Can God be Comprehended?
A while back Fireseed (a bloggernacle participant with the Community of Christ) recommended a physics book to me called The Fabric of Reality by David Deutsch. I was electrified. I went on to read several more books out of it’s bibliography including Roger Penrose’s The Emperor’s New Mind, Douglas Hofstadter’s Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, Frank Tipler’s The Physics of Immortality, and Karl Popper’s Myth of the Framework. In addition, I supplemented my science reading with Alice in Quantumland by Robert Gilmore and A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. I’m currently reading Roger Penrose’s The Road to Reality, which will likely be finished just before the day I die.
What all these books have convinced me is that physics is far more than trying to understand “the physical world.” It is really about comprehending reality altogether. Therefore physics is really about (or at least can be about) comprehending God.
If we do discover a complete theory… we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we are and the universe exists. …it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we would know the mind of God. (A Brief History of Time, p. 175.)
…physics must be extended into theology. (The Physics of Immortality, p. 329)
Is that a laudable goal, to try to comprehend God? Is God even comprehensible? Please note, I do not mean to ask if God is comprehensible to current mortal man. No, I am asking if God is comprehensible at all.
What is Comprehension?
What does it mean to comprehend something? Try to define that for yourself for a moment to get a feel for the difficulty in doing so.
I would like to propose a fairly straight forward definition for your consideration. [1] I propose that “to comprehend” something is the ability to describe it in terms of the aximos and laws the govern it — to algorithmically compress it, if you will. If we comprehend how the world goes around the sun, this surely must mean we understand the laws of physics that cause it to do so. Therefore comprehensibility is equivalent to explanation and description. (At least under this definition.)
Can God Comprehend Himself?
An interesting question is if God can explain Himself and therefore comprehend Himself? [2] If He does comprehend Himself, then we have already deduced that He is describable via laws. This means that once we have an “ultimate set of laws of physics” they must also be able to describe God.
Theology and Science
This means that a fully revealed theology will be absorbed into some future theory of everything, just as Hawking and Tipler predicted. However, we should not expect our current Mormon theology, at it’s current level of imprecision, to entirely match our current understanding of physics any more than we expect our current quantum theory to match our current theory of general relativity. Indeed, it is well known that quantum and relativity theories are a contradiction to each other.
Unfortunately, however, these two theories are known to be inconsistent with each other – they cannot both be correct. (A Brief History of Time, p. 11-12)
This means that until all knowledge is revealed and theology is so precise that it’s converged into physics, we should not expect science and theology to always agree, though we should expect to find many significant touch points between them along the way.
In The Fabric of Reality, David Deutsch put it this way:
Arthur C. Clarke once remarked that ‘any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’. This is true, but slightly misleading. It is stated from the point of view of a pre-scientific thinker, which is the wrong way round. The fact is that to anyone who understands what virtual reality is, even genuine magic would be indistinguishable from technology, for there is no room for magic in a comprehensible reality. Anything that seems incomprehensible is regarded by science merely as evidence that there is something we have not yet understood, be it a conjuring trick, advanced technology or a new law of physics. (The Fabric of Reality, p. 138)
But will our current understanding of the laws of physics have anything in common with this hypothetical “ultimate theory?” What is the relationship between our current laws and the ultimate laws? Are they like Newton’s compared to Einstein’s or are they like Aristotle’s compared to Einstein’s?
D&C 88 – A Comprehensible God
Regardless, this is all good news for Mormons and bad news for all other Christian religions, for in D&C 88, we are told to expect God Himself to be fully comprehensible.
D&C 88:49 The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not; nevertheless, the day shall come when you shall comprehend even God, being quickened in him and by him.
Indeed, what is the Doctrine of Deification (I.e. The doctrine of becoming one with God or in other words “becoming gods.”) but a statement of the comprehensibility of God. If we can become gods, then we know God is, to the right level of intellect, comprehensible. Deification therefore must logically flows from any science world view that includes the concept of God.
Interestingly, God is defined in terms of His comprehension as well:
41 [God] comprehendeth all things, and all things are before him, and all things are round about him; and he is above all things, and in all things, and is through all things, and is round about all things; and all things are by him, and of him, even God, forever and ever.
