How do we really know that basic metaphysical principles, such as, that contradictions in being are impossible, are both certain and transcendentally true? That is, how do we have perfect certitude that they apply validly to every possible thing, including the God of classical theism?

Some have argued that the principle of non-contradiction (PNC), which states that the same thing cannot both be and not be in the same respect, applies merely to macroscopic reality – to the humans and horses and even bugs we see in the full size world of our normal experience. They claim, in the name of science, that at the submicroscopic level of subatomic entities, such as photons, the principle may be violated. For example, a photon presents experimentally both as a wave and as a particle, which seems to be contradictory.

The problem with this type of objection is that in order to make the observations that allegedly “prove” that a subatomic contradiction can be real, one must be certain that subatomic observations are what they are and are not otherwise. In other words, the observer must assume that the PNC is working at the subatomic level in order to judge, for example, that the photon is in truth behaving as a particle and not like a wave. It is bad logic to presuppose that the PNC is working at the subatomic level in order to “prove” that it does not work at the subatomic level!

What limits the extent of a principle’s application is the nature of that to which it applies. What applies to one kind of being may not apply to a different one. For example, a rule about chickens may apply to all possible chickens, but it may not apply to squid.

The PNC is a principle, not about any particular kind of being, but of being or existence itself. It does not matter what kind of being we consider, for example, whether macroscopic entities or submicroscopic ones. Once the mind understands what it means to exist, as opposed to not existing, it immediately and validly applies the PNC to anything and everything.

While it is possible for something to be a non-chicken, it is not possible for something to be a non-being. The PNC applies to both creature and God, not because they are like in nature – which they are not, but because both have being or existence. So, once we understand what it means to be, we know that the PNC applies both to creature and Creator and to every least existing aspect of every possible being. That is, it is transcendentally true.

The Problem with Some Logicians

Others object that the principle of non-contradiction is really merely a rule of logic, which says that the same predicate cannot be both affirmed and denied of the same subject. In this view, the rule may have universal conceptual validity within the mind, but what is to guarantee that it applies universally to extramental beings? How do we know that the PNC can apply validly to a transcendental entity, like the God of classical theism -- the reality of which would be utterly beyond the finite world in which we live?

The problem is that even such objectors, like the rest of us, find themselves unable to think of anything, except in terms of “being” or “non-being.” Even claiming that truth is merely a matter of probability still requires absolutely affirming the state of probability.

What makes the mind work this way? What makes skeptics keep trying to find contradictions in the God of classical theism, as if that would prove with certitude that such a being is impossible? They keep demanding that God obey the PNC in spite of being highly skeptical about its transcendental application to God.

We must recall that the concepts used in logic do not represent direct knowledge of things themselves, but merely abstract notions of things existing in the mind. What we first know, in fact, is not a concept, but real things in a real world – even if that real world is merely a really experienced bad dream. Even if someone is hallucinating pink elephants dancing on the ceiling, the hallucinations are still real as hallucinations. In knowing our own hallucinations, we, in fact, know something real in its own order.

It is objected by some that we simply do not encounter abstractions, such as “being” or “existence.” But, the concepts formed through abstraction, which are the ones logicians deal with, presuppose encounters with real things. You don’t form a concept of “animal,” unless you first have judged that you have encountered a real animal from which to abstract the universal form of animal.

The first knowledge we have of things is had in a judgment of existence, that is, that “something is real.” If I encounter a tiger, I judge that something is real and tiger-like in my experience. This judgment contains both the nature of the tiger and its reality or being, confusedly apprehended at first.

It is not the structure of my language that determines the content of my experience, but the reverse. That is, it is the content of my experience which has developed the structure of my language. First, we know things, and then we invent words to describe them. Even though my words reflect the structure of my experience, they do not determine it. Rather, as I reflect on what I perceive, I express language which I judge describes it correctly.

