Can God divide by zero?

[Pieman333272]

The general trend in most mainstream theology is to say that God cannot do what is logically impossible (making square circles is the most commonly used example). This doesn’t ruin God’s omnipotence because logic is integral to God like goodness (we tend not to have a problem saying that God cannot to evil).

If God is bound by the laws of logic, what are the implications of that to ideas like transubstanation, the dual nature of Christ, and the Trinity? Especially the last two.

 

[pnewton]

If God is bound by the laws of logic, what are the implications of that to ideas like transubstanation, the dual nature of Christ, and the Trinity? Especially the last two.

The laws of nature are not an inherent reality. God could have made the universe with a different set of natural laws (e.g., three charges instead of two, a slower speed of light, a different structure to matter). These laws can be suspended for a higher level of reality. Of course the highest level of reality and Truth is God. That which is rooted in Him (that He can not deny Himself/Truth) can not change. Anything else might.

 

[MaxRosen]

If God is bound by the laws of logic, what are the implications of that to ideas like transubstanation, the dual nature of Christ, and the Trinity? Especially the last two.

I’m going to propose a radical answer to this question. It’ll probably get me banned but here goes.

Let’s look at Matthew 26:36-39

36 Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” 37 He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” 39 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

If Jesus is God incarnate who is He praying to in the Garden of Gethsemane? This is a question Muslims ask quite often when they try to convert Christians.

Or take Mt:27;45

45 From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. 46 About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).

Again Muslims frequently ask Christians who was Jesus praying to from the cross if he was God incarnate?

So here is the crux (no pun intended) of the matter:

Can Jesus be SIMULTANEOUSLY a mortal man, God incarnate, the Son of God and God? Can He be SIMULTANEOUSLY a mortal man suffering the agony of the cross and God?

It seems a “logical impossibility”.

Well can a particle be in multiple places simultaneously? Can an electron be in two places at once? There was a time we would have said this was a “logical impossibility”. That was before we discovered quantum mechanics. As Erwin Schrodinger, one of the most brilliant physicists of the 20th Century pointed out, according to the laws of quantum mechanics a cat can be simultaneously alive and dead.

What this shows is that our intuitive ideas of what constitutes a “logical impossibility” are flawed. We cannot understand how quantum mechanics works. We can manipulate the equations of, for example, quantum electrodynamics, but we cannot really imagine how an electron, in the words of Richard Feynman, can “sniff out” every single path between two points and transverse them all. That too seems to us mere mortals to be a “logical impossibility”.

Bottom line, we don’t always know what constitutes a logical impossibility. So what seems to us a logical impossibility – Jesus being simultaneously a mortal man, the Son of God, God incarnate and God – may not be a “logical impossibility” after all.

Here is what Richard Feynman said about quantum mechanics.

Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, “But how can it be like that?” because you will get “down the drain,” into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that.

Maybe we need to keep Feynman’s words in mind when we are tempted to ask “how can it be like that” about God and His works.

 

[dzheremi]

I think that’s a really great answer, Max. I would be sad if it got you banned from this place. It just focuses us on what should be understood throughout all these kinds of discussions (and what ultimately ends them) – no matter how advanced we become, we’ll never know nearly as much as we think we know.

 

[pnewton]

Bottom line, we don’t always know what constitutes a logical impossibility.

I admit that we do not know all that constitutes a logical impossiblity, but I do not believe that we can not know any logical impossibility. The case of dividing by zero seems a logical impossibility, but I bow to those who know better to determine that. I do believe something can be both x and not x, where x carries the exact same meaning, for example. God can not be both omnipotent and not omnipotent.

Needless to say, I do not believe in the possibility of dead/alive cats and I do not think Schrodinger to. It was an illustration of quantum entanglement.

 

[sidbrown]

This is only true if you define {0} to be a group with closure.

Yes. So, as I said, in this system, division by zero would be possible.

 

[illmatic]

I intend this to be a bonefide philosophical question (though admittedly inspired by internet hi-jinks ):

Can God divide by zero? Is this within the realm of His omnipotence? I’m leaving the parameters fairly wide open, and I have my own ideas, but I’d like to see what others come up with

Can’t believe this chan nonsense is being posted on Catholic Answers. If I was a mod I’d kick you on the spot, swear down.

