do with 2+2=5, which does exist in 'finite space'.

I think the same way about the trinity. If the trinity was in finite space then 3 persons = 1 person would count against its truth. But because it's in infinite space - in the infinite reality of God - then 3 persons = 1 person doesn't count against its truth because stuff might work differently there.

A discussion on free will and the infinite - how does the infinite possess free will?

[What's the difference between saying God is infinite and indefinite?]

From my perspective, I guess one could call distinction-less existence an 'actual indefinite' in that it loses all manner of distinctions/differentiations between and within anything, which is very indefinite. Not sure whether 'indefinite' implies anything more/different though.

I think free will could also go with the idea of the 'indefinite'. The indefinite world is not determined, so free will begins with God and then is granted to humans in a way that finite reasoning can't understand (because the finite by definition is precisely defined and can only act within its predetermined boundaries).

[But does this imply that God = everything and everything = God, if God is indefinite?]

I think God contains all possible distinctions in His being, but I would say that this 'containing' is done 'distinction-lessly', as opposed to God holding lots of individual items in His being. An analogy might be that a container full of chocolates is a 'distinction-ful' containing in that there are lots of individual chocolates in the container. But I think that when God (the distinction-less) contains everything, it's not like the lots of individual chocolates (e.g.). God somehow contains everything in a way that makes it contain 'distinction-lessly', while also having the potential to become separate.

Do humans get the image of God through Jesus?

Some speculation on Jesus being the image of God versus humans being in the image of God...

For Christ:

Colossians 1:15-16: "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him."

Colossians 2:9-10: "For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority."

John 5:26: "For even as the Father has life in himself, so he has given to the Son to have life in himself."

For humans:

Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness"

James 3:9: "With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness."

John 1:4: "In him was life, and that life was the light of men."

John 1:9: "The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world."

The question is: how can humans be made in God's image, since God is infinite and humans are finite?

Another question is: what does it mean to speak of an infinite God? What does 'infinity' in that context mean?

One answer is to say that the infinite is essentially a person, and a unified whole.


(Click to enlarge)

Suppose that the only way that something can be a person is through being infinite. Infinity, and only infinity gives consciousness, love, morality and free will.


(Summary of this view, click to enlarge)

I think what these verses COULD mean is that God incarnated Himself into creation as Jesus, as someone that could have both infinite and finite aspects. The infinite part of Jesus was God, God's soul and therefore personality, and the finite aspect of Jesus was His physical body in the universe (although all finite things are also held together in Jesus - Col 1:17).

I think that the way God made finite creatures in His image is that through Jesus God somehow gives finite humans access to His infinite qualities like personhood etc. Jesus gives 'light' (or 'image-of-Godness') to finite creatures.

So humans take on the 'image of God' through Jesus, through whom every human has access to infinite qualities like personhood, consciousness/mind, love, morality, and free will.

Jesus is the 'door' through which humans are made in God's image.

This explains how we have free will, consciousness, a moral sense that holds us accountable before God's standards, even though we can never explain it. Since our reason is finite. But we're not Gods - Jesus is God and we get these things through our existence in Christ, which people who never come to God will one day lose.

The relationship of God to creation

What is the relationship between God and creation, between the infinite and the finite? Sometimes a picture can be very helpful. The illustration below visualizes finite existence - which includes the universe - 'coming up out of' infinite reality. It also helps to show how infinity could be thought of as 'existence without distinctions' (rather than e.g. an infinite collection of things). Click to see full size:



You could say that infinity and finite existence are like a bookshelf that a book is resting on. Just like the book is completely supported by the bookshelf, so finite existence is supported by infinity. Existence with distinctions is completely dependent on existence without distinctions (see here for a look at this perspective and God).

This view also helps to explain how the universe is NOT God although 'In Him we live and move and have our being' (Acts 17:28) and 'In Him all things consist' (Col 1:17). Finite existence lives 'within' infinite reality (as the picture shows) but is not infinite reality. So panentheism (the idea that the universe is part of God) is wrong even though Acts 17:28 and Col 1:17 sort of make it sound like panentheism is right.

