Saturday, July 2, 2022

Worlds and Infinities

"Roused, readied, reaped" applies not just to the notions of infinity.  That is, "roused, readied, reaped" does not merely address the folly of us thinking ourselves justified in extrapolating our notions of dimensions into infinity.  We exist in parts of time and parts of space.  We know nothing of what might or might not bound space, or time, or space-time, and this lack of knowledge is not incremental--it is total.  By definition, our creaturely existence precludes knowledge of the limits (or not) of any dimension that defines that existence.

No, the fact that we are born, live, and die in the framework of our existence means not only that we cannot see the bounds of what defines our experience-realm, but also that we might exist in any number of experience-realms of which we are (in the present state that we understand as our existence) totally unaware.  In other words, the implication of "roused, readied, reaped" is not only that we cannot see the limits (or ascertain the limits) of any infinities, but also that we cannot know if an infinitude of infinities surround us.

The implications of these two considerations for God-worship are ultimately inescapable.  The first (the notion of infinities of known phenomena) can be illustrated by arguments about ultimate (that is, first) causation.  "Everything has a cause" is a statement of truth as we understand truth.  Of course, "everything has a cause" can in one sense be a tautology, if our understanding of any "thing" includes that "thing" as defined by its properties, since properties can be understood only in the context of the "thing's" interaction with its surroundings--such interaction being intrinsically space-time oriented, and therefore by definition causal.

Or "everything has a cause" can also be an unfalsifiable and unconfirmable proposition.  "Everything has a cause" is no more provable than the materialist contention that everything exists in the realm of energy-matter, a contention that might only be proved by bouncing (or observing the bouncing) of matter or energy off of everything that exists.  Unsurprisingly, science takes "everything has a cause" as a working proposition--a quite reasonable approach, and one that is usually questioned only in the contest of metaphysical debate (with the scientist understood to be saying that "everything has a materialist cause.")

It need scarcely be said that the materialist approach is often derided as "arrogance" in some religious circles.  The denial of unmaterialistic causes (or of the possibility of unmaterialistic causes) is taken as arrogance.  Simultaneously, it need scarcely be said that some religious circles contend that it is the plainest of logic to pronounce that (everything having a cause) there must have been a First Cause--that is, (by an untested warrant) God.  The materialist's denial of a divine First Cause is taken as arrogance.  Unfortunately, these two religious circles, which would by cleanest definition be mutually exclusive, are often not--a universe punctured and punctuated by un-causal phenomena ("miracles") is reckoned to be the creation by definition of an absolutely necessary First Cause.

And so, in the context of God-worship, contentions about infinities can throw varying lights on what might be considered "arrogance."  It might seem to be humility and piety to honor God as the First Cause (that is, not merely as a sentiment but as a contention), but the matter is not so simple.  A person who honors God as the Creator and forbears from analyzing the matter might well be displaying less arrogance (and more reverence) than a person who approaches the throne of God hauling along a contention about infinity about which the believer really knows nothing.

At this point (perhaps betraying the limits of my facility) I can only think to repeat my second paragraph (the one about the second phenomenon I want to address):

No, the fact that we are born, live, and die in the framework of our existence means not only that we cannot see the bounds of what defines our experience-realm, but also that we might exist in any number of experience-realms of which we are (in the present state that we understand as our existence) totally unaware.  In other words, the implication of "roused, readied, reaped" is not only that we cannot see the limits (or ascertain the limits) of any infinities, but also that we cannot know if an infinitude of infinities surround us.

If we cannot know the limits of infinities, then we cannot know that existence (writ large) does not consist of potentially numberless infinities of which we are unaware.  (Certainly one notion of the un-tiresomeness of eternal heaven is the expectation that the elucidation of the phenomena attributable to God's genius would take forever.)  Indeed, it would seem only prudent to assume that not only do we experience only the slimmest slice of time and space, but also that all the realms of phenomena we experience constitute but the slimmest slice of God's realms.

If this be so, then it would also be prudent to assume that this realm of our existence is discernable (to God's eyes) as distinct from numberless other realms.  In other words, God does not exist at the end (or at the summit) of the universe.  We might be forgiven our creaturely limitation in seeing the divine as a conceptual extension of the (imagined) bounds of our existence, but we cannot upon due reflection pretend that such limitation is not grave and troubling.  God is a God of infinities.  God is not a God tethered to the conceptualized ends of the infinities we imagine to exist.

The "Bible stories" that Jesus recalls and the stories of Jesus that the gospels recall evoke this larger approach to God-worship.  One chief (and really rather elementary) example of this is Jesus' references to Genesis creation as normative rather than as narrative.  In the straightforward normative sense, the prescriptions issued to mankind are based on mankind's maladjustment to creation (as originally a venue of simple fellowship of Adam with God).  The universe in which we live is not the universe of original creation, and our only hope of salvation lies in our identification with God's original ideals (and with the better aspects of our moral natures.)

Some of the implications of these truths are rather basic.  Jesus cursed a fig tree for having no fruit, and the tree withered.  The gospels indicate that, in the progression of the seasons, Jesus ought not to have expected any fruit.  Commentators have noticed these things.  Commentators, of course, can always come up with something to say, but if an anti-Gospel animus is in play, then the commentator who says that Jesus ill-treated the unfortunate tree is delivering a lackluster performance.  Jesus made the world, according to the Gospels, in concert with the Father, and by divine will all fig trees eventually wither.

The world of God's intent had no suffering, no death, and no lack of fruitfulness.  The state of our present world--also always subject to divine intent--is cursed.  Our present world is but a shadow of original creation and--to think that the matter could be still worse--the connection between our accursed world and the world of God's original intent is not to be found in tangible phenomena, but rather in the vaporous (to use an analogy) nature of our moral selves.  It is this divorce between the two worlds--between original creation and the creation declining before, during, and after "The Fall"--that Jesus presents to us when he exhorts us to embrace our capacity to emulate God the Father even though (as parents and otherwise) we are evil.

The denominations, unfortunately (betraying their this-worldly attachments) tend to cast aside the reality that our world is provisional and--what is most important--that it is displayed before us by our Savior as a matter for moral consideration.  Rather, the denominations will shrink from the responsibility of moral consideration and embrace either the balderdash of total depravity or the balderdash of intrinsic goodness (if not some morally bereft incantations about salvation economies.)

No comments:

Post a Comment

Following the Path of Expiation

It is unfortunately quite telling that much of Christianity cannot state with authority why Abel's sacrifice was looked upon with favor,...