Why God Does Not Think.

[Sunstone]

Please note with caution, if not actual alarm: The following thoughts are my own. Basically, I got bored so I started thunking them up. Unlike most of my thoughts, which tend to be about pole dancers, these thoughts delve into theology. I recommend that you take them with aspirin because they are sure to give you a pounding headache with caution because they are only preliminary, tentatively held, late night thoughts. I present them here for your amusement. .


It is sometimes said that god "thinks" this or "thinks" that. But what does it mean here for god to "think"?

When a human thinks it is always within the context of time. Thoughts do not instantly arise. They take time to arise, time to be thought. Is it the same for god?

God is sometimes said to be beyond time (There are theological and logical reasons for saying this). If that is so, what can it mean that god has thoughts? Thoughts occur within the context of time, as I've noted. But if god is truly beyond time, and not merely something that merely progresses through time to endure forever, then how can god's "thoughts" resemble human thoughts?

If god's "thoughts" do not resemble human thoughts, then what can be their nature?

Here, we must get into a little theology. Suppose we were to say that, "God is unlimited", as Aquinas and others have said. If god is unlimited, then god cannot be divided into parts for then the parts would be limited. One-half of god would by definition be limited to one-half of god.

But if god is unlimited, then god cannot think within time, for thinking within time would divide god into parts.

To see this, suppose the opposite were true and that god existed within the context of time. God would then be able to think. But it god could think, then god would be limited. That is, there would be a time before, after, and during one of god's thoughts. Yet before one of god's thoughts, and after one of god's thoughts, god would be limited in the sense god would not be having that thought.

For instance, suppose god were to think (within time), "The new carpet in Johnny's room is blue and oh my! What is Johnny doing to himself under the covers there!", then before god had that thought, and after god had that thought, it could be said "God is limited in the sense that there are thoughts of god's that god does not at one time or another have."

So what, if anything, is "thinking" for god?

Well, god's thoughts must occur out of time, and since time is basically what separates one event from another, that means all the thoughts god has had, is having, or will ever have in all of eternity happen at once.

Which logically means, of course, that while god might have sentience -- awareness -- god does not have thought. God does not think. At least not in any human sense of the term, "think".

______________________________

Yes. Yes. It's true. I have no life.

 

[Tumah]

Here, we must get into a little theology. Suppose we were to say that, "God is unlimited", as Aquinas and others have said. If god is unlimited, then god cannot be divided into parts for then the parts would be limited. One-half of god would by definition be limited to one-half of god.

You haven't finished your line of thinking. If "G-d is unlimited" then G-d can't be divided between Himself and His thoughts.

 

[Woberts]

From a more scientific perspective, I would say that it would have something to do with Quantumland. Things start acting really weird at the quantum level.

 

[Sunstone]

You haven't finished your line of thinking. If "G-d is unlimited" then G-d can't be divided between Himself and His thoughts.

True, but think within the context of time would do that.

 

[Sunstone]

From a more scientific perspective, I would say that it would have something to do with Quantumland. Things start acting really weird at the quantum level.

Can you elaborate on how the two would tie together?

 

[Infinitum]

I think you hit the nail on the head, at least concerning monotheistic theology. From the limited understanding I have of Lutheranism, this is the view they have if God: as a transcended being who's beyond human comprehension. And if there was a God in the monotheistic sense, I think this would be the logical conclusion one would have to do about it. God doesn't need to think, because anything God thinks is reality. Which in turn implies God also is reality, but I'll leave that particular rabbit hole to someone who's better up to date with Christian (or other forms of monotheistic) theology.

 

[Woberts]

To see this, suppose the opposite were true and that god existed within the context of time. God would then be able to think. But it god could think, then god would be limited. That is, there would be a time before, after, and during one of god's thoughts. Yet before one of god's thoughts, and after one of god's thoughts, god would be limited in the sense god would not be having that thought.