So the relationship between God and creation is the most dependent relationship that you could ever imagine. God not only sustains the universe (Matt 10:29), but also finite existence itself.

Is God responsible for how everything has turned out?

Question: isn't God responsible for how everything has turned out, by choosing to make things in the way that He did?

I think at some point, one has to make an intellectual leap and say that as beings with finite reasoning, our reasoning is on the 'wrong level' to understand the infinity of God effectively, which also includes the image-of-God in humans. This frees us from having to work out in-depth how something like free will could work, which might come from something Godlike (infinite) that human brains make use of (Ecc 3:11; John 10:34-36).

So I don't think that Christians can be expected to explain how a) God could predict something without narrowing everything down to only one possible outcome, and, b) how we could possess a 'thing' called free will where multiple outcomes were possible, although only one outcome in fact occurred (which is part of our intuitive grasp of the concept of free will).

This means that we can trust from our feeling that we have free will, that although God knew what would happen by creating the world, the fact that there is evil in the world is our responsibility.

Objective morality: God is love, mind is love, consciousness is love

It's often said that morality is only 'objective' if there's a God. But what is that supposed to mean? How is morality any more 'objective' if a God exists? I think the following situation would make morality objective in a very significant way, if it was true:

Imagine that just like being physical is part of our concept of 'a stone,' so loving and rejoicing in doing the right thing is part of what it means to be a 'mind' or 'conscious.' Love and goodness is to consciousness what being physical, or existing in the universe, is to a rock. Mind/consciousness is a kind of substance or thing that follows different rules to physical stuff. One of these aspects of mind, different to rocks, is loving and being good. So mind is love.

But humans have minds, so why aren't we completely loving? Because our mind is localised in (based off) a brain, and the brain isn't 'love.' Our mind pulls us in the direction of loving others unconditionally. But our brain isn't love, and so we have a source of thinking that isn't love. This ends up 'pulling' us into thinking thoughts that aren't loving. Our mind gives us the free will to follow either side. This means that humans have to fight our (non-mind) brain to love in accordance with mind, whereas mind by itself is so loving that it IS love (God is love). (Read more about this dualistic assumption here.)

The question is: why did God make us brain-Minds instead of 'Mind' by itself? Couldn't God have taken away the possibility of evil? The answer is that to be pure mind you basically have to be God, I think. So the above setup (which makes sin very likely) needs to be the case.

What is consciousness, how does it work, and why does it love?

...Some metaphysical speculations...

Where does consciousness come from?

You could theorise that it comes from a kind of existence where 'reality experiences itself' rather than 'reality describes what exists'.

What does that mean? Well, when you're conscious you experience very vivid sensations in your mind; the redness of a car, the sound of birds chirping, and so on. Your brain isn't just saying 'OK there's a red car, there's some sounds' and so on, it actually makes you feel the sensations that it is processing. The processing circuitry of the brain doesn't just describe, it also experiences. Experiencing versus describing is what I mean by 'reality experiences itself' versus 'reality describes what exists'.

Another way of putting it is that the brain could theoretically just describe redness (like in a computer program) and never 'feel' redness in the Mind's eye, but it does. This is kind of like reality itself experiences red, rather than merely describes red in the equivalent of a lot of 1's and 0's.

From where comes this 'reality experiences itself' kind of existence that could be thought of as consciousness?

We normally think of the universe as having a solely 'descriptive' kind of existence. The physical laws of the universe describe the universe down to a tee. If you knew the mathematical laws governing the universe, then you would know (effectively) everything about the universe. If the universe is merely a description of some information about laws, then that doesn't seem to leave much room for a 'reality experiences itself' kind of existence.

What's more, almost every kind of reality that we can imagine seems to be missing that special quality that would make a 'reality experiences itself' kind of existence something that you could predict from it.

I think that one needs to use another idea of reality to answer this, radically different to our universe, where it is easy to draw such a connection.

One feature of every world that we can comprehend is that it is always filled with distinctions. Distinctions between various heights, sizes, lengths, dimensions, wavelengths, etc.