Unlike irrational animals, I not only have sense experience of some object, but I also am fully aware that I am judging that it actually exists before me. That is why it is correct to say that “I know something to be or exist,” not by sense knowledge alone, but by an intellectual judgment that this is true.

Rather than some presupposed theory forcing the description of experience, it is the experience itself as understood that forces the description of what is taking place. That is, first there is awareness of something there, second, self-reflective awareness of the awareness itself, and third, awareness of something (the self) having the awareness of something there.

Thus, the primary act of knowing things is a judgment of some kind of nature being real, that is, as existing. This is not to be confused with the concepts, empty of all existential content, which the logician studies in terms of their proper relationships. The logician’s concepts need not exist extramentally at all, once they are abstracted from really existing things or formed through a fictional combination of qualities taken from real things, as in the case of the unicorn.

That is, we first encounter some real being, even if it is merely a real mental experience, and only secondarily do we form the concepts of things that we use in logic.

We know full well that our judgment about whether something is really existing or not is not a mere judgment about relationships between concepts, but about real being itself.

This is why judgments about the nature of being itself do not fall under the purview of the science of logic, the practical science which determines correct relationships between concepts. The rule against contradictions in predication is simply an application to logic of the metaphysical principle of non-contradiction. Metaphysics regulates the science of logic, not vice versa.

That is why the Thomistic philosopher Jacques Maritain tells us that “…logic is the science of conceptual being and not a science of real being.”¹

The Foundation of Certitude

Nor is there any doubt about the reality of being as encountered in lived experience. I often tell people just to try sitting on a large roofing nail. One might doubt whether the experience is (1) merely one of a subjective psychosomatic symptom or (2) one caused by an objectively real extramental nail. But one cannot doubt the reality of the pain involved!

That is because doubt is the fear of error, that is, the fear that something may not be the way we think it is. But, this means that there must be a real distinction between what one thinks to be real and some distinct objective reality. For example, if I think my car to be in my garage, but it actually has been removed by a thief. But, in the direct experience of the nail-induced pain itself, although I might doubt the reality of the nail, I cannot doubt the reality of the pain, because my experience of the pain is identical with the pain’s very reality – thereby allowing no possibility of a real distinction between my experience of the pain and the pain itself.

This is why we have perfect certitude that we encounter reality or being in our first experience of anything at all. For, in experiencing something, there can be no real distinction between the act of experiencing and its own real content, regardless of whether the experience is merely of some subjective fantasy or directly of some external object. The lack of a real distinction between the act of experiencing something and the reality of the experience’s own content precludes the lack of conformity required for the possibility of error and its associated doubt – at least as far as to the fact that something, some reality, some being has been encountered.

I can doubt whether the pink elephant I hallucinate dancing on the ceiling exists extramentally, but I cannot doubt that I am experiencing seeing one. Also, in that selfsame act of experiencing anything at all, we know immediately in a general way what the nature of being is, since being’s nature is given to us with certitude as our mind conforms to the real being of its own experienced content. We do not know a mere concept of being, but being itself in this direct experience of it – in the mental act in which we judge, “Something is, something is real, something is existing.”

This immediately-given understanding of being we express in judgments, such as, the principles of identity (that being is being) and non-contradiction (that being cannot be non-being). Our mind finds itself conformed to being itself in the selfsame act by which we first encounter being and in every subsequent such act. That is also why even skeptical logicians cannot help but think of all reality in terms of being and non-being, even if they formulate denials of such knowledge in their scholarly tomes.

No Rabbits Out of Genuinely Empty Hats

Just as we are perfectly certain that being cannot be non-being, we are equally certain that non-being cannot beget being. Everyone who is intellectually honest knows and admits that you cannot get something from nothing. A few confuse the “nothing” of quantum mechanics with the “absolutely nothing at all” that the philosopher is talking about. But, when they say that you get protons popping into existence from nothing in quantum mechanics, the “nothing” they refer to is not really nothing at all: it is merely a “quantum vacuum,” which is the lowest state of energy thought to be found in physical reality. It is still something – not the “total non-being” to which the philosopher refers.