And, without missing a beat, comprehension is explicitly tied to the concept of “law.”
34 And again, verily I say unto you, that which is governed by law is also preserved by law and perfected and sanctified by the same.
37 And there are many kingdoms; for there is no space in the which there is no kingdom; and there is no kingdom in which there is no space, either a greater or a lesser kingdom.
38 And unto every kingdom is given a law; and unto every law there are certain bounds also and conditions.
39 All beings who abide not in those conditions are not justified.
42 And again, verily I say unto you, he hath given a law unto all things, by which they move in their times and their seasons;
Spirit Matter
This Doctrine of the Comprehensibility of God explains a mystery around the assertion that spirits are in some sense “matter.”
There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes; D&C 131:7
Outside of this D&C quote, we have no official doctrine on what “spirits” really are. But what does this scripture actually tell us? Well, not much. Does it mean spirits are energy? Many Mormons believe that since we now know matter and energy are really one and the same. But many of us are dubious of that since then we’d be able to easily detect spirits with modern technology.
Another theory I’ve heard is that spirits are really “matter” that relies on forces that don’t interact with our visible matter. Since matter is really just forces, if you have two forces that don’t interact at all, they are entirely undetectable from each other. You could, if you will, have two entirely different physical worlds overlapping each other but not interacting with each other.
The truth is that the word “matter” in D&C 131:7 just doesn’t tell us much. The only thing it really tells us is that we should expect “spirits” to be governed by some, perhaps yet to be discovered, law of physics. Therefore, we expect “spirits” to be just as comprehensible, at least in principle, through descriptions of these laws as the physical world we now inhabit is through our current understanding of the laws of physics. D&C 131 is best understood as a statement about the potential comprehensibility of spirit matter.
The significance of this requires a bit more explanation.
Undefined vs. Negatively Defined
I had a conversation with a Catholic friend recently where I claimed that the main difference between the Mormon and Catholic concept of “spirit”is that to Mormons it’s undefined and to non-Mormon Christians it’s negatively defined.
The easiest way to understand the difference between “undefined” and “negatively defined” is to imagine Michael the Archangel showing up in my bed room tomorrow and revealing to me the physical laws that govern the spirit world. If you don’t believe that mortals can comprehend such a thing (or you can’t imagine me comprehending it anyhow) then imagine Michael first increasing my intellect until I can and then taking several years to give me an advanced PhD in spiritual physics.
Then imagine me publishing a paper entitled “The Laws of Spirit Physics” whereby I describe the physical laws that explain what spirits are as given to me by this angel from God.
The Mormons in the world would shrug their shoulders and say “Eh, it might be right. Who knows?”
By comparison, I suspect the non-LDS Christians of the world would definitively state it to be incorrect because it would violate their belief that “immaterial spirits” are in any sense comprehensible. Therefore even “the truth” (as we are supposing is being published) would be openly denied.
In other words, non-LDS Christian beliefs in “immaterial spirits” (at least as far as I understand it) are really just a way of saying that spirits can’t be explained, even by God. For if God can explain them, then they are by definition “comprehensible” and thus by definition they are governed by some heretofore undiscovered theory of everything.
Fear Not Science
If God is comprehensible, then we should never fear scientific discoveries. Henry Eyring, the famous Mormon Scientist, recalled the advice his father gave him before he went off to college:
I’m convinced that the Lord used the Prophet Joseph Smith to restore His Church. For me, that is a reality. I haven’t any doubt about it. Now, there are a lot of other matters that are much less clear to me. But in this Church you don’t have to believe anything that isn’t true. You go over to the University of Arizona and learn everything you can, and whatever is true is part of the gospel. The Lord is actually running the universe. (Reflections of a Scientist, p. 1)
Notes:
[1] In proposing this definition for “comprehension” I am not suggesting there aren’t other possible valid definitions also. Wrestling over words is pointless. Try to understand the underlying concept instead.
[2] Some of the comments below suggested the possiblity that God might have some sort of extra form of epistemology (i.e. theory of knowledge) available to Him. Therefore, an infinite human-like intellect would be unable to comprehend or explain things that God can. This is an idea worthy of further criticism, perhaps in a future post. However, for the sake of this post, even if God has extra epistemological means available, this still means He can describe Himself via those means. He just wouldn’t be able to explain Himself to us. So the “ultimate set of laws of physics” would only be available to God and never will be to us. That strikes me as a rather bleak thought, and I see massive logical problems with that approach.
