Thinking about Infinity

May 25, 2023

Thinking about infinity:

The radical thinking God asked for has really been beyond my intellectual reach.

I tried to think about infinity, for example.

It is certainly a daunting concept. Every philosopher is aware of such puzzles as Zeno’s paradoxes and Immanuel Kant’s antinomies.

The Greek philosopher Zeno argued that, if the tortoise has a head start, Achilles can never overtake him. Once he catches up with the tortoise’s previous position, the tortoise will have moved forward.

Achilles will now have to reach the tortoise’s new position but, by the time he does so, the tortoise will have moved forward again, even if only a little way, and Achilles will have to catch up to that position, by which time the tortoise will have inched forward yet again, and so on.

Since there are an infinite number of points between the tortoise and the goal post, and an infinite number of points can never be transversed in finite time, Achilles can never catch the tortoise. Of course, in real life, he could. That’s why it is a paradox.

Kant’s antinomies are more metaphysical than mathematical but also have to do with infinity.

For example, either the world had a beginning or it did not (these alternatives are the antinomies or contradictories). If it did, one wonders what happened before that? And if it did not, there would have to be an infinite number of moments in the past, and is that really conceivable?

There were world-class physicists at a conference I attended.

One reported that mathematicians had now proved you can have an infinite space within a sphere—within a ball, in effect. He said it made no sense to him but, since mathematicians had proved it, he had to accept it.

A great deal of contemporary science doesn’t “make sense.”

While I was balking at giving up my categories for understanding the nature of God, I saw what scientists have to believe when they do quantum mechanics. They have to believe that some subatomic particles do not actually have a location prior to being observed.

They have to believe that a certain change in one particle is always followed by the opposite change in another particle even though there is no contact between them and no way for the second particle to “know” which way the first particle changed.

If tough-minded physicists could be that flexible, surely I could too.

I did try to think about infinity.

One of the basic paradoxes in the philosophical tradition concerns whether it makes sense to have an actual or completed infinity. No matter how large the number, you can always add “plus one.” So it seems that the number series simply goes on forever and can never be completed. If so, infinity is more a process term than the description of an actuality. It expresses the possibility of a larger number, not the actuality of an infinite quantity. But that seems to mean that no thing or being could actually be infinite. The number series can always go on, but each number is the end point of a finite series of numbers.

That means that God could not actually be infinite.

I wondered if that was adequate. I tried to think of a completed infinite. In our home, we have two mirrors that face each other. Each one mirrors the other, and mirrors the other mirroring the other, and so on, with the result that one sees an infinite series of mirrorings in each mirror. And they all exist fully and in the present, not just as a series running into the future.

Maybe, I thought, this was an actual or complete infinite.

But, no, the mirror images get smaller and smaller but at some point they are presumably too small to be mirrored, so there are a finite number of reflected images after all.

Moreover, although the images seem to us to all exist at the present moment, in fact light takes time to go back and forth, and that means there is really a series of images. Even if the series could go on forever, it would never be completed.

Perhaps I was on the wrong track.

What is meant when people say that God is infinite?

Do they mean some kind of actual or completed infinite? Or is it another way to say that nothing is missing. That is a less puzzling idea. In a perfect painting, nothing is missing. There is nothing to be added. Perhaps that is a thought in the right direction.

Then I remembered: I had already asked God, Are You infinite? The answer was “I am boundless.”

It is not clear what “boundless” means. Literally, it would mean “without bounds or limits.” But the next two answers may be relevant here. I had asked about omniscience, in effect, infinite knowledge, and was told, “I know everything that is important.” And I had asked about omnipotence—infinite power—and was told, “I can do everything I want (care) to do.” That sounds more like the perfect painting.

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Listen to this on God: An Autobiography, The Podcast– the dramatic adaptation and continuing discussion of the book God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher by Jerry L. Martin.

“It is good, just let it happen.”

May 4, 2023

Let it happen:

One experience, late at night, went even further. I felt the distance or boundary between me and the world becoming narrower and narrower, and less and less distinct. Slowly, subject and object were blending, becoming intimately bound, not standing apart from one another. I was noting this intellectually, but it was not an intellectual experience. It was, you might say, an ontological experience, an experience of my whole being. Finally, for a few moments, it approached total one-ness, the complete loss of awareness of self. At that point, I pulled back.

“Lord, what is the meaning of this kind of experience?”

There are many levels and kinds of experience with Me (including music). Do not make too much of it. It is good, just let it happen.