Even materialists do scientific handstands to try to avoid the suggestion that the cosmos was actually somehow generated from absolute nothingness. They do not seem to want to get caught in the position of trying to explain how a magician’s completely empty hat can generate a real rabbit.

The Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR)

The human intellect knows truth in the self-reflective act of knowing its own conformity to reality or being. That is why certitudes such as the PNC are possible. But the intellect or mind is always searching for reasons to assure itself that it is in conformity with reality or being so that it knows that perfect certitude has been achieved. The Thomistic PSR has to do with whether or not all things have reasons for being or for being true.

In seeking to understand whether all things must have reasons for why and how they exist, we must first make a distinction. Some things are directly evident to our senses and can be known to exist because of this. On the other hand, the principle of sufficient reason addresses the question as to whether all things must have reasons for their existence – reasons founded in being or reality sufficient to account fully for what exists.

Note the difference between what is known to be true from direct experience and what may still not be explained by that experience. For example, we may know that something exists by direct observation. Still, that does not mean that such a being is self-explanatory or is the reason for its own existence. For example, I know that the sun exists because I can see it. But that is not the same thing as to know why the sun exists, that is, whether there is a reason for it existing and what that reason may be.

Thus, the existence of what is directly experienced is truly affirmed in the sense that we have immediate knowledge of its presence. But that is not the same thing as its being able to explain why it is present or existent.

The plain fact is that we use our minds to reason to conclusions that we expect to be true. If we could not trust our reasoning processes to lead to true conclusions, then all human knowledge would be worthless – philosophy, theology, and all the natural sciences alike. But true conclusions demand true reasons leading to them. If a conclusion is true when it conforms to reality or being, then solid reasoning requires true premises – premises or reasons that faithfully reflect objective reality or being itself.

It makes no sense to trust the mind to lead us to know true being, and yet, not to trust the way the mind demands reasons for all things in order to reach that true being.

If (1) the mind demands reasons for things that do not fully explain themselves and if (2) we trust the mind to tell us the truth about reality when it reasons correctly, then the fact that the mind is not satisfied with things that fail to fully explain themselves proves that there must be a reason for everything.

In other words, since the mind demands reasons that conform to reality or being for any statement or thing that does not fully explain itself, it necessarily follows that a thing or statement must fully explain itself in order not to need extrinsic reasons.

I say, “thing or statement,” because, although the mind reasons in terms of judgments expressed as statements, those judgments are true solely when they conform to being. So, if a thing is explained by premises, which are expressions of judgments about being, true reasoning manifests the actuality or being on which something actually depends. Thus, I shall speak of true premises as actual extrinsic reasons for something actually having being or existence.

Just as the extrinsic reasons must conform to reality or being, a thing can fully explain itself only if that self-explanation itself conforms to reality or being. That is, it must be a real intrinsic explanation of why the thing exists as it does. To the extent a thing fails to fully explain itself, then, other reason(s) must exist to explain the thing’s being.

That being the case, it must be that all things either are fully their own reason for being, or else, to the extent that they do not have sufficient intrinsic reasons for being, there must be extrinsic reasons sufficient to complete their explanation.

This is merely a complicated way to state the principle of sufficient reason, whose metaphysical expression is this: Every being must have a sufficient reason for being or coming-to-be either within itself or from some extrinsic reason or reasons. And, since these reasons are grounded in being or reality, the PSR is itself one of the metaphysical first principles of being.

The principle that you cannot get something from nothing, or being from non-being, is simply an application of the principle of sufficient reason.

Thus, being itself must be known truly by the mind for the mind to be a valid faculty with which to know reality. That is why the mind must know true being in its true judgments and why being must have a sufficient reason for itself either in itself or from another. If a thing’s sufficient reason is “from another,” that is what we speak of as a “cause,” and hence, everything that does not fully explain itself (meaning, an effect) necessarily requires an extrinsic sufficient reason (meaning, a cause).