In Quantumland, things are probabilities rather than absolutes. There is a probability that this electron will be here, or over there. Then again that's referring to location, rather than time. Oops.
But if you're interested, here's an article about Quantumland.
Quantum Time – Exactly What Is Time?

 

[Tumah]

True, but think within the context of time would do that.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean.

Also for the sake of transparency, I was not disagreeing with you and this is my theological stance. I don't take it as far as @Infinitum describes, but I do believe that whatever it is that G-d did/does/is doing outside time, we call G-d's thoughts those things that exist in potential but have not yet (or may not perhaps) manifest and G-d's actions as those that have already happened.

 

[Terese]

Fascinating thread! Though i do find flaws in your argument and will attempt to describe them.

If god is unlimited, then god cannot be divided into parts for then the parts would be limited. One-half of god would by definition be limited to one-half of god.

God is unlimited, but can be divided into parts. Let's say you take a chunk out of God, and it becomes a quarter of God. This cannot happen. Since God is unlimited, any piece of God would also become unlimited. That does not mean there are two Gods though, but that God has assumed another form, the chunk, but is not the original form. God, the original form, would not have felt a thing, for an unlimited being can never be limited. No matter how many chunks we took out, it would never cease to be unlimited for God itself is akin to an overflowing spring of water. So, there is no such thing as "one half of God".

But if god is unlimited, then god cannot think within time, for thinking within time would divide god into parts.

To see this, suppose the opposite were true and that god existed within the context of time. God would then be able to think. But it god could think, then god would be limited. That is, there would be a time before, after, and during one of god's thoughts. Yet before one of god's thoughts, and after one of god's thoughts, god would be limited in the sense god would not be having that thought.

For instance, suppose god were to think (within time), "The new carpet in Johnny's room is blue and oh my! What is Johnny doing to himself under the covers there!", then before god had that thought, and after god had that thought, it could be said "God is limited in the sense that there are thoughts of god's that god does not at one time or another have.

God being unlimited, he would be untouched by time. It would be like every step Time took to reach God, God would seem to move further away, untouchable. So yes, God cannot think within time not because it is impossible for him, but that time is just one of his many infinite attributes, which he controls like moving one's leg. This is due to the Lord's immanence, a quality of being infinite.

You are right that if there was a time before, after and during after God's thoughts, that would mean time has control over God, which means he cannot be infinite. So it is impossible for God to "think within time" as per your definition.

god's thoughts must occur out of time, and since time is basically what separates one event from another, that means all the thoughts god has had, is having, or will ever have in all of eternity happen at once.

Which logically means, of course, that while god might have sentience -- awareness -- god does not have thought. God does not think. At least not in any human sense of the term, "think".

Yes, God has "made" thoughts that have always existed, for there is no beginning or end for the Supreme. So yes, God does not think in the human sense of the term, but he considers, even if he has already considered. Makes an action that he has already performed countless times. As reality's best actor, he can make anyone think he does it on our level

 

[Thaif]

Please note with caution, if not actual alarm: The following thoughts are my own. Basically, I got bored so I started thunking them up. Unlike most of my thoughts, which tend to be about pole dancers, these thoughts delve into theology. I recommend that you take them with aspirin because they are sure to give you a pounding headache with caution because they are only preliminary, tentatively held, late night thoughts. I present them here for your amusement. .


It is sometimes said that god "thinks" this or "thinks" that. But what does it mean here for god to "think"?

When a human thinks it is always within the context of time. Thoughts do not instantly arise. They take time to arise, time to be thought. Is it the same for god?

God is sometimes said to be beyond time (There are theological and logical reasons for saying this). If that is so, what can it mean that god has thoughts? Thoughts occur within the context of time, as I've noted. But if god is truly beyond time, and not merely something that merely progresses through time to endure forever, then how can god's "thoughts" resemble human thoughts?

If god's "thoughts" do not resemble human thoughts, then what can be their nature?