Is it possible that there is a mode of reality where there is existence with no possibility of distinctions? A distinction-less, 'undifferentiated unity of everything'?


(An illustration of this kind of reality above, click to enlarge)

I believe this is what 'infinity' symbolises. A mode of being without distinctions encompassing the ALL, the everything. See my argument for this view here, and here[2].

I think that the 'reality experiences itself' kind of existence probably comes from the world without distinctions, the 'undifferentiated unity of everything', the being of God. This is a reality which grounds all possible things in its being, it is the 'being itself' of theologians. This distinction-less unity experiences being reality itself.

This may allow one to argue for a 'reality experiences itself' mode of existence to do with God. But surely, human consciousness is pretty far from the distinction-less, infinite 'ALL' that encompasses everything...

Ah, but you could think of it like this: human consciousness results from a 'blend' of the undifferentiated unity with our brains. The uniting of the distinction-less world and a human brain creates qualia (consciousness) as the 'cherry on the top' of the cake of the brain.


(Picture of mind versus matter above, click to enlarge)

So God's consciousness is an 'undifferentiated unity of everything that experiences being reality itself', and He localises this consciousness within our brain, creating an 'undifferentiated unity that experiences being reality itself when it comes to our brain'. That is, humans have access to an 'reality experiencing itself' mode of existence that applies only to our brain. This makes intuitive sense - we feel our consciousness as a single whole containing everything we are, coming up out of our brain.

God's gift to us is that He allows the brain to access His world. This makes us conscious because we access the 'reality experiences itself' mode of existence that God has (confined to our brain).


(Picture of this process above, click to enlarge)

So to sum up,
a) consciousness comes from infinity, properly conceived as distinction-less existence,
b) we are conscious because God 'localises' distinction-less infinity within our brain. This allows our brain to access distinction-less existence applying to the area of our brain.

But why is God (the infinite 'undifferentiated unity') love? (1 John 4:8)

A = A in our world. The chair a person is sitting on is/equals a chair.

That's the law of identity, the most fundamental law of logic.

Is there an 'A = A' for a world without distinctions, the world of undifferentiated unity?

I think it is love. An active, conscious identification with what exists as opposed to things just passively existing. It is love rather than a mere 'identifies with what exists', because the 'identifies with' is conscious. To put it in a rather abstract way, a conscious 'identifies with' must be love rather than a mere 'A = A'.

How does God sustain the universe?

The Bible says that God sustains our world intimately:

Colossians 1:16-17 "For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together."

Acts 17:28: "'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'"

What is a good way of thinking about this? (picture below, click to enlarge)


I think a good way of visualising God sustaining the universe is this: imagine a circle with a dot in the middle. Now imagine lots of lines going out from the middle of the circle to every point of the circle. You'll need an infinite number of lines to make a connection to *every* point of the circle, or when you zoom in enough (eventually) there will be gaps. So you need an infinite number of lines to make a 'fully connected circle'. Now, take one line out of this infinite number of lines and extend it out from the circle, and you have what you could call a single 'finity' out of an infinity. This is like finite existence out of the infinity that is God.

So God is literally everywhere, and sustains everything, because that 'finity' (that line in the circle) is sustained by living inside the whole circle. In a similar way, between my two hands there is an infinity of possible points, between New York and Los Angeles there is an infinity of possible points, between everything there is an infinity. Between 1 and 2 there is an infinity from 1.000...1 to 1.999...9. Infinity is literally everywhere. This is God being the infinite 'glue' that holds all of creation together, this finite existence being dependent upon His infinite existence. So God holds our world, the universe, everything together as a single finity out of His infinite being.

This is the most dependent relationship, of the universe on God, that you could ever imagine. It includes and goes far beyond God merely holding all the atoms together; He 'glues' (or holds) finite existence itself together.

Podcast: The theology of an infinite God

Podcast Notes:

-It's often said that we can never understand God using our intellect. Why is this? Is it because God is infinite? But what does that mean? This podcast discusses the nature of God as an actual infinity. This kind of discussion can help to explain why our limited reason is on the 'wrong level' needed to fully understand God.