Some, especially scientific materialists who normally demand explanations for all observable phenomena, will claim that possibly some things, such as the very existence of the entire cosmos itself, are simply “brute facts” for which there is no explanation or reason at all. In so doing, they fail to grasp the necessary relationship between the mind’s validity as an instrument of true knowledge and the need for things to have existential reasons that correspond to the mind’s demand for reasons – as was shown above. In effect, a “brute fact” is no more possible than is the production of something from absolutely nothing, which latter truth every intellectually honest person knows is totally impossible.

Transcendental Nature of First Principles

For my own part, I have not the least doubt that these two first principles, (1) that being cannot both be and not be, and (2) that being cannot proceed from non-being, are apodictically true and apply to all possible beings. Nor do I think that, if these statements are properly understood, any intellectually honest, intelligent person can actually deny to himself either of them. Yes, the principle of sufficient reason has broader extension than the principle that you cannot get being from non-being. Yet, as shown above, even though it is not as clearly seen by all as is the principle that you cannot get being from absolute non-being, the principle that all beings must have a sufficient reason is equally valid and universal as is every other metaphysical first principle, simply because the laws of being are as universal as is being itself.

These metaphysical first principles apply to all beings, including the God of classical theism – for the simple reason that the mind clearly sees they must apply to any being simply in virtue of its existing. Some claim that being is a genus and, as such, cannot be analogically and transcendentally applied to God. This error arises from confusing logic and metaphysics.

In logic, any universal term, at best, rises to the level of a genus. But, any genus must be understood to be predicated univocally in all instances. Hence, the Thomistic claim that being must be predicated analogically and transcendentally is alleged to be invalid – which it would be, were it merely a concept of the type studied by logicians.

But, the understanding of being that the metaphysician forms is not formed through the normal mode of abstraction assumed by logicians. Rather, it is formed in a judgment of actually experienced being. From that being which is known in a judgment of real being, a mere concept of being is formed, which is then studied by the logician. As such, that logician’s concept would, indeed, be predicated merely univocally.

But, such a concept of being is merely a logical construct existing in the mind of the logician. It is an “artifact” constructed by abstraction from the real being of some existent thing or quality of a thing. What the mind initially and directly knows is not merely the concept abstracted from the thing, but the thing itself: Scio aliquid esse. “I know something to be.” Not, I know a concept of something to be.

When the mind grasps merely a concept of a thing, it abstracts some essence or essential quality from the really existent object of the judgment, and hence, leaves behind the very existence which differentiates the concept of being from the real being the mind first knows.

That is why being, considered as a mere concept, would be restricted to univocal predication, whereas the mind knows that real existence of real beings can vary analogically from being to being and that, whether finite or infinite, the laws of being apply to all real things. Logic is not metaphysics.

As Maritain puts it, “For by definition none of the real functions of being, but only its conceptual functions, are the proper and the direct object of logical study. There could be no more serious error than to suppose that the being of metaphysics is this being envisaged under the aspect of conceptual being….”²

That is why no one can resist applying such metaphysical first principles as non-contradiction and sufficient reason to all beings, including the Infinite Being. What has been called “the natural metaphysics of human intelligence” drives the mind to affirm the first principles of being as true and as applying to anything that exists in any way. But, they apply analogically, not univocally, since “being” is not a logical concept, but a metaphysical notion.

This is why even analytic thinkers have trouble resisting the temptation to look for what they think to be inherent contradictions in the God of classical theism. Yet, from their perspective, the law of non-contradiction need not apply to a transcendent being, such as God. If they really mean what they say, any alleged contradiction between an infinitely good God and the presence of evil in the world should be ignored – since, for them, contradictions in God might not be a problem! I have dealt with this false allegation against the goodness of God in another article on Strange Notions.

Without addressing the rest of the many details of the classical proofs for God’s existence, successfully defending the transcendental validity of these metaphysical first principles also defends common core premises essential to such proofs. Since many of the recent objections against the classical proofs for God rest on attacking the first principles of being, it should now be all the more clear that such proofs are effective and valid and that sound reason proves that the existence of God can be known by the light of unaided human reason.

