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How do we know that God is infinite?
Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2012 7:20 pm
by Tevko
This question hit me today and left me a bit confused. If someone asked you how you knew that God is infinite, what would your answer be?
Re: How do we know that God is infinite?
Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 10:01 am
by Jac3510
Because since God is the First Cause He cannot be caused to be. But anything that is finite must have a causal explanation (even if only logical rather than chronological) as to why it has this definition/limit rather than that one. Therefore, the First Cause cannot be finite. Therefore, the First Cause is infinite. Therefore, God is infinite.
Re: How do we know that God is infinite?
Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 10:17 am
by jlay
Yep. You could also look at what God isn't. He isn't contingent. He is not even contingent on the universe existing. When we speak of infinite, we tend to do so with time and the universe in mind. But infinite time is not a thing. Time is a product of the universe. Therefore we can say that God is not finite. When the universe came to be, time, as we know it, came to be. In other words a succession of events. We could trace those events back to an alpha point. We would say, "God existed before the universe," but this probably falls short, since before implies just another event prior to time. God exists outside of time, and is self-existant. (Aseity) Although he can and does work things out in the time of our universe, He isn't constrained by time, or contingent to what occurs within it, and is therefore infinite.
Re: How do we know that God is infinite?
Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 10:38 am
by PaulSacramento
Tevko wrote:This question hit me today and left me a bit confused. If someone asked you how you knew that God is infinite, what would your answer be?
Well, that would depend on one notion of God.
Infinite means without end and if by GOD we mean a being outside time then "end or beginning" has no meaning.
If by GOD we mean the greatest thing that can be conceived then, since we can conceive the finite, GOD must therefore be greater than finite, hence infinite.
Of course none of that can be proven BUT it can be "known" in the same sense that we can KNOW anything else that can't be proven.