Is God Nothingness?

[JDaniel]

To me the problem is that if God is this paradox then chances are He is an intriguing illusion brought on by a wiring problem in our cognition, and we are not in God’s image so much as God being in ours.

Inocente:

Do all Baptists believe this? Seems strange. I’ve been to some Baptist churches, and known some Baptists, none of whom held that position.

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

Hi, Qoeleth,

All philosophies must be internally consistent. Nihilism simply denies everything - even meaning. It not only lacks logic but denies meaning. It has a tremendously short runway, it fails to gain speed, and has crashed on the trash heap of both reality and history. But, what is significant is that anyone that sipping this toxic slime of a theory loses perspective and tires to drink that swamp dry!

There have been many (and worldly ‘famous’, too) nihilists - perhaps the most recognizable is F. Nietzsche - who tried to de-construct God, Christ, the Catholic Church and anything else they have set their sights on. When I was in school, I recall a cartoon about Nietzsche. It had two panels: 1.) God is dead. Nietzsche. 2.) Nietzsche is dead. God! So, who are you going to beleive?

Nothing can do No-Thing and we obviously observing many Some-Thing(s) that were created and have been make known to our senses. There is meaning to life - but, not to the Nihilist. As the Catholic you claim to be - please review your position in light of the teachings of the Church and the Gospels. While we do not understand the ‘why’ we have Faith that God so loved the world that He sent His Only Begotten Son to die for our sins.

It really is a complex thought: our existence and meaning in life, and it has been at the forefront of most of philosophy. Look at all of the beauty that surrounds each of us. Beauty is a reflection of Truth - and Truth is an Attribute of God. Evidence of God - and that truly is Something - abounds. As we become aware of new aspects of beauty, we are moving closer to the Truth of God’s love for each of us. Nihilism ignroes and derides such thoughts. As I see it, their answer to life and its meaning is simply nothing. How utterly false and depressing - and one bearing the striking marks of the Devil himelf!

God bless

Tom:

Qoeleth is not a nihilist, in my opinion. This is a worthwhile discussion, providing negativists discontinue being negative for the pure sake of being negative.

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

God is the act of existence.

Linux:

Exactly! We merely participate in God’s “act of existence.”

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

The only way that we can make sense of this while respecting the distinction between God and creation is to say that God is the “isness” or “act” of creation, but is not the distinct “essence” of creation.

Linux:

Well, yes. We can beat around the bushes a bit. But we’re losing Catholics in droves. I think because scientism has provided them with a preferable explanation. It’s time we take that back.

For example God is not the nature we describe as a “human-being”, but he is the “reality” of a human being because the potentiality of humanity has no act in and of itself intrinsic to its nature.

Yes, but this is an aside.

Thus God would be both transcendent and imminent, both in things and outside of them, insofar as God is the existence of those things but not their essence or nature.

But how? Mere words? that to so many don’t make any real sense?

Otherwise it makes no rational sense, and we would have to admit that Catholicism is logically flawed insofar as it speaks of Gods attributes.

So, in order to try to make sense, we effectively make no sense? Work with the OP on this a little. Work with Yppop a little. We may all be able to arrive at a defining moment, one the Krauss’s and Dawkins’s of the world can’t ignore, nor refute.

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

Sorry, Qoeleth, I didn’t mean to displace you.

Run your thread.

God bless,
jd

 

[sw85]

The following proposal is purely speculative theology. Just a theory, but maybe worth considering-

I would like to suggest that maybe ‘God’ is actually nothingness. Nothingness seems to fit the following features of God:

• Nothingness, like God, is eternal and changless
• Nothingness, like God, is entirely beyond understanding and predication
• Everthing that is came from nothingness, and unto nothingness will return (like God). Nothingness is “the Father of All”, and eventually everything is re-absorbed into the arms of Nothingness.
• Nothingness, like God, is paradoxically both absent and present, transcendent and immanent. It is outside of time and space, yet all around us.
• Nothingness is entirely invincible and impassible.
• Nothingness (the Void) holds all thing in ‘Being’, is everywhere and nowhere.
• Through nothingess, paradoxes like “The First will be Last, and the Last will be First” make sense, because eventually everything becomes nothing, poverty, riches, honour and humility are all levelled.
• God, like Nothingess, communicates with us most truly through Silence.

It seems to make a bit of sense…

You literally have it exactly backwards. Theology 101. God is pure being, i.e., the opposite of nothingness.