For a more in-depth treatment of the themes discussed in this essay, see my longer article, “How Metaphysical Certitudes Anchor Proofs for God,” which appeared in the online Homiletic & Pastoral Review.

Ever wonder what it is like to be in the next life, that is, to be dead? (I thought it best to leave the word “dead” out of the title of this essay.) Since this is something we all must face sooner or later, I thought it might be of interest to engage in some rational speculation about what a human being experiences, if anything, after he becomes unconscious for the last time.

This is not a theological enquiry. So, depictions of hellfire and eternal bliss, though they may be apologetically defensible, are not where this essay is going. Rather, I shall explore what natural reason might tell us about afterlife possibilities.

Now one can make the rather impertinent observation some have offered about the curious situation of the atheist at his own funeral: “All dressed up and nowhere to go.” That is, after all, the ultimate implication of most forms of skepticism, materialism, and atheism.

Reincarnation, or, Getting Another Bite at the Apple

On the other hand, we have the doctrine of metempsychosis or reincarnation offered by both the Vedic tradition in the east and Plato in the west. In that view, dying is followed by birth into another life. Plato, in his dialogue, the Timaeus, expresses his own version of metempsychosis, when he postulates that the form of life we reenter depends on how we live this present life.

“He who lived well during his appointed time was to return and dwell in his native star, and there he would have a blessed and congenial existence. But if he failed in attaining this, at the second birth he would pass into a woman, and if, when in that state of being, he did not desist from evil, he would continually be changed into some brute who resembled him in the evil nature which he had acquired, and would not cease from his toils and transformations until he followed the revolution of the same and the like within him, and overcame by the help of reason the turbulent and irrational mob of later accretions, made up of fire and air and water and earth, and returned to the form of his first and better state.”¹

Prescinding from Plato’s speculation about moving down and back up the ladder of living things and since we presently know what it is to experience our own human life, it is not all that difficult to imagine reentering the same kind of life we presently have.

Death Without Continuous Reincarnation

Far more intriguing is the prospect of trying to imagine what it is like to experience life after death when no immediate or proximate reincarnation occurs. Since (1) death entails the loss or corruption of the entire human body and (2) it appears that all we know in this life comes to us through the senses and brain, which are material organs of the human body, what would life after death be like? What could or would we know or experience either intellectually or sensitively in such a hypothetically disembodied state of being?

This last view is doubtless of greatest interest to the majority of those who share some form of the Christian religion, which dominates in Western Civilization. Now, I am not presuming the revealed content of that religious worldview, but merely am noting that its central doctrines entail the notion of death and some form of afterlife for the spiritual soul – but without any notion of proximate reincarnation. The Christian doctrine of bodily resurrection pertains to something that happens for most all men, not at their immediate time of death, but at the end of the world at some point in the future. Until that indeterminate span of time has elapsed, the spiritual soul must exist without a corporeal body. It is that purely spiritual condition of temporally extended human existence upon which I now focus my attention.

Indeed, among leading Christian figures we have, in the prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, the beautiful truth expressed that “…it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.” One cannot but wonder exactly what this statement might mean to us, the living, who have no direct experience of what it appears to affirm.

What Reason Can Say About the Separated Soul's Experience

Certainly, most human beings admit to having no direct evidence of what it is like to be dead before we are actually dead. But we do have some (1) speculative philosophical arguments about what the separated soul can know and (2) possibly analogous experiences which some have reported to us about this condition of continued immaterial existence.

St. Thomas Aquinas offers a rather complete speculative explanation of what man’s spiritual soul can know after the soul’s separation from the body.²

St. Thomas affirms that the separated soul can no longer operate using sense powers or sense organs, since they belong to the body and the soul of the deceased is no longer the actuating form of the body, Thus, such acts as forming and understanding universal concepts abstracted from phantasms, which themselves are formed from physical sense experience, are no longer possible when we are dead. Still, he insists that “... the soul in that [separated] state understands by means of participated species resulting from the influence of the divine light ….”³ In other words, while the soul no longer can perform such acts by its own natural bodily powers, God can infuse such knowledge into it.