Update: Based on the comments below, I made minor changes to this post to reflect the suggested subtle difference between “comprehending” and “explaining” and I got rid of the word “physical.” The notes were added to clarify a few points.
(Note: this replies to Bruce’s of 3/16, 11:05 a.m.)
(By the way I posted this earlier but don’t see it posted, so I’m posting it again. If it gets posted twice I apologize.)
It seems we have two basic disagreements, unless I’m misunderstanding you.
1. Whether science can study all of reality
You apparently are using “science” to mean only the physical sciences, and by that I mean sciences which depend on sensory input. You may not necessarily observe the thing concerning which you are testing a theory (such as black holes), but you have to test it in some way which is observable to the senses, or else observable by a machine which senses some observable event and expresses the observation in the form of data. I am including all this under the term “sensory input”.
I say this because you said that all other sciences stem from physics, and you are using “science” to mean “disciplines that utilize the scientific method”. And the “scientific method” requires sensory input.
I disagree with no. 1 because I believe that things exist which are not observable to the senses or detectable by machines with sensors.
You did say that spirits may operate on a different plane, or something to that effect, i.e. they may be made of matter and subject to forces which don’t interact with our matter and forces; and if so, then physics as we know it would not be able to study them. Therefore you don’t believe that physics as we know it can necessarily study all of reality.
But you indicate you believe that physics of some kind is or will be able to do so. Since you don’t re-define “physics” when referring to this “other kind of physics”, I have no choice but to assume that it will still be a science which uses the “scientific method” and therefore depends on sensory input. Since I believe things exist which are not observable to the senses, I disagree that physics, of whatever kind, will be able to study all of reality.
2. Whether being explainable in terms of laws makes a thing comprehensible
You say that if God is not explainable by laws then he is incomprehensible, even to himself. If by “laws” you mean the laws of physics then I disagree, since the laws of physics describe events that are discernible by the senses (or via machines), and again I believe God is a being who is not observable to the senses. Yet it doesn’t logically follow from that fact that he doesn’t comprehend himself.
It seems that you are not limiting “laws” to those discoverable by the science of physics, since you spoke of love, justice, beauty, etc. being explainable by laws. But if that is true then I have no clear understanding of what you mean by “laws”. I can’t rule out the possibility that once I understand better what you mean by “laws”, I might agree that God may be described by them. But right now it’s impossible for me to say.
“I am sincerely at a loss. I don’t understand in what way Catholics are alleged to be labeling Mormons in a misleading way.”
LOL, Agellius. My comment wasn’t meant to say “Catholics say this about Mormons” at all.
It was simply, if someone did, it would be misleading. I have no knowledge that anyone has accused Mormosn of being materialists and the real materialists would laugh to death at such a claim anyhow.
I was merely putting an extra long disclaiminer on the label so that no one could possibly later say “Bruce says he’s a materialist” (because quoting out of context is common on the internet.)
I confess, Agellius, given that you believe spirits are entirely outside of time, space, and mechanism at all, I think you and I are saying exactly the same thing. I think you are stopping maybe a hair breadth short of actually coming out and saying “Yes, I believe spirits have no possible explanation that we humans would comprehend. They will always be a mystery to us.”
Personally, I suppose I am quite open to the possiblity that spirits are outside of time and space yet still obey laws and are explainable by those laws. I personally believe reality is explainable. (If it isn’t, I’m not sure why I’m bothering trying in any field.)
How could spirits be explainable by laws yet be outside of time and space? I’m not sure how such a thing would be possible, but then me not knowing how a thing is possible doesn’t mean anything. But it wouldn’t supprise me at all to find that spirits do exist within time and space, either ours or some alternative one. I am open either way, though I suspect the later is the more likely. (i.e. they either are within time and aspace or they are in alternative time and space of some sort.)
But in any case, if spirits are *not* explainable by laws, then I stick with the tautology that this is the same as saying they aren’t comprehensible via explanation.