 

[Qoeleth]

You literally have it exactly backwards. Theology 101. God is pure being, i.e., the opposite of nothingness.

If one tries to imagine God as ‘pure being’, the image which results (for me, and I suspect most people), has more similarity to ‘Nothingness’ than enything else.

What do you imagine ‘pure being’ to be like? no limitation, no charateristics, no complexity, no change. Its seems as if all the qualities of ‘pure being’ are negations. Hence nothingness seems to serve as the most effective imaginable simulacrum.

Well, the idea of theology is not to provide simple answers about God, but to open us up to the complexity of the questions.

 

[Linux]

Marc:

No doubt. but everything else tells us that he doesn’t: he’s invisible, he has no mass, he has no definable substance, he is infinite and not displacable, yet here we are, etc. so, how exactly is he not nothing?

jd

He is nothing “physical”. I don’t understand why that should equate to nothing at all.

 

[Linux]

Linux:

But, “space” is “nothing.” As mere distension, it is “nothing.” But, how does it actually exist if it is a contradiction?

God bless,
jd

You are talking about the difference between a space full of distinct objects (distinct from space) and a space with no distinct objects (distinct from space) in it. I don’t see how you have logically concluded that a space with no distinct objects in it is nothing at all.

Space is not a car. space is not a planet. But space has an act; it is not nothing.

 

[JDaniel]

You literally have it exactly backwards. Theology 101. God is pure being, i.e., the opposite of nothingness.

SW:

But how does “pure being” manifest? It’s not enough to say we don’t know. After all, He gave us Physics, Chemistry, Math, and Biology. Surely He meant us to use them?

Christ manifested as Christ, but He’s not walking the earth just now.

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

He is nothing “physical”. I don’t understand why that should equate to nothing at all.

Linux:

Then how does He interact with everything. Everything in the physical world is physical. Yet, God causes everything.

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

You are talking about the difference between a space full of distinct objects (distinct from space) and a space with no distinct objects (distinct from space) in it. I don’t see how you have logically concluded that a space with no distinct objects in it is nothing at all.

Linux:

Then what is that nothingness stuff in between all of those distinct objects? What is that nothingness stuff inside the electron shell of atoms? What is that nothingness stuff between a proton and a neutron?

Space is not a car. space is not a planet. But space has an act; it is not nothing.

Then what is it? Physics tries to explain it as a “soup.” But, that begs a further question. In between the smallest particle found in space, and another particle, what is that stuff?

I think it’s God.

God bless,
jd

 

[Linux]

Linux:

Then how does He interact with everything. Everything in the physical world is physical. Yet, God causes everything.

God bless,
jd

How does nothing create anything? Out of nothing comes nothing. God can give actuality to an abstract idea precisely because God is the act of reality.

 

[Linux]

Linux:

Then what is that nothingness stuff in between all of those distinct objects? What is that nothingness stuff inside the electron shell of atoms? What is that nothingness stuff between a proton and a neutron?

Then what is it? Physics tries to explain it as a “soup.” But, that begs a further question. In between the smallest particle found in space, and another particle, what is that stuff?

I think it’s God.

God bless,
jd

There is no actual “nothingness” between matter or whatever. There is “space” between distinct parcels of matter. Space is a thing, not a no-thing.

 

[Linux]

I think it’s God.

God bless,
jd

You think God is physical.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Sw85,

I think you’re totally correct!

It is beyond my imagination to see why ‘nothingness’ appears to attractive to anyone. After all, if their view of ‘nohingness’ actually was in place, when we looked to the sky we wuld see nothing but emptyness - because everything has been removed.

In my opinion, this ‘God is nothingness’ is a toxic swill that is being poured out and whoever eats of this poison will pay the price.

“Holy Mother of God, pray for us who have recourse to thee!”

God bless

You literally have it exactly backwards. Theology 101. God is pure being, i.e., the opposite of nothingness.

 

[inocente]

Do all Baptists believe this? Seems strange. I’ve been to some Baptist churches, and known some Baptists, none of whom held that position.

You misread my post, I said a belief that God is nothing seems to end up with God being no more than a trick of the mind. No Baptist believes God is a trick of the mind.

 

[inocente]

Well, yes. We can beat around the bushes a bit. But we’re losing Catholics in droves. I think because scientism has provided them with a preferable explanation. It’s time we take that back.

