Tuesday 23 August 2016

Embracing paradox

Recently, I was reading about the existentialist philospher Kierkegaard's view that ultimate truth is impossible for human beings to grasp because we do not have the necessary conceptual framework. This is not the same as when people say that 'God is beyond logic'. Rather, it is to say that the truth about God is perfectly logical within the context of the infinite and eternal realm that God inhabits but that, being finite creatures bound by space and time, what we are able to grasp of the truth about God appears to us to be paradoxical.
Imagine living in a two dimensional world like that described by C.S. Lewis in the passage from Mere Christianity that I quoted in my second post on this blog. Now imagine looking at two squares, the first measuring 2" x 2", the second measuring 6" x 6". The idea that the first of these shapes could be larger than the second would seem totally illogical and against all the rules of mathematics. This is because, as someone only capable of thinking in two dimensions, I am aware of the size in terms of area, but not in terms of volume, which would be totally beyond my experience or even ability to conceptualise. In actual fact it is perfectly possible for the first shape to be larger than the second if, for example, as well as its length and width of 2" x 2", it had a height of, say, 10" while the second shape had a height of only 1". In that case, the volume of the first shape (which is in actuality a cube rather than a square) would be 40" (2" x 2" x 10") while that of the second shape would be only 36" (6" x 6" x 1").
Ultimately, however, I do not think Kierkegaard's idea that eternal truth appears to finite minds as paradox can be used as a way of justifying belief in the doctrine of the Trinity. It doesn't make any difference how much we fail to understand about the nature of the Father or of the Son (or simply of the Being called God) or how impossible it is to grasp who or what they are in themselves as opposed to how they appear to our limited finite minds. The relevant issue is the idea that neither the Father nor the Son is the other, yet each of them is the same Being, namely God. The assertion that a=/=b yet a=x and b=x is just as illogical, no matter what a,b and x represent. Of course, if the word 'is' had some special meaning in the infinite or eternal dimension which was incapable of being grasped by our finite minds then it would be possible to say that the doctrine of the Trinity is true in some sense that it is beyond our capacity as finite beings to grasp. But the word 'is' was invented by us finite, time/space-bound creatures to serve a particular linguistic role, to convey the idea of identity as understood by us finite, time/space-bound creatures. It's meaning is defined by us and us alone. Defenders of the doctrine of the Trinity cannot, therefore, appeal to the infinite, eternal realm as an escape route from the incoherence and internally contradictory nature of that doctrine.

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