Let me requote this quote again because it says it all for me:
Agellius,
One more thing. You spent quite a bit of time equating science to that which we can determined through the senses or in other words empiricism. Please be sure to watch the “David Deutsch on Explanations” video I posted. Then, rather than try to argue with me over a word, accept that I do not belong to the club of people that think science is based primarily on empiricism. I think science can and does address things without empiricism at times. That is because I believe science is really formalization of conjecture and refutation. (This is the sense in which I do believe theology and philosophy to be a type of science.) That is to say, I think “science” is equivalent to “searching for explanations through a formal methodology.”
Bruce:
You write, ‘I think you are stopping maybe a hair breadth short of actually coming out and saying “Yes, I believe spirits have no possible explanation that we humans would comprehend. They will always be a mystery to us.”’
I disagree with your statement as phrased. You might be able to phrase it in a way that I could agree with. But I say that spirits have “no possible explanation” since in my view “being” and “mind” are explanations that we humans comprehend.
The kind of explanation that I deny is possible or necessary is one that depends on physical laws. There could well be some other kind of explanation that we will begin to comprehend once we arrive (God willing) in Heaven. I just don’t think it will involve laws describing physical events formulated based on sensory input.
You write (in a separate comment), ‘I think “science” is equivalent to “searching for explanations through a formal methodology.”’
In that case I don’t see what grounds you have for excluding philosophy and theology from the ambit of science. However I don’t mean to start a new argument over this.
I did watch the Deutsch video and I don’t recall him saying that observation and experimentation are not essential to science (correct me if I’m wrong). I realize that science involves conjecture, but the way conjecture is tested is by observation and experimentation. When the test results don’t bear it out then the conjecture is changed or dropped. Isn’t that basically how it works?
Of course science also involves reason, logic and philosophical assumptions. For example science has to subscribe to the philosophical assumptions of realism in order to have any reason to exist in the first place. It has that in common with Aristotle/Aquinas — which, of course, is no coincidence.
I wrote, ‘But I say that spirits have “no possible explanation” since in my view “being” and “mind” are explanations that we humans comprehend.’
I meant, of course, that I *don’t* say that spirits have no possible explanation.
By the way, Clark, I wanted to say that I enjoy your comments and find them very lucid.
That’s not to take anything way from you Bruce, I respect your intelligence very much. But as you know from long experience, our respective underlying assumptions seem quite often to be at odds with each other, making it hard for us to achieve a meeting of the minds. But hey, we’re still friends, right? : )
There are three fundamental issues here:
(1) Is God part of the universe and constrained by fundamental natural laws
(2) Is the world deterministic?
(3) Did the universe start with a statistically neutral “big bang”?
If all three are true, then everything is a branch of physics (if in some specific contingent context).
If (1) is not true then physics is theology (rather than the reverse), as in classical theism, i.e. God is the author of all the laws of nature and is not comprehended by them.
If (2) is not true, and there is libertarian free will, then theology and the entire social sciences, psychology, cognitive science, the humanities, and possibly much of biology cannot be explained in solely physical terms. No LFWian believes that morality is reducible to physics, for example, to say nothing of creativity.
If (3) is not true, then an enormous amount of information about the way things are cannot be comprehended in terms of the statistically neutral physical evolution from statistically neutral initial conditions. Someone or something could have “wound up the clock” so to speak.
If you affirm all three here, the problem is that morality and theology are largely contingent and accidental, i.e. they are constrained by nothing but the laws of physics and the contingencies of history.
Agellius,
Of course we’re friend! Fighting friends are the best type, especially if, like you, they can see past the debate and not take it personally.
Hey, this thread had kind of grown stale. I had a long response to the above from you, but never got around to posting it and it seems silly to do so now.
However, since you and I both hate being misunderstood, I just wanted to point one thing out:
What Agellius said:
What Bruce actually said:
I trust you see the issue.
A couple of more quick thoughts. First, I’ll answer some of your questions in later posts, particularly the relationship between senses and science. You are holding to the Sir Francis Bacon view of science.
Secondly, I am glad you found Clark lucid. I have no idea what he was trying to say but I was impressed with all the big words.
Third, I have a question for you that *won’t* fit into future posts, so I’m going to ask it here. Feel free to respond here if you are interested, or you can save it for some future time.
