vol 2: Synopsis
part IV: Divine dynamics
page 25: God
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... to restore theology to the mainstream of science
God
Can God make a stone too big for himself to lift? This ancient conundrum points to the only possible restriction on the nature of God: consistency. Here, by God, we mean the whole of reality. Is reality divided into two, God and the universe? or is it one, simply God. We take the latter view, and ask all the classical questions about God, its size, power, knowledge, durability, and so on.
Our working definition is that God is everything. God is as big as can be. Thomas Aquinas produced a number of proofs for the existence of God which all boil down to a similar argument: the visible world of human experience is not everything. It cannot account for itself, therefore there must be some invisible entity, called God, which creates and sustains it. These proofs all depend on the models of God and the world that Thomas had inherited from Aristotle.
If the models are wrong, the proof may be wrong as well. Cosmology and observational astronomy tell us that the universe is immense - so big in fact that no observer, no matter how placed, can see more than a small fraction of it. Quantum field theory tells us that this sheer physical size is not all. The universe also possesses microscopically detailed structure whose smallest spacetime elements are measured by Planck's constant. Behind this again, we postulate a function space of transfinite complexity which we use to simulate the actual 'works' of the universe.
Our hypothesis is that the universe is as big as can be, and is therefore fittingly called God. As Thomas used models to prove that the universe is not God, we must base our argument that the universe is God on a model. The model we will use is called the transfinite network. It has as its basis the transfinite sets developed by Georg Cantor. We have already noted how Cantor's set theory forms the basis for quantum mechanics.
Quantum mechanics is an abstract mathematical model which has been developed to explain the microscopic operations of the universe. Like all abstract mathematical models, it is not confined to the context in which it was developed, but has a potential infinity of applications. This suggests that the quantum formalism can apply in many situations other than the physics of very small particles.
In this section, we set out to develop a model of God in its full abstract generality. The only constraint we can reasonably place on God is that it be consistent, that is not self contradictory. This requirement of consistency is reminiscent of the via negativa used in theology to show not what God is, but what God is not. A similar idea is present in mathematics in proofs by reduction ad absurdum. By showing that the negation of a proposition is false, one establishes that the proposition itself must be true.
The twentieth century saw an explosion in mathematics arising from Cantor's work. We now go on to exploit these ideas to produce a formal model of God. Then, in the final section of this synopsis, we apply this model to the universe of experience to arrive at the conviction that it is not inconsistent to call the world God.
Books
| Aquinas, Thomas, Summa Theologica (translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province), Tabor Publishing 1981 'Brother Thomas raised new problems in his teaching, invented a new method, used new systems of proof. To hear him teach a new doctrine, with new arguments, one could not doubt that God, by the irradiation of this new light and by the novelty of this inspiration, gave him the power to teach, by the spoken and written word, new opinions and new knowledge.' (William of Tocco, T's first biographer) Amazon back |
| Jones, Alexander (ed), The Jerusalem Bible, Darton Longman and Todd 1966 Editor's Foreword: '... The Bible ... is of its nature a written charter guaranteed (as Christians believe) by the Spirit of God, crystallised in antiquity, never to be changed ... . This present volume is the English equivalent of [La Bible de Jerusalem] ... an entirely faithful version of the ancient texts which, in doubntful points, preserves the text established and (for the most part) the interpretation adopted by the French scholars in the light of the most recent researches in the fields of history, archaeology and literary criticism.' (v-vi) Amazon back |
| Lonergan, Bernard J F, Verbum : Word and Idea in Aquinas (Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan volume 2) , University of Toronto Press 1997 Jacket: 'Verbum is a product of Lonergan's eleven years of study of the thought of Thomas Aquinas. The work is considered by many to be a breakthrough in the history of Lonergan's theology ... . Here he interprets aspects in the writing of Aquinas relevant to trinitarian theory and, as in most of Lonergan's work, one of the principal aims is to assist the reader in the search to understand the workings of the human mind.' Amazon back |
| Lonergan, Bernard J F, Insight : A Study of Human Understanding (Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan : Volume 3), University of Toronto Press 1992 '... Bernard Lonergan's masterwork. Its aim is nothing less than insight into insight itself, an understanding of understanding' Amazon back |
| Lonergan, Bernard J F, Method in Theology, University of Toronto Press for Lonergan Research Institute 1996 Introduction: 'A theology mediates between a cultural matrix and the signifcance and role of religion in that matrix. ... When the classicist notion of culture prevails, theology is conceived as a permanent achievement, and then one discourses on its nature. When culture is conceived empirically, theology is known to be an ongoing process, and then one writes on its method. Method ... is a framework for collaborative creativity.' Amazon back |
| Miles, Jack, God : A Biography, Vintage Books 1996 Jacket: 'Jack Miles's remarkable work examines the hero of the Old Testament ... from his first appearance as Creator to his last as Ancient of Days. ... We see God torn by conflicting urges. To his own sorrow, he is by turns destructive and creative, vain and modest, subtle and naive, ruthless and tender, lawful and lawless, powerful yet powerless, omniscient and blind.' Amazon back |
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