The Question of Evil

This is part of a series of blog entries...I'm just feeling as if I only have the time and attention for short posts right now, but read all of the posts so you can get what I mean. Of course, I'll need to start from a beginning...now which beginning will it be???

So let's begin at the beginning of the previous entry in this series...the neo-orthodoxy triumvirate.

First, the traditional view of omniscience and omnipotence is that they are infinite the way we've been taught to understand inifinity, which is mathematically; however, mathematical infinity is a very poor concept to associate with God. This becomes crystal clear when we talk about the concepts we refer to here (omniscience and omnipotence), because Inifinity is, by definition, omni-directional; however Knowledge and Power each have their antithesis...and while neo-orthodoxy would want to claim infinite Knowledge and infinite Power they would not want to claim infinite Ignorance and infinite Weakness, to say nothing of infinite Malficience.

A clear understanding of Infinity, combined with what it seems to me the Bible says about God (of course this relies on my interpretations) indicates that any reference to the infinity of God must refer to a logical infinity rather than mathematical. It seems to me that this makes sense if you think about it...the most powerful being in existence would seem to be "all-powerful" even though they may not necessarily have infinite power...which would make them relatively versus absolutely infinite.

Let's think about this another way. The first passage in the John's gospel, it says that Logos was the very first thing that existed and then tries to equate Logos and God. Assuming that John was correct, there are few options...and none that reinforce the notion of absolute infinity, because absolute infinity and Logos are diametrically opposed.

[wooop...wooop...TANGENT alert]
Now, I will grant that Logos runs counter to the description of God the Torah tells us God gave Moses. If we translate that passage as I AM WHO I AM that sounds more like an excuse than a name or even an idea...and more than a little like Popeye. If we translate that passage as I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE sounds a little like a power trip...like how dare you question, I'll be good or evil as I will puny human. But, who knows, maybe it was really supposed to be I WILL BE WHAT I AM, and the writer was drawing a contrast between the God of Abraham with the gods of Mesopotamia who were anthropomorphized down to the almost hourly changes in attitudes. (Ok, I'll get back to the topic at hand now.)

So if we remove the concept of mathematical infinity from our understanding of God how does that affect the Question of Evil? Well, suddenly the question is not really a question. It may be that God does not know actuality, but rather possibility and therefore won't prevent an event lest it actually be good. It may be that God does not have the power to change things willy-nilly. It may be that there is some unknown limit to possibility that makes "the good" a choice of the lesser of evils.

In any case, the question established by the classic definition of God is erased by the lack of Infinity.