God is both finite and infinite.

[peter...@gmail.com]

Its been a while - and I figured I'd try to rekindle some conversation
as I love the subject of Christian mysticism. So I'll discuss one of
the things I've been thinking about for a while:

One of the disagreements Hobbes had with Descartes was that if God is
not finite then he can't be infinite. Descartes biggest mistake, was
to see this and not move on to the God of scripture. I guess this
would have required a shift that his time and place wouldn't allow.

God is infinite. He exists without this creation but this creation
allows him to be finite. Not only did He live and die as Jesus, but
he can live and grow within us. And as such he dies an earthly death
with us. Rememberer the doxology "Glory to the Father, the Son and
the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and will be
forever." Or as St. Paul says Jesus Christ is the same yesterday,
today and tomorrow (he says something along those lines anyway).

Perhaps that is why evil exists in this world. Because God is not
evil. Without evil, God would not be finite, and therefore, not
infinite.

Pete

[Paul Kiler]

On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 7:13 AM, peter...@gmail.com <peter...@gmail.com> wrote:

Its been a while - and I figured I'd try to rekindle some conversation
as I love the subject of Christian mysticism.  So I'll discuss one of
the things I've been thinking about for a while:

One of the disagreements Hobbes had with Descartes was that if God is
not finite then he can't be infinite.  Descartes biggest mistake, was
to see this and not move on to the God of scripture.  I guess this
would have required a shift that his time and place wouldn't allow.

I think that your premise of agreement with the thought of God being both finite and infinite, I'm not sure that I can agree with...
Maybe because I've not had the exposure to the ways of thinking that you've exposed to yourself, or maybe it's just my own idea that God simply can't be both simultaneously...

To me, this is like saying that God created everything, so God created Evil.

I'm not arguing here, I've just failed to follow the 'argument' that you've put forth...

Come again, and help me to understand wot u say-in...   :-)

Thanks,
Paul

[peter...@gmail.com]

Hi Paul:

Thanks for writing.

To begin with, don't worry about not being exposed to those guys. My
argument pretty much cuts the whole damn thing down at the base. Hope
you don't mind me patting myself on the back but that is kind of brave
on my part. I don't know if anybody is listening, but it went down in
a couple of paragraphs.

In a sense, I guess you could say that I'm a fundamentalist - in a
good way though. For a short recap - Descartes lived in a tough
time. Protestants and Catholics were killing each other left and
right. So his answer was to get rid of theology (Scripture) all
together - I guess it was a return to the kind of prime mover God that
Aristotle speaks of. His arguments give rise to the statement, "I
think therefore I am." Hobbes, an atheist, disagreed with him. The
two give rise to the rationalist and the empiricists - and pretty much
every other philosophy since. The moral of the story, as far as I am
concerned, is to build your house on rock.

To answer your question - "Did God create evil?" I think it was Job
who said I except good from the God, should I not except evil too?
Was it not St. Paul who said that God became sin and dwelt among us.
Yet, He did not sin. Forgive me if my quotes are not exact - I have
neither the time nor inclination for that. Other than that we are
getting into an argument that moves toward the existence of free
will. God creates man, who has a choice between good or evil.

I guess I am saying that evil is not of God. From the book of
Genesis, it has been grounded to this world. Forced to eat sand. Yet
God is here too, but He is not of evil. When we are good we are of
God, and when we are not - we are not. As a kind of shadow analogy,
Israel has never fully controlled the land of Israel - which the Bible
says was given to it by God. It has always shared it with some other
tribe or group. The Phillistines, the Palestinians, etc. You can
look at this from the point of view of yourself also. Your goodworks
and sin.

So I have a question for you all. Does evil have a right to exist?
My answer is yes. Without evil, God would not be infinite because he
would not be finite. Kind of a mystery - I guess - but so is the
Trinity.

Pete