God vs Infinity
by Mike Clark © 2024
I wrote the following in response to some questions asked some guy online who went by the nom de web of DT_ Asks.
DT_ Asks:
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My answer:
OK, I'll bite.
In the revelations that Joseph Smith received, God says of himself in Moses 1:35,37:
...but all things are numbered unto me, for they are mine and I know them... And the Lord God spake unto Moses, saying: The heavens, they are many, and they cannot be numbered unto man; but they are numbered unto me, for they are mine.
It appears that for this Universe, God is omniscient. He knows everything that has transpired, everything that is transpiring, and everything that will transpire. He is also well aware of the fate or course of life of all of his children.
But I cannot say whether He is omniscient about everything outside this Universe.
DT_ Asks:
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My answer:
God doesn't need to recall everything. He has it laid out for Him in every respect, in the structure of the space-time continuum itself.
DT_ Asks:
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My answer:
Was there no beginning? You say that you don't believe there was a beginning, but what do you mean by a beginning? Does this universe not have a beginning? Even Stephen Hawking, a much smarter man than you or I, seemed quite clear that there was a beginning to this universe.
The problem is that before this universe began with the Big Bang (which is the consensus cosmology, I remind you), time did not exist. Hence there was no time before the Big Bang. The smallest possible duration of time is Planck time, which is the time required for light to travel a distance of 1 Planck length in a vacuum, which is a time interval of approximately 5.39×10−44 seconds. Time cannot be subdivided in shorter intervals than this. Hence, the number of Planck intervals from the moment of the Big Bang until now is not infinite, but finite. It must therefore follow that only a finite number of things could happen in the past.
DT_ Asks:
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My answer:
As I demonstrated above, recalling all past events is not the same as counting to infinity. And if the number of past events is less than infinite, which it is, then one may count them until they are all counted. If one can do it quickly enough.
Problem is, however, that as one counts, more past events occur. So perhaps it can't be done in reality, even if it can be done theoretically. I tend to think that God, being rather omnipotent along with His omniscience, may be able to say to Universe, "Here is your end, you may go no further." And in that case, the number of past events in all of universe-time has reached a countable number. And Georg Cantor is saved from insanity in the end. :D
DT_ Asks:
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My answer:
Of course not. Infinity cannot be counted. Not even by God.
I suppose that in the paradoxical mind, the question "Can God create an object so large that even He cannot lift it?" is a devastating conundrum. As it happens, this particular question and others of the same ilk are nothing more than semantic tricks. It is like over- or under-punctuating a sentence so as to make it absurd and devoid of meaning. If I write "The Koala eats shoots and leaves" we know what is going on, but if I stick some commas in there, suddenly it becomes absurd: "The Koala eats, shoots, and leaves." The two sentences have the same words and in the same order. Yet they mean completely different things. How powerful are commas! Yet they are the smallest little jots and tittles.
Even God cannot make 1 + 1 equal 3. This is because not even God is above the law.
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