 

[ConstantineTG]

I intend this to be a bonefide philosophical question (though admittedly inspired by internet hi-jinks ):

Can God divide by zero? Is this within the realm of His omnipotence? I’m leaving the parameters fairly wide open, and I have my own ideas, but I’d like to see what others come up with

God exists in a higher level of existence, beyond our physical realm. He is not bound by the laws of physics and mathematics. So I would say, yes.

 

[Pug]

This is only true if you define {0} to be a group with closure.

In the realm of real numbers, divison does not have closure because you cannot divide by one of the numbers in the set, ie, 0.
Addition, substraction and multiplication are closed however.

If you look at integer numbers however, you’ll find that multiplication doesn’t close either.

The set of integers is closed under multiplication. 11 and -2 are integers, and so is their product, -22. You can find no pair of integers whose product fails to be in the set of integers.

Did you mean a particular subset of the integers, perhaps?

 

[runningdude]

Can’t believe this chan nonsense is being posted on Catholic Answers. If I was a mod I’d kick you on the spot, swear down.

This was a real question. Just look at nearly every other post I’ve made. All of them are good faith.

 

[runningdude]

Actually, I don’t think this is a radical answer at all . I think you just broke down a fundamental mystery that we Christian struggle with as a matter a faith, and provided a reasonable analogy to understand it.

I’m going to propose a radical answer to this question. It’ll probably get me banned but here goes.

Let’s look at Matthew 26:36-39

If Jesus is God incarnate who is He praying to in the Garden of Gethsemane? This is a question Muslims ask quite often when they try to convert Christians.

Or take Mt:27;45

Again Muslims frequently ask Christians who was Jesus praying to from the cross if he was God incarnate?

So here is the crux (no pun intended) of the matter:

Can Jesus be SIMULTANEOUSLY a mortal man, God incarnate, the Son of God and God? Can He be SIMULTANEOUSLY a mortal man suffering the agony of the cross and God?

It seems a “logical impossibility”.

Well can a particle be in multiple places simultaneously? Can an electron be in two places at once? There was a time we would have said this was a “logical impossibility”. That was before we discovered quantum mechanics. As Erwin Schrodinger, one of the most brilliant physicists of the 20th Century pointed out, according to the laws of quantum mechanics a cat can be simultaneously alive and dead.

What this shows is that our intuitive ideas of what constitutes a “logical impossibility” are flawed. We cannot understand how quantum mechanics works. We can manipulate the equations of, for example, quantum electrodynamics, but we cannot really imagine how an electron, in the words of Richard Feynman, can “sniff out” every single path between two points and transverse them all. That too seems to us mere mortals to be a “logical impossibility”.

Bottom line, we don’t always know what constitutes a logical impossibility. So what seems to us a logical impossibility – Jesus being simultaneously a mortal man, the Son of God, God incarnate and God – may not be a “logical impossibility” after all.

Here is what Richard Feynman said about quantum mechanics.

Maybe we need to keep Feynman’s words in mind when we are tempted to ask “how can it be like that” about God and His works.

 

[runningdude]

Of course he can… he’s God… he chooses not to however since it’s clearly a sin as my calculater says “cannot divide by zero” which translates roughly to “thou should not try to divide something by nothing as it’s stupid to even try”.

Just remember, your calculator has a “sin” button too

 

[runningdude]

This is pretty close to what I recall reading somewhere:
The situation of this dilemma is similar to a rigged hand of cards. It’s like setting the cards up in advance so that someone can never win the hand. The same thing applies here. Notice what the dilemma is really communicating: Can God do something that God cannot do? Well, to ask the question is to answer it! The problem here is that this does not constitute a deficit in God’s abilities, the problem here is that logically self-contradictory statements don’t describe anything at all! For example, what does it mean to be a “married bachelor”? Can the greatest geometric mathematician draw a “square circle”? These “things” aren’t things at all. There is no such thing as a married bachelor or a square circle because those descriptions are self-contradictory. Likewise, a “God-made rock so big that God can’t lift it” is a similar description - it’s self-contradictory. It’s not that God can’t make such a thing, it’s that such a thing is not a thing at all! It no more limits God’s power than asking “Can God make a square circle?” The individual words have meaning, but when these specific words are put together they are self-contradictory.

I think we can all agree that Chuck Norris could make a “square circle” (boy I’m in a mischievous mood today ).

