The Problem of Infinite Aspects

[NoMoreFaith]

Our imagination is limited by experience. The broader the experiences, generally the wider the imagination can be.

We can imagine a green man, because we have experience of green, and man. We can imagine an alien world, with reference to our own and known planets.

Infinity is a concept reachable through mathematical means or linguistic extrapolation but not experience.
The paradox we have is that all knowledge of God is through Human experiences, which leads us to the following argument.

1. Our imagination is limited by experience
2. We cannot experience anything infinite, and cannot imagine it.
3. God is defined by infinite aspects
4. Knowledge of Gods aspects cannot be verified through experience.
5. All reference to God's aspects must therefore be from humans.
6. The concept of God comes from humans.

I should note that I am not arguing God does not exist in this case, but realistically, any evidence for his infinite aspects can only come through human means and any correspondence to a real being, is purely coincidental.

Most importantly of all, an infinite God is deliberately maintaining an equivalence with fiction.

Yes, I get bored at work...

[genkaus]

Our imagination is limited by experience. The broader the experiences, generally the wider the imagination can be.

We can imagine a green man, because we have experience of green, and man. We can imagine an alien world, with reference to our own and known planets.

Infinity is a concept reachable through mathematical means or linguistic extrapolation but not experience.
The paradox we have is that all knowledge of God is through Human experiences, which leads us to the following argument.

1. Our imagination is limited by experience
2. We cannot experience anything infinite, and cannot imagine it.
3. God is defined by infinite aspects
4. Knowledge of Gods aspects cannot be verified through experience.
5. All reference to God's aspects must therefore be from humans.
6. The concept of God comes from humans.

I should note that I am not arguing God does not exist in this case, but realistically, any evidence for his infinite aspects can only come through human means and any correspondence to a real being, is purely coincidental.

Most importantly of all, an infinite God is deliberately maintaining an equivalence with fiction.

Yes, I get bored at work...

I guess the theistic answer here is that god's infinite aspects are not arrived at rationally or through experience, but simply by god telling it so and taking it on faith.

For example, if you ask a child if the Occupy Wall street movement is good or not, he would not be able to justify his answer because he does not understand all involved concepts. But he can answer you, "Yes, it is, because daddy says so". Here, the source of knowledge is not child, but the parent.

And yeah, I procrastinate at work as well.

[NoMoreFaith]

The approach here however, is that it is definitely impossible to tell truth from fiction when someone tells you God has infinite aspects.

Therefore the concept of declaring the truth of God MUST be, on some level, a lie or exaggeration of human origin.
Either they are lying about God talking to them, or if God talks to them, they are lying when they say they KNOW God is infinite.

Faith in God requires an absolute declaration of an abstract as fact, not "maybe", not "probably", but "IS", and therein by default, must involve a human exaggeration or falsehood. Best case scenario, reliance on absolute faith in a person NOT lying.

This is not so much about disproving God, but disproving the rationale on why you should have Faith. Its not faith in God, its faith, in an ancient person who believed what he was told by another human. Not divine inspiration.

My target is very much the fault of divine inspiration, rather than divine truth.

[genkaus]

The approach here however, is that it is definitely impossible to tell truth from fiction when someone tells you God has infinite aspects.

Therefore the concept of declaring the truth of God MUST be, on some level, a lie or exaggeration of human origin.
Either they are lying about God talking to them, or if God talks to them, they are lying when they say they KNOW God is infinite.

Faith in God requires an absolute declaration of an abstract as fact, not "maybe", not "probably", but "IS", and therein by default, must involve a human exaggeration or falsehood. Best case scenario, reliance on absolute faith in a person NOT lying.

This is not so much about disproving God, but disproving the rationale on why you should have Faith. Its not faith in God, its faith, in an ancient person who believed what he was told by another human. Not divine inspiration.

My target is very much the fault of divine inspiration, rather than divine truth.

Is a lie a lie if the liar doesn't know its a lie?