It does not mean that you are about to become a mystic or anything unworldly. It is not unlike—it is on a continuum with—a wide range of spiritual experiences, in and out of religious practice and sensibility, that people have all the time. But it is definitely good. It will give you energy and peace and insight, so let it in.

Many times one “loses oneself” in an experience, but those moments are less threatening than merging with God. I pulled back, but felt a nagging sense that I was not supposed to.

God: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher – is the true story of a philosopher’s conversations with God. Dr. Jerry L. Martin, a lifelong agnostic. Dr. Martin served as head of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the University of Colorado philosophy department, is the founding chairman of the Theology Without Walls group at AAR, and editor of Theology Without Walls: The Transreligious Imperative. Dr. Martin’s work has prepared him to become a serious reporter of God’s narrative, experiences, evolution, and autobiography. In addition to scholarly publications, Dr. Martin has testified before Congress on educational policy. He has appeared on “World News Tonight,” and other television news programs.

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Listen to this on God: An Autobiography, The Podcast– the dramatic adaptation and continuing discussion of the book God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher by Jerry L. Martin.

He was a lifelong agnostic, but one day he had an occasion to pray. To his vast surprise, God answered- in words. Being a philosopher, he had a lot of questions, and God had a lot to tell him.

“Let it be.”

April 20, 2023

Let It Be-

“When I was in the third grade, my parents both worked. After school, I was supposed to wash the breakfast and lunch dishes. I would look out the window and see the other children playing in the building site next door. It had a big pile of sand, an open foundation, and other attractive hazards. I wanted sooo much to play outside with the other kids. Sometimes I would give in to temptation and go out to play ‘just for a few minutes.’ Before I knew it, Dad’s car would appear and I would be in deep trouble.”

Yes, you were often denied joy during childhood and that cramped your ability to experience joy.

It was also fragile and threatened. You now carry that wariness over (to the present). You should place yourself faithfully in My hands and enjoy what happens and assume that what goes wrong is just part of the divine plan.

Let it be.

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God: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher - is the true story of a philosopher’s conversations with God. Dr. Jerry L. Martin, a lifelong agnostic. Dr. Martin served as head of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the University of Colorado philosophy department, is the founding chairman of the Theology Without Walls group at AAR, and editor of Theology Without Walls: The Transreligious Imperative. Dr. Martin's work has prepared him to become a serious reporter of God's narrative, experiences, evolution, autobiography and sparks of wisdom. In addition to scholarly publications, Dr. Martin has testified before Congress on educational policy, appeared on “World News Tonight,” and other television news programs

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Listen to this on God: An Autobiography, The Podcast- the dramatic adaptation and continuing discussion of the book God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher by Jerry L. Martin.

He was a lifelong agnostic, but one day he had an occasion to pray. To his vast surprise, God answered- in words. Being a philosopher, he had a lot of questions, and God had a lot to tell him.

“These moments were not empty suffering”

April 13, 2023

Empty suffering:

Any person who believes in God has to confront the problem of human suffering. Why does God permit it?

“Lord, does suffering have any purpose or meaning?”

Of course, suffering is what makes life serious. Imagine a world in which actions never resulted in suffering. Imagine a world without the pain of regret, without feeling bad about doing something wrong (or) shameful.

“But disease serves no moral purpose.”

Now you are fencing with Me on “the problem of pain.” Just listen. You will never learn from fencing.

Disease, disaster, aging, death are essential aspects of suffering. “We” live in a physically vulnerable world. That is the essential condition that makes life serious.

“All that’s rather abstract, Lord. What exactly does disease do for us?” I thought of Job’s boils.

Suffering is the test of your humanity. There is no greater test than pain—how one copes with it. It is easy to be nice, faithful, and such, when things are great, but very hard under adversity.

“But, Lord, that just seems perverse—or cruel.”

No, that’s not so. Think about your own times of physical suffering—in the hospital, for example—the shots, the clumsy aide, the itch, the nurse about urinating, those were full of growth.

Those examples brought back memories.

A couple of years before these prayers began, I suffered a mild heart attack and was rushed to the intensive care unit. They took blood tests, day and night. There are a limited number of places from which blood can be drawn, and the same spot cannot be used again right away. The wrists are ideal, but mine are sensitive and a needle there smarts.

One does not have much power as a patient, but safeguarding my wrists became my prime imperative.

One after another blood drawer would come, and I would plead, argue, wheedle, and insist they find some other place to puncture me. Each resisted, then managed to find a spot.

