Is God infinitely complex?

[Angrboda]

As complex as I want to be, baby!

[Angrboda]

It’s easy to give content to the word “God.” This word can be taken either as a common noun, so that one could speak of “a God,” or it can be used as a proper name like “George” or “Suzanne.” Richard Swinburne, a prominent Christian philosopher, treats “God” as a proper name of the person referred to by the following description: a person without a body (i.e., a spirit) who necessarily is eternal, perfectly free, omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good, and the creator of all things. This description expresses the traditional concept of God in Western philosophy and theology. Now the YouTube atheist might protest, “But how do you know God has those properties?” The question is misplaced. “God” has been stipulated to be the person, if any, referred to by that description. The real question is whether there is anything answering to that description, that is to say, does such a person exist? The whole burden of Swinburne’s natural theology is to present arguments that there is such a person. You can reject his arguments, but there’s no disputing the meaningfulness of his claim.

The best definition of God as a descriptive term is, I think, St. Anselm’s: the greatest conceivable being. As Anselm observed, if you could think of anything greater than God, then that would be God! The very idea of God is of a being than which there cannot be a greater.

Read more: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/defining-...z41wy0PvTz

[Alex K]

Can't one still dispute the meaningfulness of the claim if it is self-contradictory?

[The Inquisition]

It’s easy to give content to the word “God.” This word can be taken either as a common noun, so that one could speak of “a God,” or it can be used as a proper name like “George” or “Suzanne.” Richard Swinburne, a prominent Christian philosopher, treats “God” as a proper name of the person referred to by the following description: a person without a body (i.e., a spirit) who necessarily is eternal, perfectly free, omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good, and the creator of all things. This description expresses the traditional concept of God in Western philosophy and theology. Now the YouTube atheist might protest, “But how do you know God has those properties?” The question is misplaced. “God” has been stipulated to be the person, if any, referred to by that description. The real question is whether there is anything answering to that description, that is to say, does such a person exist? The whole burden of Swinburne’s natural theology is to present arguments that there is such a person. You can reject his arguments, but there’s no disputing the meaningfulness of his claim.

The best definition of God as a descriptive term is, I think, St. Anselm’s: the greatest conceivable being. As Anselm observed, if you could think of anything greater than God, then that would be God! The very idea of God is of a being than which there cannot be a greater.

Read more: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/defining-...z41wy0PvTz

Anselm basically gives the game away with the statement "the greatest conceivable being". Yes, god comes from your imagination.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Why should it?  A circle is simple in both construction and explanation, but is effectively infinite.

Boru

How is a circle infinite?  One could say that a piece of string is also infinite.  If so, everything is infinite, in that everything can be thought of being composed of infinitesimal circles.

Here is a circle:



Now, show me were it begins and where it ends.  If something exists and has no beginning or ending, we can be pretty confident in using the term 'infinite' to describe it.

Boru

[vorlon13]

And it's more infinite than this circle:

O

[ignoramus]

Nothing can be more infinite than the mental gymnastics of an experienced apologist.

[Jehanne]

How is a circle infinite?  One could say that a piece of string is also infinite.  If so, everything is infinite, in that everything can be thought of being composed of infinitesimal circles.

Here is a circle:



Now, show me were it begins and where it ends.  If something exists and has no beginning or ending, we can be pretty confident in using the term 'infinite' to describe it.

Boru

It may "infinite" in that one cannot point to a beginning or and end, but it is clearly finite, at least in its area.  God is infinite in all of his/her/its attributes, at least as god has been traditionally understood.

[Whateverist]

Many theologians say that god is "simple", but if god is simple, does not that make god finite?

Boy that just seems like an unnecessary morass caused by focussing on the words too closely.  Of course god is finite, only slightly less so than what we call our 'selves'.  The whole xtian delusion that God is the eternal, all everything is just mumbo jumbo which shouldn't be analyzed too closely.

[Alex K]

How is a circle infinite?  One could say that a piece of string is also infinite.  If so, everything is infinite, in that everything can be thought of being composed of infinitesimal circles.

Here is a circle:



Now, show me were it begins and where it ends.  If something exists and has no beginning or ending, we can be pretty confident in using the term 'infinite' to describe it.

Boru

I'd say it is geodesically complete