It seems to me that you are not being consistent in your conclusions.
I personally believe God exists outside of time because of certain LDS scriptures that seem to say that — though of course I could figur-atize them of course, but I don’t as of yet. In any case, I do not claim to know for sure if God exists outside of space and time or not, I just personally believe he does or at least can.
I think it’s possible God might exists in some sort of alternative space/time. (In physics, they deal with multiple types of space and time, not just the ones we normally think of, so this isn’t hard to imagine.) In short, I’m asserting that I have no idea by what means we’ll some day be able to comprehend and explain God fully, but I am expressing optimism that it can be done. (Please note, that is why your requests to “explain how that’s possible” showed you didn’t understand what I actually said.)
Whereas I’m asserting a lack of understanding, but optimism that I will some day understand, you are asserting to know right here and now that God is outside of space and time in every possible sense and that this means there are no possible laws/mechanism by which to describe him and that the “scientific epistemology” will never be a valid way to know about God because things outside of space and time can’t be observed through any senses and observation via the senses is a requirement for science.
I see why you are saying that because intuitively it does seem like you shouldn’t be able to observe things outside of space and time, especially if you are assuming that “outside of space and time” doesn’t mean some alternative space/time or alternative view of space/time.
But this view you are expressing is problematic theologically for Catholics.
Do Catholics, like Mormons, believe in heaven? Do they believe they will live with God forever someday? Do Catholics, like Mormons, believe one can sense (that is to say, observe through a sense) God right here in mortality? If not, what’s the point of believing in God at all?
How in the world will your view that God is outside of space and time and thus can’t in any sense be observed be squared with the above? To be able to live with God implies space. Living with him forever implies time. Even if you tell me this is just figurative, then you still have to explain in what sense heaven is more ‘living with God’ then we are now and you’ve eliminated all possible routes to explain this via your own assertions.
If I hold you to your own assertions, we must logically conclude that are saying God can’t be with us forever in heaven and that he’s utterly unobservable through any senses, the 5 or any others we don’t know about. We simply can’t know God in any way shape or form at all. Period. Even the incarnation becomes impossible because God is in no sense within space and time.
Now of course you aren’t say that and those would be false conclusions. But that’s my whole point. You are being inconsistent. In reality you do believe God can be observed through senses ( even if not the first 5 right now) and thus your point that God can’t be know via observation doesn’t strike me as valid. Therefore your point that we can’t know about God through what I’m calling ‘scientific epistemology’ is premature.
Furthermore, Catholic heaven seems to imply that God isn’t necessarily outside of *every sense* of time and space and that there is some legitimate sense in which God’s personal presence can be local and observable.
From there, follow the logic through and your objections of what I am saying fall apart. You have no reason either to yet draw the conclusion that God can’t be comprehended via our current epistemological methods, even if we assume God is outside of space and time.
Whereas you asked me “how is it possible?” I’m just going to reverse that and ask you “how can you be sure it’s not possible?” And since you are asserting certain knowledge, and I’m asserting to not know, the burden of proof is on you, not me.
(Side Note: I actually believe we’ll ‘comprehend everything through explanations’ not by the scientific method, but by Jesus revealing it all to us after the second coming.)
Mark D.:
I admire the way you express yourself. Very clear and orderly!
Bruce:
You write, ‘You have no reason either to yet draw the conclusion that God can’t be comprehended via our current epistemological methods, even if we assume God is outside of space and time. Whereas you asked me “how is it possible?” I’m just going to reverse that and ask you “how can you be sure it’s not possible?” And since you are asserting certain knowledge, and I’m asserting to not know, the burden of proof is on you, not me.’
So you’re saying that I have the burden of proving that it’s impossible for God to be comprehended by our current epistemological methods.
First, I’m not sure what you mean by “proof” in this context. Obviously I don’t claim to be able to prove it, either logically or scientifically. It rests upon premises which I believe are part of divine revelation. Therefore I can’t prove it, I can only show that it follows from my premises.
Second, I still can’t say that I’m clear on how you are using “comprehend”. Most of the time you have used it to mean “explainable by the laws of physics”, but with “laws” and “physics” used in a non-conventional way. I will need some kind of a concise definition of those terms before I can directly address your challenge.