It is a problem because of faith - simplistic, childlike faith that allows you to accept things unquestioningly and uncritically.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Great thread, NMF! I’ve struggled with infinity for quite some time. I was doing some research while working on a detailed response to the ‘problem of evil’. During my study of Swedenborg’s ‘Divine Love and Wisdom’ I noted some curious passages regarding infinity. These now make sense to me in light of your post. In general, your post applies to all things ineffable.

I’ll take premises 1 and 2 as givens.
Premise 3 assumes an orthodox understanding of God. Okay, for the sake of discussion I’ll go with that.

I take issue with the wording of premise 4. Although direct observation of infinity (a divine aspect) is not possible, it could be a reasonable inference. If a person was immortal they may find that however far they go there is still further they could go. From this they could reasonably infer that the universe extends on to infinity. This might indeed be the case, but that person could never be certain. They could just as easily be in a time-space that curves back on itself. They simply have not gone far enough to find themselves back where they started.

Premise 5 seems self-evident if I understand it to mean that humanity’s understanding of God is limited by what it is possible for human’s to experience.
Premise 6 also seems as self-evident. God is real or not real independent of how he is conceived.

…I am not arguing God does not exist in this case, but realistically, any evidence for his infinite aspects can only come through human means and any correspondence to a real being, is purely coincidental.

Isn’t that true of pretty much everything? Classical physics describes natural phenomena down to molecular scales, but starts to unravel at the sub-atomic scale. We can never be absolutely certain about what’s going on, but we make inferences.

Most importantly of all, [the belief in] an infinite God is deliberately maintaining an equivalence with fiction.

All human knowledge is approximate. I suppose that’s the same as saying that everything we know is a convenient fiction. But that does not stop us acting as if our best descriptions of reality were actually real.
If one believed that some form of deity could be reasonably inferred from their experience with reality (which is the ultimate point of contention) then why should that stop them from living according to that inference even if it may eventual prove unfounded?

[NoMoreFaith]

I take issue with the wording of premise 4. Although direct observation of infinity (a divine aspect) is not possible, it could be a reasonable inference. If a person was immortal they may find that however far they go there is still further they could go. From this they could reasonably infer that the universe extends on to infinity.

....

Premise 5 seems self-evident if I understand it to mean that humanity’s understanding of God is limited by what it is possible for human’s to experience.
Premise 6 also seems as self-evident. God is real or not real independent of how he is conceived.

The concepts of omnipotence et al are orthodox absolutely, it is very much this I am poking. More importantly, I am poking the claim that anyone can "ABSOLUTELY KNOW God is has infinite aspect A,B, or C".
The premises of this argument rely on the state of play in this day and age. No physical manifestations, no objectively proven miracles, just private internal conviction of connection with a higher being.

In argument 4, an immortal man is not truly eternal. By being a man, his eternity started at a finite point. The eternal metaphysical God however, the eternity goes both ways, there can be no finite start point.
Also, being a man, additional longevity may lead you to inference of infinity, it would not allow that ability to grasp the reality of it. This is slightly irrelevant to the point.

It is the arguments beforehand that lend weight to the notion that anybody describing their experience internally about God, MUST rely on lies, exaggeration, or taking the voices word for it.
The proof I am attempting with this argument is that NOBODY has even private evidence of God, and even if he exists or not, he is impotent to convince anyone of his power.
It can be proved your internal experience is not evidence even to yourself, even if you really are talking to God.
Any claim that you have private internal evidence for God, is a fallacy, as all his powers are inherently unknowable (the proof of the argument), and therefore definitely indistinguishable from delusion and should therefore not be dismissed as such.

Which leads you to 2 conclusions, either any one who says GOD is Infinite, is either definitely delusional or exaggerating orlying or exaggerating the voices powers.

We can never be absolutely certain about what’s going on, but we make inferences.

Which is why science never claims infinity. Maths can as a model, but science cannot truly prove or disprove infinity.