Here, we must get into a little theology. Suppose we were to say that, "God is unlimited", as Aquinas and others have said. If god is unlimited, then god cannot be divided into parts for then the parts would be limited. One-half of god would by definition be limited to one-half of god.

But if god is unlimited, then god cannot think within time, for thinking within time would divide god into parts.

To see this, suppose the opposite were true and that god existed within the context of time. God would then be able to think. But it god could think, then god would be limited. That is, there would be a time before, after, and during one of god's thoughts. Yet before one of god's thoughts, and after one of god's thoughts, god would be limited in the sense god would not be having that thought.

For instance, suppose god were to think (within time), "The new carpet in Johnny's room is blue and oh my! What is Johnny doing to himself under the covers there!", then before god had that thought, and after god had that thought, it could be said "God is limited in the sense that there are thoughts of god's that god does not at one time or another have."

So what, if anything, is "thinking" for god?

Well, god's thoughts must occur out of time, and since time is basically what separates one event from another, that means all the thoughts god has had, is having, or will ever have in all of eternity happen at once.

Which logically means, of course, that while god might have sentience -- awareness -- god does not have thought. God does not think. At least not in any human sense of the term, "think".

______________________________

Yes. Yes. It's true. I have no life.

An interesting idea. I think that God dwells outside the universe which we see. Perhaps, in some strange sense, the universe is a work of art and the Lord God is an incomprehensibility complex artist which we will never understand and that Lord has decided that our little corner of the universe, our world is his focal point of detail.

Imagine if God decided to make all these stars and galaxies and then decided well, in this little place lets try something else. How about some life, something basic, here's a little DNA I thought up. And there you are, there's some primitive life. But that's not really what the Lord wants so let's wipe it out with an ice age and try again. And something else is made but rather than ditch the earlier DNA, he uses it as a building block for something more complex, dinosaurs, primitive man and the like.

Hey, I'm a software developer do I get that. Anyway, eventually, God blows it all away again with a giant cosmic event of some sort and starts with a blank canvas. "And the Earth was without form and void." But hey, all those previous life forms are buried in the muck (as modern humans discover in the form of fossils) And then God said "Let there be light" and then goes on to use the DNA previously developed for something really complex. But rather that just a bunch of organic machines, God puts something special into a couple of creatures. The ability to choose.

Perhaps, in the early sense, the DNA created by God was really pure so interbreeding didn't have the debilitative effect it has now and that's why people lived really long lives in the early bible but you get the drift.

In any case, God would take a personal interest in every one of his creations,I think that because time probably works completely differently to God, that his interest in each one of us has merit. I would expect the Lord does know what is passing through your mind.

 

[Jumi]

In Quantumland, things are probabilities rather than absolutes. There is a probability that this electron will be here, or over there. Then again that's referring to location, rather than time. Oops.

I'd say the probability densities are more practical ways of thinking about things that we can't fully observe yet. Have a bunch of electrons move around an atom for a minute and they'll fill those probability densities rather well, now why is that? Like rolling a balanced die for a million times tends to have all those lucky streaks disappear in time. With the die we understand why it is like this and why the probabilities form the way they do.

I'd say there are things we can't yet make out form the data, but when we do it will be the next leap in physics.

 

[Apologes]

It depends on whether you see God's eternity as timeless or temporal. If God is timeless (beyond time) then it follow logically that his thoughts wouldn't be like ours as there would never be a time in which they arise to His consciousness for God to contemplate them. Rather, the way you could conceive of God's thoughts would be in a timeless sense where all of God's thoughts would always be on God's mind. This wouldn't leave any room for a process like thinking or coming to a conclusion considering how this requires going from a state of ignorance in one moment to a state of knowledge in another moment. Being omniscient, there can never be a time in which God doesn't know a given fact.

If, however, one thinks timeless existence (or at least timeless personhood) is incoherent and instead conceives of God as being within time (such a time would be of metaphysical sort rather than being a part of our space-time continuum) then God could contemplate and entertain different thoughts at different times just like we do.