Third, it’s not clear to me what you mean by “our current epistemological methods”.
—
I will say this: Scripture says that nothing exists which was not created by God (John 1:3). Therefore everything — every last thing that exists — stands in relation to God as a created thing to its creator, like one of Michelangelo’s statues to Michelangelo. While we may infer certain things about Michelangelo from his sculptures, what may be inferred with any certainty from those sources alone is quite limited. By the same token, we may infer a limited number of things about God from his creation. But that doesn’t mean God is explainable in terms of the laws and mechanisms which govern his creation and which he himself brought into being. To say that he is, would be like saying that Michelangelo is explainable in terms of marble and carving techniques.
Now if you were to look at the non-physical aspects of Michelangelo’s sculptures, you would see beauty, balance, pleasing proportions, excellent technique, great care, etc. These are non-physical things, and from them you may infer non-physical things about Michelangelo: That he was sensitive to beauty, balance and proportion, that he was diligent and careful, etc. I think you get a bit further towards understanding Michelangelo in this way. By the same token you can infer from God’s creation that he loves beauty and goodness, that he is wise, orderly and incredibly powerful, that his intellect is far beyond ours, etc. Nevertheless even on this basis, what we can infer about him, compared with what he knows about himself, is quite limited.
Even if there is “another space-time” apart from ours, I would deny that God lives “in” it or is subject to its laws and mechanisms, and therefore explainable thereby, because that space-time, like ours, and like everything else that exists whatsoever, would have been made by him. And so again, it would be like trying to explain Michelangelo in terms of his art works.
I don’t say that God is not explainable in any sense; I never have said that. Quite possibly when we get to Heaven much more will be revealed to us, enabling us to understand things about him which before were completely mysterious. I just say that he is not explainable in terms of the laws and mechanisms of his creation.
By the way, I want to make clear that in citing scripture I am not arguing against Mormon beliefs, or Mormon interpretations of that scripture, but only providing one of the premises upon which I base my own conclusions.
Thanks, Agellius.
Agellius asked me to make a response.
“First, I’m not sure what you mean by “proof” in this context. Obviously I don’t claim to be able to prove it, either logically or scientifically. It rests upon premises which I believe are part of divine revelation. Therefore I can’t prove it, I can only show that it follows from my premises.”
Like I said before, I don’t think we’re really disagreeing, Agellius. You, in essence, restate my point.
I define “explanation” and “comprehension” as being one and the same. You don’t seem to but I don’t see you giving an alternative definition either. So at this point, I’m incapable of responding to any alternative point of view.
I also define “explanation” as synonymous with algorithmic compression. That is to say, I accept the idea that we can either algorithmically compress something or it’s by definition either an axiom or its random and can’t be compressed or explained even in principle. (I can’t take the time to explain algorithmic compression, but it’s not that big a deal. It just means something can be explained via functions or logical steps. Also, someone is going to here say, ‘yeah, you can explain something that is random. You just say the explanation is that it’s random.’ Fair enough. I just mean it can’t be explained beyond that.)
In claiming this, I am not denying the existence of emergent levels of laws or explanation. Clark took exception to the idea that salt can be comprehended by breaking it down chemically and instead suggested merely experiencing it is the best way to comprehend it. This is actually just a misunderstanding of what I am saying. You’d have to do both to fully comprehend salt. I am not claiming everything to be understood can only by understood via reducibility.
It seems to me that at some point you have to accept something as a ‘brute fact.’ A brute fact has no further explanation by definition. I think of Euclidean axioms as examples of such brute facts. I know of no way to prove or reduce “A straight line can be drawn between any two points” further.
I am *not* claiming that the fact that that axioms can’t be reduced further makes it incomprehensible. I consider such an axiom a first principle so I include it under the concept of ‘comprehensibility’; all accept it as true because it’s obvious, even if we have no way to explain further.
I believe you are agreeing with me, but hate my wording because it seems negative to you.
At this point, I am now claiming the Catholic concept of spirits are ‘incomprehensible’ according to my definition of comprehension *unless* declared a brute fact. I think this is logically obvious.
You, on the other hand, seem to be saying “yes they are comprehensible, because they need no further explanation.” In other words, you’re declaring them to be brute facts or axioms. Spirits just exist, period.
