Saturday, May 7, 2011
God as parallel lines
I am curious what people think about this analogy. He isn't saying he believes in god in any monotheistic way. He agrees there is a higher power governing reality (basically math, laws of physics, logic, universal ethics - platonic forms essentially). In fact, from a Christian point of view he is most definitely an atheist, because he is in no way defining god as an intelligent being. He has a respect for concepts we cannot construct in reality, but concepts we somehow know of. Without these ideas which seem self-evident, we would not be able to reason and understand experience. If we could not reason about parallel lines or perfect circles, we could go no further in our understanding of the physical world. He's saying he believes in the higher power of "truth" in that there is objective universal truths directing all things, and these truths are often reasoned about, and yet are unseen and deduced from reflection upon our experience. Although the world is often chaotic and random, there is a kind of order behind it. We find comfort and understanding because of this. It allows communication and also mystery. There are mathematical laws, causal and physical laws, and all the beauty of nature. So in a way, he is talking about platonic forms as "god," and how there is a structure unseen that holds a kind of romantic order and unity to the world.
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2 comments:
The primacy of the abstract (the logical abstract) is an interesting topic. 1+1 will always equal 2, and the weird thing is that we never needed to exist for that to hold true.
I use it as an argument against those who believe god defines logic- god cannot define logic. God cannot change the equation 1+1=2 to 1+1=3 without changing the abstract values of 1 or 3. And even then, you've done nothing to change the inherent logic in said equation, only what the symbols represent.
To argue that god exists anyhow, requires the acceptance of logic.
To argue that logic does not apply to god is nonsensical. The very idea behind the christian god is that he is truth. He is the definition of morality, and the basis for truth. To accept that accepts the inherent logic behind truth/nontruth.
But all of this aside, my friend once pointed out to me, that because pi is an irrational number, it continues on infinitely without any pattern. If we could encode any object, event, or person in the universe as a series of numbers, then PI already has that encoded in it's digits.
That's less cool when you consider that yes, out of infinity, all subsets exist. But still.
Very true. I mean, could omnipotent god create a rock so heavy he couldn't lift it? Could he then lift it? Logic confines god by the very idea of his existence. God cannot both exist and not exist at the same time. Thus, if god existed he would be confined to logic in all possible worlds.
Another point to be made is whether or not something is good because god decrees it to be good, or is it good because it is good in itself? If we say it is good because god decrees it so, then to say god is good is meaningless (because he could decree slaughter of innocent people to be good). By all reason, to judge our god to be good (if you believe in such nonsense) moral law would have to transcend even god and be consistent with logic.
What's interesting is that we could just as well argue that god is not all good but all evil. Stephen Law makes this argument in his "God of Eth":
http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20God%20of%20Eth
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