Title: Theology of an infinite God (OR: 'Why we can't ever intellectually understand God')
Time: 20:32 minutes
Size: 9.4 MB mp3

Direct link to the audio file (Right click and 'Save As')
Link to the audio file page

A couple of important clarifications:

-I should note that I'm not saying there's no difference between good and evil with this distinction-less idea. Evil comes from 'messing up' the A = A (love) of the infinite world, which can't happen to God because He's consistently infinite in every respect (so there is no evil in God). But we do evil because we're not all-infinite and so can be tempted to make mistakes. There's also a difference between anger and love in God, but only when viewed through finite reasoning. Both God's anger and love are part of a single whole that is His personality, but this is divided into sections with our finite reasoning.
-Also, on the trinity, there really are three distinct persons in distinctionless existence who are also one person. This is a mystery to finite reasoning - maybe it comes out of distinctionless existence being conscious and loving in some way? It's a mysterious attribute of fully infinite persons. These ideas shouldn't be taken to go against the trinity.

Further reading:

-Article on which this podcast is based.
-A longer version of the above.
-The theology talked about in this podcast transcribed into a few pictures.
-My theology in 60 seconds.
-What is a soul? (longer article).

Why we can't ever intellectually understand God

Podcast of this article. Longer version.



(Picture of the relationship between God and the finite above, click to enlarge)

1: What kind of thing is God compared to e.g. a chair?

Saying that God is infinite raises a lot of questions. What does that even mean? What is an infinite object like compared to a finite object, like e.g. a chair? We may understand what an infinitely long line would be like, but what is an infinite object like?

I think the answer is that the core difference between infinity and finite existence is that infinity doesn't allow for a concept of distinctions. For example, if you had an infinitely long and wide plain of grass then you could not find your location on it, since every place has the same attributes as every other place. So infinity tends to take away distinctions.

That's how actual infinity I think 'reaches' infinity, because it comes from a world where there aren't any distinctions at all, and within this distinction-less existence somehow every possible distinction exists, 'distinction-lessly'. That's basically what kind of object God is: a distinction-less object. It's how God knows everything; within His distinction-less existence every possible distinction is contained in a way that allows Him to look at every possible distinction (∞) all at once.

That's why finite reasoning is limited. Since there are an infinite number of possible distinctions between things (e.g. various numbers, sizes, dimensions...) you need the vantage point provided by the 'distinction-less' world to know everything. Or you will always have more possible distinctions to think about.

2: Why this means we can't ever intellectually understand God

This explains why our intellectual (but not necessarily emotional) understanding of God is always messed up: our reason *always* tries to introduce distinctions everywhere it goes, but when it comes to God this simply isn't reflective of reality. And there's just no alternative way of looking at our creator without tying our reasoning in knots. In other words, we can't understand distinction-less existence, and yet we must to understand God.

So, to sum up, we're left with a flawed intellectual understanding of God, or mystery. But we can still know God on an emotional/spiritual/soulful level, which we and God have in common (by that I mean, our soul is somehow like God in the sense that it's made in God's image).

3: A few important clarifications on God being love, a person and a trinity

I want to point out that this seems like a strange idea of God, very far from the loving father of Christianity. The Bible says that God is love. How is the God that I've described love?

I think we need to remember that something being simple in finite terms is very different from the kind of judgements anyone can make about the infinite, the reasons for which I've partly covered. In finite terms, something is simple if there's just 'one' of them, so 'one' is a simple, easy to understand number. In finite terms, the idea of God I've just described is a very 'simple' idea of an ultimate reality, because there's just 'one', it's easily defined and so on.

Finite simplicity argues against the Christian God. But finite simplicity has no connection to the kind of judgements you can make about the infinite, because the infinite is an entirely different kind of thing. So actually, what's simple when it comes to the infinite may be complicated to the finite. I think that the trinity, God being a person, and love coming from God, are such issues.