In other words, I see nothing you are saying that disagrees with what I have said.
Further, I agree with you (in the quote above) that the issue is really you are trying to affirm a Catholic revelation. In fact, it is specifically the fact that I feel that Catholic revelation is circular logic that I am taking exception to.
You are on faith accepting the idea that the concept of “God” is outside of any possible set of laws or, as, you say, mechanisms. When I question how that is possible you respond “well, how could God be God and be subject to a set of laws?” This statement makes perfect sense to you because you — by revelation — define God as being that which is outside of all laws.
Yet, it seems to me that this Catholic belief brings nothing to the table whatsoever:
If God can be explained in any part via love, then God can be explained (at least in part) via laws and is thus subject to laws in a sense. You don’t deny this, but you see no issue with it because you merely declare that love is a law ‘coming from within Himself’ and not external to Him. Therefore, this doesn’t deny your definition of God as being above everything.
Indeed, if I decide that God is subject to gravity it’s now no issue at all, because we can declare gravity as coming from within Himself. So this explanation does nothing for me. It seems to merely beg the question.
We might as well just say “God is subject to nothing but that which He is subject to on account of Him being God.” To me it’s it has the illusion of meaning without actually bring something to the table. From this point we can now arbitrarily ascribe to God anything we want while arbitrarily claiming ‘the other guy’ is limiting God. All we have to do is claim their concepts of God are ‘external laws’ and our own are ‘internal laws.’ And it’s all completely arbitrary at this point.
But arbitrariness is required now. Because if we decide to give ‘the other guy’ the benefit of the doubt, then even an out and out pantheist is in no way claiming there are laws above God. Indeed, I find it impossible to, even in principle, formulate such an ‘external’ law.
Other than that, I see only one other thing we are disagreeing over: Catholics claim spirits are brute facts requiring no further explanation. While some Mormons would agree with you, there is no Mormon doctrine one way or the other, so I’m free to believe otherwise. So I accept the possibility that they aren’t brute facts and that further explanation is possible, even if I don’t yet know what it is.
Bruce:
You write, ‘Agellius asked me to make a response.’
I don’t think I so much asked for a response, as for you to let me know if you did respond since the email notification function didn’t seem to be working. However I’m glad you did!
I started a point-by-point response but after pondering a while, decided to try it another way.
I believe you are saying that something is incomprehensible unless explainable by laws, which is another way of saying, governed by laws by which it may be explained. By “explained” I take you to mean how the thing exists and how it acts as it does.
I think laws can be divided into two kinds: (A) Those which govern non-rational things, and (B) those which govern rational beings.
Laws of type A govern non-rational things insofar as they are purely non-rational. Thus the law of gravity governs my body but has no direct effect on my thoughts. Type A laws govern things such as atoms, molecules, energy, light, etc. Things governed by such laws have no choice but to obey them. I will call laws of this type non-rational laws.
Laws of type B govern rational beings insofar as they are purely rational. Type B laws govern how rational beings are to conduct themselves, or in other words what we call the moral law. The moral law governs my spirit, i.e. my intellect and my will, but has no direct effect on my body. I can choose whether or not to obey the moral law. I will call a law of this type a rational law.
Non-rational laws govern how non-rational things interact with each other, for example how energy interacts with matter, how a rock interacts with the earth, etc. Rational laws govern how rational beings interact with each other, in other words how they treat each other and whether or not they obey the will of the supreme rational being we call God.
I say that God is not subject to non-rational laws since he is purely rational. No part of him is non-rational, such that it should be affected by laws governing the interaction of non-rational things insofar as they are purely non-rational.
I say that God is not subject to rational laws, since they are equivalent to God’s own will — in other words, to obey the moral law is to obey God’s will. The written moral commandments are the expression of God’s will as it concerns our behavior: He wills that we not steal or commit adultery, etc., therefore those things are a violation of the moral law. God is not subject to rational laws since he is their author: To say he is subject to them would be to say he is subject to himself, which is just another way of saying he is subject to no one.
There is no source of any laws outside God: He invented non-rational laws when he created non-rational things, and rational laws are nothing more than his will concerning the behavior of rational beings.