I do not think, though, that being temporal would somehow mean God is limited considering how I take God to be the greatest possible being and if a personal being such as God cannot be timeless there simply seems to be no problem in taking God to be temporal unless you think timeless existence is superior to temporal existence for some reason (do note that both are infinite in their own right), but that isn't clear.

 

[Dash Balderson]

Here, we must get into a little theology. Suppose we were to say that, "God is unlimited", as Aquinas and others have said. If god is unlimited, then god cannot be divided into parts for then the parts would be limited. One-half of god would by definition be limited to one-half of god.

Whew... some heavy stuff here Sunstone.

I suppose this is sort of like trying to ponder what half of infinity is. If it is truly infinite, then half of it is... well... there's the issue I suppose. It's got to still be infinite, doesn't it? The only thing that makes any sense to interact with infinity is infinity itself. As in, infinity divided by infinity is 1, or infinity minus infinity is zero. But at that point you're talking more about a placeholder for an idea than any actual, verifiable quantity. Perhaps not entirely unlike God.

 

[BSM1]

Please note with caution, if not actual alarm: The following thoughts are my own. Basically, I got bored so I started thunking them up. Unlike most of my thoughts, which tend to be about pole dancers, these thoughts delve into theology. I recommend that you take them with aspirin because they are sure to give you a pounding headache with caution because they are only preliminary, tentatively held, late night thoughts. I present them here for your amusement. .


It is sometimes said that god "thinks" this or "thinks" that. But what does it mean here for god to "think"?

When a human thinks it is always within the context of time. Thoughts do not instantly arise. They take time to arise, time to be thought. Is it the same for god?

God is sometimes said to be beyond time (There are theological and logical reasons for saying this). If that is so, what can it mean that god has thoughts? Thoughts occur within the context of time, as I've noted. But if god is truly beyond time, and not merely something that merely progresses through time to endure forever, then how can god's "thoughts" resemble human thoughts?

If god's "thoughts" do not resemble human thoughts, then what can be their nature?

Here, we must get into a little theology. Suppose we were to say that, "God is unlimited", as Aquinas and others have said. If god is unlimited, then god cannot be divided into parts for then the parts would be limited. One-half of god would by definition be limited to one-half of god.

But if god is unlimited, then god cannot think within time, for thinking within time would divide god into parts.

To see this, suppose the opposite were true and that god existed within the context of time. God would then be able to think. But it god could think, then god would be limited. That is, there would be a time before, after, and during one of god's thoughts. Yet before one of god's thoughts, and after one of god's thoughts, god would be limited in the sense god would not be having that thought.

For instance, suppose god were to think (within time), "The new carpet in Johnny's room is blue and oh my! What is Johnny doing to himself under the covers there!", then before god had that thought, and after god had that thought, it could be said "God is limited in the sense that there are thoughts of god's that god does not at one time or another have."

So what, if anything, is "thinking" for god?

Well, god's thoughts must occur out of time, and since time is basically what separates one event from another, that means all the thoughts god has had, is having, or will ever have in all of eternity happen at once.

Which logically means, of course, that while god might have sentience -- awareness -- god does not have thought. God does not think. At least not in any human sense of the term, "think".

______________________________

Yes. Yes. It's true. I have no life.

Although I know you're just trying to start another cerebral bar fight, I think you left out one thing. In your otherwise erudite rambling you separated the thought from the thinking and the thinking from the thinker. This is completely a defense mechanism used by humans when they try to wrap their limited minds around the Unlimitied. To add validity to your question a God has to be all of the above at the same instant while at the same time being none of the above at the same instant. This is why I say God has to be the Known and the Unknown, the Knowing and the Not Knowing.

 

[WalterTrull]

Oh well... We are the thoughts of God. Not all of them, mind you, but fairly interesting ones.

 

[Revoltingest]

This is why I say God has to be the Known and the Unknown, the Knowing and the Not Knowing.