Any church preaching that Christ is Nothingness wouldn’t survive long because that’s not the good news, it’s just opaque and complex theorizing. Christ is immediate, experiential, the way to get folk in church is less theorizing not more. Imho.

 

[sw85]

If one tries to imagine God as ‘pure being’, the image which results (for me, and I suspect most people), has more similarity to ‘Nothingness’ than enything else.

One’s imagination or lack thereof has zero theological significance.

What do you imagine ‘pure being’ to be like? no limitation, no charateristics, no complexity, no change. Its seems as if all the qualities of ‘pure being’ are negations. Hence nothingness seems to serve as the most effective imaginable simulacrum.

I don’t “imagine” it at all. “Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, and upon the heart of man has not come up that which God has prepared for those who love him.” If you see Buddha on the road, kill him. Etc.

 

[yppop]

Hi,
This discussion has developed a good number of respondents on both sides of the issue, namely, “God is not nothing” or “God is Nothingness”. I think it’s time for some definitions. I have bifurcated the “nothing” concept into diametrically opposite meanings. Leaving theology aside for a moment and sticking with philosophy, to eliminate the paradoxical nature of the word “nothing”, I propose that “nothing” does not mean the same as “nothingness”. I do this because I need a word - “nothingness” - that acts for that which is space-like but is not the space that gives dimensionality to the universe. In other words, I am claiming that at the ground of reality (JD has referred to this as the implicate level and I will also), there are two modalities of space: one is the space that defines the universe and science describes as the basis for matter and energy. The other modality is space that permeates matter as JD has been pointing out within (and without) the electron shell. I will argue that this second modality is the spiritual component of reality which I have chosen to label as “infinite nothingness”. Nothingness is not “nothing” as I define them.

When I think about “nothing” I cannot imagine it without the imagining space and dimensionality, for example, tqualey nicely expresses the situation in post 116 where he/she writes, “… when we looked to the sky we w(o)uld see nothing but emptyness - because everything has been removed”. What we do see (or imagine) in this emptiness is spatial dimensionality and spatial dimensionality is pure existence. We cannot “see” “nothing”, the thing that is devoid of everything including dimensionality. This implies that the “nothing”, that respondents finding fault with the statement “God is Nothingness”, are objecting to is the “nothing” that has no dimensionality and thus no existence. With this and within the context of my definition I heartily agree because this “nothing” does not exist so could not be God who does exist. On the other hand, I feel entitled - contingent on further explanation - in using the word “nothingness” to describe the infinite, space-like, dimesionality that existed before the creation of the universe, dimensionality that is devoid of matter, energy, time, and the space that defines the dimensionality of the universe.

I cannot imagine a dimensionless entity (a single point) for which there is no exterior. Any image of an exterior to a single point would have to have dimensionality. And the image would not be of “nothing” as I defined it. Such an image would neccessarily be of “nothingness” as I define it. The “nothing” that refers to a dimensionless point without anything exterior to it, is as meaningless as imagining a squared circle or an effect without a cause. It can’t be done.

Okay, you guys that get emotional about “God is Nothingness” can respond with your proclamations: blasphemous, senseless, swill, stupidity, and any other derogatory word you may want to use, but please recognize the paucity of rationality that such responses represent. And while I’m at it consider this from the encyclical Fides et Ratio.

1. In the first chapter of his Letter to the Romans, Saint Paul helps us to appreciate better the depth of insight of the Wisdom literature’s reflection. Developing a philosophical argument in popular language, the Apostle declares a profound truth: through all that is created the “eyes of the mind” can come to know God. Through the medium of creatures, God stirs in reason an intuition of his “power” and his “divinity” (cf. Rom 1:20). This is to concede to human reason a capacity which seems almost to surpass its natural limitations. Not only is it not restricted to sensory knowledge, from the moment that it can reflect critically upon the data of the senses, but, by discoursing on the data provided by the senses, reason can reach the cause which lies at the origin of all perceptible reality. In philosophical terms, we could say that this important Pauline text affirms the human capacity for metaphysical enquiry.

If anyone finds that I am violating the spirit of this excerpt, please let me know how.

I will, in my next post if I make one, a more unemotional approach to his business of nothingness being the spiritual component of reality. It is an argument based on the mathematically acceptable description of space and its two modalities. It is an argument designed to counter the arguments of the materialists not other theists.

Anyone want to go along for the ride? I think JD will, perhaps Qoeleth?.
Yppop