A Short Philosophy
Allow me to say that, this is, in no way, an attempt to disprove God (for I believe such a thing is impossible). It is, in no way, stating that God came into existence when man did. It is, in no way, saying anything about God; rather, saying something about the common depiction God by men to other men and themselves. It is an attempt to show that man cannot truly understand or quantify God, and that even the widley accepted descriptions and phrases used to do so defeat themselves when actually applied to any concept of infinity.
The word omnipotent, along with omnipresent and all knowing bring me to the actual point; the inability of concepts, words and descriptions created by man to describe, fathom, perceive and, otherwise, quantify God. What is constantly perpetuated, instead, is a man with infinite power rather than a God. A man who, in heaven, sits on a throne and commands things. A man who ponders on if he should create an unliftable rock or not. A man who knows everything. Man is readily able to describe another man with concepts that man has created, though, language is not capable of describing God, or anything dealing with the concept of infinity.
Let us take the phrase all knowing for how it is applied to God. The defenition is quite self explained, no? Knowing all. There is nothing that an all knowing being does not know. In order, though, for the man-made concept of knowing to exist, there must be a concept of not knowing something, for knowing is the absense of not knowing and vise versa (along the philosophy that there is no life without death, no black without white, etc.).
Now, taking this into consideration, taking into thought the necessity of any one of man’s abstract concepts to require an equal opposing force to be described and understood, I’ll attempt to reveal a paradox in the application of the phrase all knowing to God:
At one point, God was the only being in existence. There was nothing else but God, nothing at all. Now, God was all knowing. It knew everything that there was to know, but, how could God be all knowing if there was nothing to not know? If there was not yet an opposing force to quantify and define knowledge?
This philosophy can also be applied to both the concepts of omnipotent and omnipresent.
3 comments
This is up there with the thought of the universe’s finite or infiniteness. The concept of the universe ever expanding and not having some sort of boundaries is as big of a conundrum as the concept that the universe ends at some point and then what the heck is where the universe isn’t? Is it nothing? how can there be nothing? How can something not go on and yet not have an end? *brain cramp*
The paradox with God being all knowing lies in the thought God was the only being…or in the concept that God is a “being”. If we add in a balance…like light/dark…life/death…God being all knowing…then there must be an equal opposite…a being who knows nothing. If God is omniscient and ubiquitous…there must be a being who is unknowing and no where…or just not everywhere. Or…God is a little less a being and more of an energy…a balance…and everything is intertwined due to everything being a part of the energy. If God is the whole and we are the parts…and all of our knowledge and experience combine to add to the whole…and time is not linear and parallel universes exist…then the whole could be aware of all of the possiblilities of everything…because everything is connected. or “The random interconnectedness of all things” as Dirk Gently might say.
The issue is definitely when man tries to adorn “God” with human traits. When we try to understand and quantify God at least within the boundaries of religion and our own experiences I think that we give God too much credit and yet not enough.
The concept of God being all knowing…is up there with the Pope being infallible. The church only in recent history decreed that the pope was infallible…in 1870 at the First Vatican council.
I think at some point people became scared of the idea that maybe God was just as messed up as we were…that maybe even God didn’t have all the answers. Previous religions focused on pantheons…where a plethora of God’s and Goddess’ held specific knowledge and purposes. Catholicism adopted that over to the Saints…but I digress…the point that people wanted to just put their faith into one thing and not have to worry…God is omniscient…God has always been here…and God can just take care of everything. I don’t want to know how many different kinds of ham you have…just give me “THE HAM!” I don’t care if it doesn’t make sense…it’s religion.
The idea of being able to know God or being completely unable to ever know god by human standards is an age old debate that the Gnostics and Agnostics have faught over for centuries.
My personal views are that the issue lies in looking at “God” through religion…because religion places boundaries and filters to attempt to understand God. Somewhere between science, bits and pieces of beliefs…and personal experience lies some semblance of an idea of what might be.
Ok…done rambling lol…My thoughts on the subject are rarely ever as organized and well put as yours. You have a superb talent for taking a thought and writing an extrodinary piece in a very intelligent manner. I sort of just blabber heh…at least in my comments. Good blog!
It’s mathmatically impossible to quantify something that is Infinite. So why do humans do it? GOD put the laws of mathmatics in place for us to understand his work and also GOD shows that you cannot use his works to calculate him, at least in a mathmatical sense. But I can say I did learn alot from reading relgious doctrine and they do hold truth in them that is observable and testable by the laws of nature. I believe once you understand that you cannot quantify GOD you are a free minded individual from the persuasions of this world. The next step would be is to find your purpose in life and use it to better the world we live in so the un-born generations can explore and possible unravel mysteries that we have left un-solved.
I like your post becauuse even though it’s simple, it took me almost thirty years to finally come to the conclusion that you cannot quantify something that is infinite and their is no one way to know who GOD the CREATOR is.
god is something thats not supposed to be fully understood. if we knew what god knew…. this world would have gone mad a long time ago. its the concept of not knowing but believing. sure, we dont understand what god is and how he works, but do we believe what the word says anyway? to believe is the key. you must have a receptive heart =]
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