I was transferred to another hospital for the surgical procedure. I was met by a technician who said his name and stuck out his hand—while looking the other way and standing on my oxygen tube. When it was time to go into the operating room, he snatched away my blanket with so violent a jerk it would have ripped out the intravenous insertion if I had not by now been on high alert.

Once in the operating room, I was placed on a slab with my arms flat at my side.

Medical equipment loomed above, posing an impressive threat. “Don’t move!” I was told. My nose chose that moment to itch. The itch grew intense, then more intense, dreadfully intense, until nothing existed but me and that itch. Then I understood. I can’t fight it…just have to live with it, until the procedure is over. I don’t know if the itch went away or what—I forgot all about it.

The procedure went smoothly.

I watched the monitor as the surgeon snaked a catheter through an incision in my groin up to a major coronary artery where a stent had to be placed.

Opening an artery is a very serious matter. Bleeding can be life-threatening. The patient has to lie flat and immobile for twenty-four hours. Nurses at my first hospital had been angels in white, but here I was attended by Nurse Ratched’s less charming twin.

She seemed to resent patients needing her help.

Finding it difficult to manage the bedpan flat on my back, I asked for assistance. She acted as if it were a dirty-minded request and responded by threatening me, “If you can’t manage the bedpan, we will catheterize you!” Finally, I did manage, and it was time to close up the artery. Another patient had told me the closing could be dangerous as well as painful.

“Who is to perform this delicate operation?”

Nurse Ratched gave me the grim news: young Mr. Sizzorhands, the technician whose previous efforts to hurt me had been foiled, would now have another shot. I asked for someone else. “He is the only technician available.”

“I am not going to let that guy lay another hand on me.”

She made it a battle of wills. We went back and forth. Finally I said, “Let me speak to the doctor.”

She said she would see what she could do and, after a time, she returned with a young Asian-American attendant. He had magical hands. I didn’t feel a thing.

My body was recovering nicely, but the whole experience—starting with “indigestion” in the night (I didn’t know that was a heart symptom), calling the office the next morning to find out what nearby doctor was covered by my health plan, driving myself (fool that I was) to the doctor’s office, filling out forms and waiting for some time before going up and telling the receptionist, “I may be having a heart attack,” the quick examination and discovery that I was at that very moment in the throes of an incipient attack, an emergency medical team rushing to my side trying to head it off, being shoveled into an ambulance, the sirens, intensive care, the surgery, the whole ordeal—left me feeling fragile, as if I were made of spun glass. A sharp tap and I would shatter.

They (these moments) were not empty suffering; they even had to do with leading you to Me.

“How so, Lord?”

They focused your attention on your mortality, which (led) you to open your heart fully to Abigail because you realized how precious this love was. And it led to your prayer to serve God.

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Listen to this on God: An Autobiography, The Podcast– the dramatic adaptation and continuing discussion of the book God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher by Jerry L. Martin.

He was a lifelong agnostic, but one day he had an occasion to pray. To his vast surprise, God answered- in words. Being a philosopher, he had a lot of questions, and God had a lot to tell him.

“That is how revelation works.”

March 16, 2023

How revelation works:

I was trying to be flexible, but my mind was being stretched out of shape. Some days I would doubt the voice. It was, after all, in my head and talked a lot like me. But I was told,

My words are coming to you for a reason. Do not worry that it (My voice) sounds like you.

It is bound to sound like you (and to use) your vocabulary, your concepts. That is how revelation works. But notice that what you are now writing is completely different from what you believed prior to prayer—so different, much of it is profoundly uncomfortable and disturbing to you.

“Well, then, it is not just my own thoughts projected through Your voice.”

As you press ahead and pray more, and read reverentially and in conversation with Me, more revelations will come to you, and you will doubt less. Just relax, and put yourself in My hands.

But being reassured by the very voice I was doubting seemed circular. How can you tell whether a message is really from God? Without mentioning my personal story, I sought advice from a philosopher I knew at Calvin College. Did he know of any writings about how to tell if an answer received in prayer is really from God. I learned that my question had an official name, the Problem of Spiritual Discernment, and that indeed it had been addressed. Now I would get to the bottom of it.

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Listen to this on God: An Autobiography, The Podcast– the dramatic adaptation and continuing discussion of the book God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher by Jerry L. Martin.

He was a lifelong agnostic, but one day he had an occasion to pray. To his vast surprise, God answered- in words. Being a philosopher, he had a lot of questions, and God had a lot to tell him.