If there is a God, I'll wager that being described thus would make him cry.
And if he's a Vogon, It's out into the void of space you'll be dumped.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

Back to the OP.

Interesting train of thought-memes.

I rather like the Quantum Model, in that in a Q-bit or a Quantum Computer Byte (the most basic thing a computer does), we see that a single byte can have all possible values at the same time.

Which, naturally, makes no sense to us linear-thinking mortals.

But just as Schrodinger's Cat is dead and not-dead at the same time, until resolved, so too a Q-bit is both one and zero at the same time until resolved.

Thus a q-byte is all possible values of the byte until resolved.

So. With the case of a Quantum Being (hypothetically, let's call this "god") it would have all it's possible thoughts, at the same time, all the time, all at once, and to infinite existence.

*whew*

Which, naturally brings up the problem: Once god gets an headache, it would have the headache forever-- and indeed, would always have had said headache.

Alongside not having a headache, of course.

All at once.... forever.... !

What would a god-aspirin even look like, anyway?

 

[David T]

Please note with caution, if not actual alarm: The following thoughts are my own. Basically, I got bored so I started thunking them up. Unlike most of my thoughts, which tend to be about pole dancers, these thoughts delve into theology. I recommend that you take them with aspirin because they are sure to give you a pounding headache with caution because they are only preliminary, tentatively held, late night thoughts. I present them here for your amusement. .


It is sometimes said that god "thinks" this or "thinks" that. But what does it mean here for god to "think"?

When a human thinks it is always within the context of time. Thoughts do not instantly arise. They take time to arise, time to be thought. Is it the same for god?

God is sometimes said to be beyond time (There are theological and logical reasons for saying this). If that is so, what can it mean that god has thoughts? Thoughts occur within the context of time, as I've noted. But if god is truly beyond time, and not merely something that merely progresses through time to endure forever, then how can god's "thoughts" resemble human thoughts?

If god's "thoughts" do not resemble human thoughts, then what can be their nature?

Here, we must get into a little theology. Suppose we were to say that, "God is unlimited", as Aquinas and others have said. If god is unlimited, then god cannot be divided into parts for then the parts would be limited. One-half of god would by definition be limited to one-half of god.

But if god is unlimited, then god cannot think within time, for thinking within time would divide god into parts.

To see this, suppose the opposite were true and that god existed within the context of time. God would then be able to think. But it god could think, then god would be limited. That is, there would be a time before, after, and during one of god's thoughts. Yet before one of god's thoughts, and after one of god's thoughts, god would be limited in the sense god would not be having that thought.

For instance, suppose god were to think (within time), "The new carpet in Johnny's room is blue and oh my! What is Johnny doing to himself under the covers there!", then before god had that thought, and after god had that thought, it could be said "God is limited in the sense that there are thoughts of god's that god does not at one time or another have."

So what, if anything, is "thinking" for god?

Well, god's thoughts must occur out of time, and since time is basically what separates one event from another, that means all the thoughts god has had, is having, or will ever have in all of eternity happen at once.

Which logically means, of course, that while god might have sentience -- awareness -- god does not have thought. God does not think. At least not in any human sense of the term, "think".

______________________________

Yes. Yes. It's true. I have no life.

Yes nicely approached .

We start running into naive set theory and the Russel paradox rapidly through all this. In linguistics it's called a different name the gruelling Nelson paradox. . But the same paradox. ParAdoxes exist in context to perceptions so it's a psychological issue.

 

[syo]

When a human thinks it is always within the context of time. Thoughts do not instantly arise. They take time to arise, time to be thought. Is it the same for god?

i doubt it. i think they say ''god acts in mysterious ways''.

 

[BSM1]

If there is a God, I'll wager that being described thus would make him cry.
And if he's a Vogon, It's out into the void of space you'll be dumped.

Mayhaps you were standing too close to your multiple engineering degrees when you weighed in on my post. But by any account the visual of God blubbering like a sad drunk at closing time sorta made my day.