All human knowledge is approximate. I suppose that’s the same as saying that everything we know is a convenient fiction. But that does not stop us acting as if our best descriptions of reality were actually real.
If one believed that some form of deity could be reasonably inferred from their experience with reality (which is the ultimate point of contention) then why should that stop them from living according to that inference even if it may eventual prove unfounded?

None at all. Merely that is unreasonable to claim that private subjective evidence is actually evidence.
You can never prove, even to yourself, that you are not delusional, regardless of your claim.

The question an atheist must ask, is whether it is fair to dismiss any argument from private experience. The answer is definitely yes.

In another words... a theist must stop pretending they have evidence of God, because it will always be a statement of faith indistinguishable from delusion, and this fact can be proved logically.
Its okay to have faith, but you must release all claim to the word evidence, not just objectively, but subjective evidence as well, and rely purely on faith.... and hell.. isn't that kinda what they were telling you all along?

Any theist who claims evidence of any kind, can therefore be dismissed, even evidence contained in the bible, because it was written by a man who equally has no evidence, even subjectively to rely on.

[Neo-Scholastic]

The concepts of omnipotence et al are orthodox absolutely, it is very much this I am poking. More importantly, I am poking the claim that anyone can "ABSOLUTELY KNOW God is has infinite aspect A,B, or C".

As a heretic I oppose orthodoxy in most areas, in this particular case I would only argue for omnipotence (in my forthcoming ‘problem of evil’ post) by shifting this attribute towards something like ‘most powerful’ or ‘the power within all’. I need to think about it more. More directly to your point, I find that the always certain are often wrong. Some things are self-evident like reality and qualia, but beyond that it’s all just our best guess, i.e. what can be reasonably inferred.

No physical manifestations, no objectively proven miracles

I’m not sure those criteria could be met to the complete satisfaction. Presented by an apparent miracle, a skeptic could still say, ‘it must have a natural cause not yet discovered’.

In argument 4, an immortal man is not truly eternal. By being a man, his eternity started at a finite point. The eternal metaphysical God however, the eternity goes both ways, there can be no finite start point.

You are describing infinite regress in both directions. Given all that you have said, what is your proposed alternate? If not infinity, then what is the alternative?

…anybody describing their experience internally about God, MUST rely on lies, exaggeration, or taking the voices word for it. The proof I am attempting with this argument is that NOBODY has even private evidence of God…

An internal experience is still a real experience. The trick is determining if what is apparent accurately reflects what actually is.

…even if he exists or not, he is impotent to convince anyone of his power.

I’ve heard this assertion on other threads. If you are compelled to believe something, then you lose the ability to reason from experience. You’re asking God to take away your rational capacity. If you lack the capacity to reason you cease to be human in any meaningful sense.

It can be proved your internal experience is not evidence even to yourself, even if you really are talking to God. Any claim that you have private internal evidence for God, is a fallacy, as all his powers are inherently unknowable (the proof of the argument), and therefore definitely indistinguishable from delusion and should therefore not be dismissed as such.… is unreasonable to claim that private subjective evidence is actually evidence. You can never prove, even to yourself, that you are not delusional, regardless of your claim. The question an atheist must ask, is whether it is fair to dismiss any argument from private experience. The answer is definitely yes.

People can indeed be delusional and out of touch with reality. But you are begging the question. You assume beforehand that such experiences must be a delusion when that is the point of contention.

[NoMoreFaith]

My biases show of course, but despite them, and despite assumptions, the argument remains valid that it IS indistinguishable from delusion whether real or not.

EDIT: Oh, and I look forward to your problem of evil post

[Neo-Scholastic]

Delusion indistinguishable from vision...okay, fair enough. Now I have to get cracking on my problem.

[Mystic]

Perhaps the Divine himself cannot be experienced, and I think this is true, but this doesn't mean a divine connection and a limited manifestation of himself can be experienced. More over, it doesn't negate that we have knowledge of such a being existing. You don't have to experience the divine to know the divine exists or some of it's properties.