Somehow, for some reason, the infinite is three persons in one person, which are both three and one at the same time. Finite reasoning has just been thrown out the window, but that's OK, because this is on a different 'level' of reality. Distinction-less existence in other words, is a person, a trinity, and love, in a way that seems really complicated to finite reasoning but which actually isn't. God is the simplest kind of thing you could imagine, but from an infinite perspective rather than a finite perspective, which pretty much makes no sense to finite reasoning but oh well. We shouldn't expect it to.

Podcast: Do Christians give up thinking?

Podcast Notes:

-Do Christians give up thinking? When you become a Christian, does that mean that you lose the use of your reasoning? Why does Christianity have such an emphasis on action rather than reasoning?

Title: Do Christians give up thinking?
Time: 15:29 minutes
Size: 7.1 MB mp3

Direct link to the audio file (Right click and 'Save As')
Link to the audio file page

Further reading:

-What was I referring to when I talked about souls being infinite? And humans being partly infinite and partly finite?
-A look at 'active' versus 'passive' thinking on the issue of objective morality.
-Where does love come from, the most primary emotion in theology?
-What is a soul?
-Why is God good?

The way infinite God theology works

1. Find a way to place the answers to theological and philosophical questions outside of what humans can ever know.
2. Explain why God didn't do a better job of making it possible for us to know the answers.
3. Doing number 1 is easy. The question is, how does one explain why God didn't make it possible for us to know the answers? He's all-powerful after all. You can use the 'possessiveness' of infinity (∞ + ∞ = ∞) to explain this. We had to be partly infinite, because only God can be completely infinite (only one infinity allowed), and the answer to these questions lies on 'infinite level' reasoning which partly infinite beings can't have. So our reasoning is on the wrong 'level' to understand the answers. And because we have an infinite soul, many of these answers (e.g. the nature of free will, why we suffer) apply to humans as well as to God.

There remains the question of what sense do we make of an infinite object.

What do I mean when I say that God is an 'actual infinity'? What does that mean?

Podcast of this article.



(Picture of the relationship between God and the finite above, click to enlarge)

One might think that infinity is special because it reaches the 'end' of all numbers, like reaching the 'end' of a circle. But this doesn't explain what an 'actually infinite object' (such as God) would be like...

What kind of qualities does an 'actually infinite' thing have compared to a finite thing?

The most important quality that an 'actually infinite thing' has is that it exists in a world that doesn't allow for the concept of 'distinctions'. Like between 1 and 2, or red and yellow.

How could I ever go about showing such a strange conjecture?

Well you can use a thought experiment to show that infinite things cannot have distinctions.

Take a plain of grass somewhere. If it's finite, then it has an edge and a centre. There are lots of different places on the grass.

What if it's infinite? If you have an infinitely wide and infinitely long plain of grass, then there is no edge and no centre! So if you were on such a plain, then looking around, you could not distinguish your position from any other position on the grass. There is no 'middle' anywhere, no edge, no possible locating coordinates. So being actually infinite, as you can see, starts taking away distinctions... at least when it comes to location and trying to be at the centre of an infinite plain of grass.

Imagine that the plain of grass is turned into a cube, infinitely high, infinitely wide and infinitely long. Suppose you're inside it. Where's the edge? Where's the centre? It goes on forever. You can't distinguish your position from any other position in it in any way. When it comes to location and size, there are no distinctions in any infinite sized objects.

So you can see that objects start to lose their complexity and sense of difference/distinction when they're made infinite.

There are more reasons for believing the 'no distinction' idea. For one thing, there needs to be some kind of 'break' with finite thinking to enable potential infinity (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ad infinitum) to become actual infinity. Otherwise numbers would just keep going up forever without reaching infinity. Actual infinity being 'distinction-less', while 'distinction-lessly containing all possible distinctions', would be a good candidate for such a break.

Also, this idea of no distinctions works well in explaining the '∞ + ∞ = ∞' intuition that we have. Infinity times, plus, or minus infinity still equals infinity... no matter what you do, infinity is always infinity. If infinity doesn't support our ideas regarding distinctions, then you could explain why we don't like messing around with the value of infinity because we subconsciously pick up that there are no distinctions in infinity.