But let me explain why, as promised in my OP. Lets say for instance Chuck Norris, who is in fact a very faithful man of God, had sufficient faith to move a move a mountain. If It were the will of God, then gosh golly that mountain would move. If it were God’s will, then gosh golly too, there would be a “square circle” in our midst…

Noted though, a lot of our posters on this thread talked about things such as “square circle” and “dividing by zero” to be meaningless strands of human words put together - and I accept this to be a valid argument, one that I hadn’t considered actually. It need not be a sign of God’s impotence that he would not accommodate our linguistic shenanigans.

But lets stop to consider the other wild cases thrown around - such as could “God destroy Himself”, or could He create “a rock so big that even He couldn’t lift it”. I would argue that He could though He may choose not to.

You see, I don’t think that God is bound to our understanding of logic. He could do whatever He pleased, and it would be “very good”. There are plenty of perfectly orthodox examples of this - such as ordering entire nations to be slaughtered, while also commanding us “Thou Shalt not Kill”. Understanding these paradoxes biblical stories can easily be a conundrum.

However, I believe God gave us the gift of logic and reason. I believe God chooses to act in a logical manner so that we may use this gift to discern His will. He also chooses to act against our logic sometimes to demonstrate that He acts in mysterious ways far superior to our logic. To demonstrate His omnipotence that our faulty logic might curtail.

God chooses not to obliterate Himself and by extension, the universe, out of love. At the same time, He allows His only Son, God the Son to die, out of love of us. From our limited perspective, death = obliteration, but God instead, obliterates death itself, raising His Son, and sending His Holy Spirit to guide us forever more through the sacraments and magisterium of our Church.

A number divided by zero is usually defined as infinity in higher order mathematics. I believe God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is more than capable of actually creating an infinity!

 

[Cirdan_XII]

The set of integers is closed under multiplication. 11 and -2 are integers, and so is their product, -22. You can find no pair of integers whose product fails to be in the set of integers.

Did you mean a particular subset of the integers, perhaps?

Point taken. I think I got my definitions muddled.

 

[JRRTFAN]

I intend this to be a bonefide philosophical question (though admittedly inspired by internet hi-jinks ):

Can God divide by zero? Is this within the realm of His omnipotence? I’m leaving the parameters fairly wide open, and I have my own ideas, but I’d like to see what others come up with

Yeah, the same as he can make a 4 sided triangle.

 

[Big_Dummy]

ah what is zero and what is divide?

He did make something out of nothing at creation right?

 

[teachccd]

All I know is that without God we wouldn’t even have the capability to ask such a question. So I’ll leave the details with Him…

 

[thenobes]

A stone so big that God cannot lift it cannot be made because nothing can be infinitely heavy.

No, it would fill all space and so there would be nowhere to move it to.

peace
steve

 

[JDaniel]

Anyone can divide by zero. The problem is understanding the answer. It is some sort of infinity. But which sort? There is actually infinite orders of infinity.

Presumably God does understand all orders of infinity.

Let a = b

a^2 = ab

a^2 - b^2 = ab - b^2

Factorise:

(a-b)(a+b) = b(a-b)

Cancel the common factor, (a-b) and we have:

a+b = b

Since a = b this gives:

2b = b

Cancel common factor, b.

2 = 1

QED

Hello, Max:

We know that division by zero is a term used if the denominator is zero.

Such a division can be expressed as “a/0” where “a” is the numerator.

The expression a/0 = discrete number, can’t be assigned a value .

In (real number) arithmetic, the expression has no meaning, as there is no Discrete

number which, when multiplied by 0 (0 x discrete number = a), gives “a”.

(Thanks to Jerry - my BIL and math instructor.)

And, from Aquinas:

“In the framework of immateriality, the mathematician in his strictly scientific character is said to leave aside all sensible matter and to retain in the abstracted result universal intelligible matter.” - Summa Theol., I, q. 85, a. 1, reply 2.

So, you are pointing to a non-object, a non-thing. It is merely a reification, the Mathematical Order of Abstraction. There’s no such thing as an actual infinity, with the exception of God. IOW, dividing by zero is fun with numbers!

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

If God is bound by the laws of logic, what are the implications of that to ideas like transubstanation, the dual nature of Christ, and the Trinity? Especially the last two.

Pieman:

Concepts like the two you mention appear to be illogical to us, but, that in no way means that they are illogical. What makes them illogical? Definitions?

God bless,
jd