“You will never learn from fencing.”

March 16, 2023

You will never learn…:

Giving up my career and risking my reputation in order to tell God’s story involved what sometimes seemed like an intolerable sacrifice. But, of course, it paled in comparison to the suffering human beings have experienced over the centuries. Any person who believes in God has to confront the problem of human suffering. Why does God permit it?

“Lord, does suffering have any purpose or meaning?”

Of course, suffering is what makes life serious. Imagine a world in which actions never resulted in suffering. Imagine a world without the pain of regret, without feeling bad about doing something wrong (or) shameful.

“But disease serves no moral purpose.”

Now you are relapsing into fencing with Me on “the problem of pain.” Just listen. You will never learn from fencing.

________

Listen to this on God: An Autobiography, The Podcast– the dramatic adaptation and continuing discussion of the book God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher by Jerry L. Martin.

He was a lifelong agnostic, but one day he had an occasion to pray. To his vast surprise, God answered- in words. Being a philosopher, he had a lot of questions, and God had a lot to tell him

“You Cannot Remain Neutral.”

March 2, 2023

On a visit to Colorado, I told a former colleague in the philosophy department about my experiences. I was afraid he would think, “poor Jerry, he has gone daft.” But he listened with interest and respect, and recommended that I read American philosopher William James’ classic essay, “The Will to Believe.”

A British scientist had argued in an influential essay called “The Ethics of Belief” that it is always wrong to believe something without sufficient evidence. He had religion in his crosshairs. But, James responded, there are some beliefs that, if you accept them, will shape your whole life. And shape it in a different way if you do not. You cannot remain neutral; yet evidence is inconclusive either way. In these cases, it is perfectly reasonable to accept the belief even with “insufficient” evidence.

My situation seemed to be exactly what James was describing. Facing a similar choice between belief and unbelief, the seventeenth-century French philosopher Blaise Pascal, saw it as a wager. If I believe in God and am wrong, well, I’m dead anyway, so I haven’t lost much. But if I don’t believe in God, and there is one … well, you might say, there’s hell to pay.

I faced my own wager. Either I follow the voice or I don’t. If I follow the voice and it is not the voice of God or anything close to that, what is the worst that can happen? Well, I would be a fool, maybe even a laughingstock, and say goodbye to an excellent career. But, if I decide not to follow the voice and it is indeed the voice of God or something close to that, then I would have really blown it. What if Moses had done that? Or George Fox, the founder of the Quakers? The Old Testament is full of people called by God, who at first demur and only reluctantly heed the call. Even Moses worries (“suppose they do not believe me”) and feels inadequate to the task (“I have never been eloquent … I am slow of speech and slow of tongue”).

I am not comparing myself to these great religious leaders, but all of us in our lives face moments when we have to decide whether to respond to a certain call—be it the call of duty or service or simply, as Joseph Campbell puts it, to “follow your bliss”—rather than continue a more conventional or comfortable course. If I had to live with one worst-case scenario or the other, I could live with being a fool, if that’s what it came to, but I could not live with having refused God’s call.

Making a decision to believe is not quite the same as accepting that belief in your bones. It is more like the first step toward believing. My philosophy still had no place for God—especially for a God who talks to me. Outside the Bible, who talks to God?

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Listen to this on God: An Autobiography, The Podcast– the dramatic adaptation and continuing discussion of the book God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher by Jerry L. Martin.

He was a lifelong agnostic, but one day he had an occasion to pray. To his vast surprise, God answered- in words. Being a philosopher, he had a lot of questions, and God had a lot to tell him.

I Will Be There

February 9, 2023

Let’s go to Moses.

Exodus reports that the Israelites “groaned from the bondage and cried out, and their plea from the bondage went up to God. And God heard their moaning, and God remembered [literally, took to heart] His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God saw the Israelites, and God knew.”

“What did You know?”

What I needed to do.

“And what was that?”

Read the next chapter.

“It’s about Moses encountering the burning bush.”

Yes, I had to get his attention. Often I have to put something in people’s paths to get their attention.

“And the Lord’s messenger appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of the bush, and he saw, and look, the bush was burning with fire and the bush was not consumed. Moses thought, ‘Let me, pray, turn aside that I may see this great sight, why the bush does not burn up.’ The Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, and God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’’’

“He reports for duty, ‘Here I am.’”

Moses had the capacity to listen to Me and to obey.