God is what you would call a “brute fact”, if by that term you mean a thing which has no external cause of its existence or behavior. By that definition he is the only brute fact, or what we Catholics call the Uncaused Cause. Other spirits are not brute facts since they have, and are therefore explainable by, a cause other than themselves, namely God. Such spirits are not subject to non-rational laws since they are purely rational (and therefore have no parts that are purely non-rational). However they are subject to rational laws since they are subject to the moral law, i.e. God’s will.
Human beings are subject to both non-rational laws and rational laws, since they are a composite of non-rational and rational (the only composite beings we know of): Their bodies are subject to non-rational laws, while their spirits are subject to rational laws.
For what it is worth, Agellius, I like your response. I think “rational” and “non-rational” is a much better way to describe the split you were after than “internal” and “external.”
Personally, I’m not convinced that the divide between what you are calling rational and non-rational laws is as ontologically separate as you seem to believe. Indeed, I personally would opt not for ‘rational’ vs. ‘non-rational’ and instead ‘higher and lower’ or ‘basic and derived’ or even ‘God’s laws and laws derived from it.’
In short, I believe there is a difference, but not as strict a one as you seem to be claiming.
I go back to our (off line) argument about whether God being subject to laws implies something above God. You have now proven that is not the case — exactly like I said back then. The laws God is describable by are all statements of God’s nature.
On the other hand, this being the case, I disagree with you that God is a brute fact. If God were just a brute fact, then there would be no way to explain God. Instead, we find that God can be explained. God is not moral because morality is defined as ‘that which God has decided.’ Morality actually has a lawful reality all it’s own and it is therefore possible to explain God’s moral nature from various view points. That is to say, one can ‘explain why’ God is moral.
This is just a fancy way of saying God can be explained or that God is not random, he is ‘algorithmically compressible.’
It’s another way of saying God is lawful.
Bruce:
You write, “I personally would opt not for ‘rational’ vs. ‘non-rational’ and instead ‘higher and lower’ or ‘basic and derived’ or even ‘God’s laws and laws derived from it.’”
My point was not the division itself, but rather to name all the kinds of laws I could think of (excluding manmade laws, of course). In the end they boiled down to two: Those which govern the involuntary conduct of non-rational forces and objects (commonly called the laws of physics), and those which govern the voluntary conduct of beings with minds (commonly called the moral law). If you know of other kinds, not falling into one of those categories, I would be interested to know what they are.
You write, ‘I go back to our (off line) argument about whether God being subject to laws implies something above God. You have now proven that is not the case — exactly like I said back then. The laws God is describable by are all statements of God’s nature.’
As usual I don’t understand you. I argued in my last post that God is subject to no laws whatsoever. Now you say I have disproven the proposition that if God is subject to laws that implies something above God? On the contrary, I still say that “subject to” implies something being ruled by something else in some respect. I deny that God is ruled by anything else.
You write, ‘… I disagree with you that God is a brute fact. If God were just a brute fact, then there would be no way to explain God. Instead, we find that God can be explained. God is not moral because morality is defined as ‘that which God has decided.’ Morality actually has a lawful reality all it’s own and it is therefore possible to explain God’s moral nature from various view points. That is to say, one can ‘explain why’ God is moral.’
I could agree that morality has a “lawful reality all it’s own” in the same sense in which I have a reality of my own (not sure where “lawful” comes in), nevertheless I am created and held in existence by God, so my reality is not “all” my own. The word “morality”, in my view of reality, pertains to the rules governing the way rational beings treat each other. These rules do not apply to God since God acts morally by nature. Having a law requiring God to act morally would be like having a law requiring water to be wet.
For this reason I do not agree that there is an independently existing moral law to which God is subject. Rather the moral law governing the behavior of rational beings arises from their need to conform their natures to God’s nature in order to live and be happy. There is no nature to which God needs to conform his nature in order to live and be happy. His life and happiness have no source outside himself. They just are, as he himself just is (i.e. “I AM”).
So we are agreed then: God being “subject” to a law is the same as describing God’s nature. Therefore it does not imply something above God. I’m glad we finally settled that.
In fact I do not agree with those statements. I think I have already made clear why, so I will let my prior comments speak for themselves, unless you have some specific rebuttal to make.