There's also a further theological reason for thinking that there are no distinctions in infinity. There are good reasons for thinking of God as an absolutely simple being, without parts or distinctions to make Him complex. If we think of actual infinity as involving no distinctions, then after a theological leap saying that distinction-less infinity is somehow conscious, we can explain how a complex God is actually simple.

This partly explains why there can only be one God (Isaiah 43:10). If infinity is a distinction-less unity of everything, then you can't make another God because there are no distinctions in infinity that will allow you to make another God. There's nothing there that would allow you to separate, split off, or make a distinction between God and another God.

This also explains why finite reasoning cannot understand the infinite very well. Because infinity has a distinction-less existence, you'd need a distinction-less form of reasoning - that also somehow encompasses everything - to understand God and the soul properly. Otherwise with every step you took, you'd just be creating more and more distinctions in God in your analysis, and that wouldn't reflect how the distinction-less really is.

This hopefully explains what an 'actually infinite object' (like God) is like compared to a 'finite object' (like a table). It's a difference of quality. The actually infinite object allows for no distinctions in any way, and exists in a reality that makes that possible. A finite object both allows for and includes distinctions, and exists in a reality that makes such a situation necessary.

Through this weird quality (no distinctions) God gets to have quantitatively infinite reasoning. All possible distinctions are ultimately contained with the distinction-less, the infinite. If that's true, then God can perceive every number at once by checking what the distinction-less summary of all numbers says, that is contained within Himself. So God can say 'Hm... it looks like every number follows a certain pattern' by simply checking the summary of all numbers contained within the distinction-less, and thus use an 'infinite shortcut' to answer every mathematical problem.

A few important clarifications on God being love, a person and a trinity

I want to point out that this seems like a strange idea of God, very far from the loving father of Christianity. The Bible says that God is love. How is the God that I've described love?

I think we need to remember that something being simple in finite terms is very different from the kind of judgements anyone can make about the infinite, the reasons for which I've partly covered. In finite terms, something is simple if there's just 'one' of them, so 'one' is a simple, easy to understand number. In finite terms, the idea of God I've just described is a very 'simple' idea of an ultimate reality, because there's just 'one', it's easily defined and so on.

Finite simplicity argues against the Christian God. But finite simplicity has no connection to the kind of judgements you can make about the infinite, because the infinite is an entirely different kind of thing. So actually, what's simple when it comes to the infinite may be complicated to the finite. I think that the trinity, God being a person, and love coming from God, are such issues.

Somehow, for some reason, the infinite is three persons in one person, which are both three and one at the same time. Finite reasoning has just been thrown out the window, but that's OK, because this is on a different 'level' of reality. Distinction-less existence in other words, is a person, a trinity, and love, in a way that seems really complicated to finite reasoning but which actually isn't. God is the simplest kind of thing you could imagine, but from an infinite perspective rather than a finite perspective, which pretty much makes no sense to finite reasoning but oh well. We shouldn't expect it to.

Podcast: What is free will?

Podcast Notes:

-Podcast on the nature of free will. Do we have libertarian free will? What kind of freedom is it? Why can't we understand it very well?

Title: What is free will?
Time: 21:29 minutes
Size: 9.8 MB mp3

Direct link to the audio file (Right click and 'Save As')
Link to the audio file page

Further reading:

-How are things in the infinite world different to things in the finite world?
-A short article on free will.
-A longer version of the above, which includes several other topics.
-A long article on free will that uses the ideas in the above articles to respond to four objections to free will and God's existence: 1) Doesn't omniscience contradict free will? 2) Isn't the way things have turned out God's responsibility? 3) Why didn't God only make people who will go to heaven? 4) Isn't free will's handling of probability incoherent?

Infinity and divine simplicity

1, 2, 3 are different numbers, used to make distinctions between things. It's because we have a concept of '1' that we can distinguish one parrot from no parrots, and '3' that we can distinguish 'three' persons from 'one' person.