God gives Moses his mission. “And now, go that I may send you to Pharaoh, and bring My people the Israelites out of Egypt.” And Moses asks, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring out the Israelites from Egypt?”

But Moses will not be on his own. “And He said, ‘For I will be with you.’”

Moses protests. “Look, when I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’, what shall I say to them?”

There are various translations of God’s answer, the most revealing of which is by Everett Fox. Moses should tell them “I will be-there” sends me to you. “What does this mean, Lord?”

Several things are going on in that name.

I did disclose it and they got it essentially right. Self-disclosure is part of it. Presence is part of it. The fact that I am seen all the time, that I am ever-present to people, communicating with them sotto voce all the time. It is also reassurance, because I am there to help. When you need me, I will be there. It also has something to do with the quality of presence, that I am fully and authentically and immediately and intimately present, as when you say that one person is “more present” than another.

It means that My essence for human beings is that I will be there, be present, that I am a companion and friend and ally; that My very presence is the heart of Me, and is what (the what of Me) human beings need to know, (the what of Me) that matters.

I will be there for you, by your side, in the fight or in the suffering or in the love. I will be a participant and a partner. That is My essence for human beings.

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Listen to this on God: An Autobiography, The Podcast– the dramatic adaptation and continuing discussion of the book God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher by Jerry L. Martin.

He was a lifelong agnostic, but one day he had an occasion to pray. To his vast surprise, God answered- in words. Being a philosopher, he had a lot of questions, and God had a lot to tell him.

Theology Without Walls – The Transreligious Imperative

January 12, 2023

God’s autobiography is mainly the story of divine interaction with people and with messages given over time to different cultures.

Toward the end of God: An Autobiography… I am told that we stand on the “threshold of a new spiritual era.” “A new axial age.” Spiritually attuned individuals will draw their understanding of spiritual reality. Not just from the scriptures of their own religious tradition, but from, “the plentitude of My communications with men and women.”

Each religion got part of the story. It was now time to put the parts together.

I was told to start a new project, called Theology Without Walls. So I started attending the American Academy of Religion, and in 2014 held the first panel for the new TWW project. I did not mention to my new colleagues what I had been told in prayer. I presented the project on its own merits. The argument for it can be stated in a simple syllogism.

If the aim of theology is to know all we can about the divine or ultimate reality. If insights into that reality are found in more than one religion, then theology needs to take in all the evidence and not be confined to our own tradition. It should be Theology Without Walls.

The project attracted considerable interest, including from leading theologians, and the result is a volume of twenty-one essays by outstanding thinkers that has just been published: Theology Without Walls: The Transreligious Imperative (Routledge, 2019). Since I am a philosopher, not a theologian, and since I did not even know any theologians or as a life-long agnostic, much about religion, it seems little short of miraculous that Theology Without Walls has succeeded to so sublime a degree.

All I had to do was whatever God told me. That was all.

It will guide you to righteousness.

December 22, 2022

Righteousness:

Step through the door love has opened? The woman I loved was both very spiritual and very Jewish. Does it mean that I should convert to Judaism—something I had zero interest in doing? I asked, warily, “Lord, should I become Jewish?”

You already are Jewish.

Already Jewish? I am not at all Jewish. The little Texas town where I was born didn’t have any Jews.

“Lord, what do You mean?”

Think about it.

Even more warily, I asked, “Does it mean I have to be circumcised?”

No.

“Does it mean that my religious orientation is more Jewish than Christian or any other faith?” Certainly the God who spoke to me seemed a lot like the God of the Old Testament.

No.

“Does it mean that I understand, using a phrase of Abigail’s, the Jewish essence?”

It means you are open to the Jewish spirit, it lives in you, and you sometimes listen to it.

A source of great guidance, inspiration to you. The center of your being is grounded in it. It pleases me greatly that you honor the Hebrew scriptures. They are My word—and they contain the record of many of My dealings with men (people). Continue to study the Torah.

The Torah, the first five books of the Bible, is also called the Pentateuch or the Five Books of Moses.

It will guide you to righteousness. Do not falter or be deterred or distracted. My word is with you. Make the most of it.

“I will try, Lord.”

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Listen to this on God: An Autobiography, The Podcast– the dramatic adaptation and continuing discussion of the book God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher by Jerry L. Martin.

He was a lifelong agnostic, but one day he had an occasion to pray. To his vast surprise, God answered- in words. Being a philosopher, he had a lot of questions, and God had a lot to tell him.