But what if you had a kind of number that didn't fit in with this pattern of distinctions (1, 2, 3 and so on)? That is basically what infinity is - a different *kind* of number compared to finite numbers because of its infinitude. You might think that ∞ is just a really high number, a number like e.g. '8', but infinitely higher. But infinity can't be something like '8' otherwise it couldn't be actually infinite. For example, try adding zeroes on to the end of the highest number you can think of and see whether it ever reaches infinity. The lack of distinctions is what enables infinity to 'reach' infinity, because as soon as you introduce '1, 2, 3...' then everything breaks down into finitude and you can never reach infinity.

To put it another way, there must be something about infinity that prevents you from taking away or adding to it (infinity + infinity = infinity in a manner of speaking). How so? The reason is that infinity doesn't allow for our ideas regarding distinctions, so you can't get e.g. lots of infinities by adding them to each other.


(Picture of infinity compared to the finite above, click to enlarge)

If God was like a human, then God couldn't be simple. I have two arms, so obviously I can't be absolutely simple. I have different thoughts, so mentally I can't be absolutely simple. But I'm a finite human, and finiteness always contains distinctions (1, 2, 3...)

But if God is an infinite kind of person, then He's a personification of a world where there aren't any distinctions. There can't be a '1' of anything in God, nor a '3', nor an '8', because distinctions belong to finite concepts. Ergo, God is absolutely simple.

This also refutes Richard Dawkins' complexity argument against a designer. If infinity is absolutely simple (without internal distinctions) then God - as a personification of infinity - can't be said to be complex in any way. Dawkins' argument then falls apart.

Link to a great lecture on the nature of infinity.

Free Will (Short Version)

Podcast of this article.

What is free will?

I'd say that none of our attempts to define free will 'feel' right. If we say that our actions are caused then we should blame the laws of physics when someone does something wrong. On the other hand, if we say that our actions are *not* caused then it sounds like they happen randomly, because the only alternative to stuff being caused that we can imagine is randomness. That would make doing the right thing a matter of chance.

I think that a good solution involves imagining two 'worlds' out there: a finite world and an infinite world.

Humans see the finite world. In the finite world, everything is a matter of cause and effect. In the finite world A causes B, which causes C, which causes D, and so on. People are determined in the finite world.


(Click to enlarge)

In the infinite world people are not determined, but that doesn't mean that they act randomly. The concepts of 'causation' and 'randomness' don't apply in the infinite world. It's a whole different 'ball game', where everything, including causality, is totally different. God lives in the infinite world, because God is infinite. Free will comes from the infinite world, and that's the only place where it can exist.


(Click to enlarge)

This situation explains why humans can't understand free will. We can't understand free will because it's very hard to use finite reasoning to understand the infinite.

OK, that might explain how free will can exist even though we don't understand it, but doesn't this mean that only God has free will? After all, only God is infinite. Or am I saying that humans are infinite? But that would put us on God's level.

My view is that humans are partly infinite and partly finite. Only God can be fully infinite, because God 'encompasses all possible infinities' in his being. That's why God can't make another God. But you can go 'halfway'. That is, God can make people partly infinite without making another God.


(Click to enlarge)

Our soul is infinite, and we get our free will, consciousness, and a moral sense from our soul. But everything else about us *has* to be finite, including our reasoning and knowledge.

This is how I see free will 'working': our physical bodies and soul together make up our personality - through God's power the finite is connected to the infinite. We make choices through our soul, and through our bodies we get something to express our choices with, as well as reasoning and knowledge. God makes our choices in the infinite world shape the makeup, structure and functioning of our brain. This is the side of us that science sees: humans as deterministic, self-aware biological machines (we cannot see our infinite selves).

So free will can make sense, if you say that there's a mysterious 'infinite world' where there can be free will in a way that we can't understand. We get to have this freedom because God made us partly infinite, even though we can't understand it. This is a dualism of the infinite and the finite, rather than soul and matter.

Further reading: what is stuff in the infinite world like compared to the finite world?