For the same reason, the separated soul can have knowledge of some singulars to which it is related in some fashion. This is not accomplished by abstraction from phantasms, but “… by the infusion of species by God, and in that way it is possible for the intellect to know singulars.”⁴ Such knowledge would naturally entail formation of judgments and self-reflective awareness of one’s own existence in the act of making of such judgments.

However, St, Thomas maintains that “… by natural knowledge [that is, unless God directly infuses such knowledge], … the dead do not know what passes on earth.”⁵ The notable exception is the state of the blessed in heaven, who see God, and who, through Him who sees all things, are infused with knowledge of things that take place on earth.⁶

But, What is it Really Like to be Dead?

While the preceding speculative musings may be of great interest to the philosopher or theologian, they do little to help us ordinary mortals to imagine what it is really like to be dead. The unfortunate fact is that we simply cannot imagine the spiritual experiences described above for the simple reason that imagining entails the use of the imagination, which is a sense power whose function depends on bodily organs, and thus, completely terminates at the time of passing into the next life. We need something that will help us to grasp precisely what it would be like to be a disembodied spirit that is still, in a meaningful sense, having a real life experience. How would it “feel” to be living, but without a body and without the body’s sense organs that we need for sense experience in this life?

I do not herein propose to demonstrate the spirituality and immortality of the human soul. Those are proper topics for other venues and I have addressed them myself elsewhere, including on this Strange Notions site. Rather, I propose here simply to give two examples of reported human experience that depicts the content of “disembodied existence,” namely, (1) those drawn from near death experiences and (2) those drawn from our own experience of dreams.

Near Death Experiences

I do not intend to give a broad analysis of NDE here, but merely want to show that those who claim such experiences often claim out-of-body events, some of which appear to be verified by others. For example, we have the rather common NDE claim of people feeling themselves “floating” up out of their bodies, say, on an operating table, and then “seeing and hearing” the doctors and nurses – being able correctly to report what they were wearing and actually saying and doing – all while being unconscious from anesthesia.

Perhaps, a case some readers may have seen reported is that of a migrant worker named Maria, who had a severe heart attack and was in cardiac arrest. She was able to look down from the ceiling and watch the medical team at work on her body. “At one point in this experience, said Maria, she found herself outside the hospital and spotted a tennis shoe on the ledge of the north side of the third floor of the building … [and] … was able to provide several details regarding its appearance, including the observations that one of its laces was stuck underneath the heel and that the little toe area was worn.” Her observations were later confirmed in exact detail!

Such experiences of being “out of the body,” and yet having accurate sense knowledge of objects and people which the patient cannot possibly perceive in their “medically dead” state, attest to the possibility of actual sensory experience of someone while in a seemingly disembodied state, that is, someone whose consciousness has actually separated from his body and yet is able to have continued and verifiable sense experience.

Such NDE experiences tend to confirm the possibility of “disembodied spiritual experience.” I do not claim that the people involved are actually dead, since clearly their consciousness subsequently returns to their bodies. But they do meet the criteria for some form of disembodied sense experience.

“Disembodied Dreams”

My final example of a “disembodied experience” can easily be verified by all of us, namely, as experienced in a dream. I suspect that most of us have had the experience of sitting in a theatre and watching a movie in which we become so engrossed that we literally “forget ourselves” and, as it were, start “living” on the screen in front of us. We lose consciousness of ourselves as having separate and distinct bodies sitting in seats, which are not part of what is taking place on the screen before us.

Similarly, we have probably all had dreams in which we were victims of some sort of bodily attack (as in a good nightmare!) and well aware of a sense of being in a body. In deep dreams, we can sometimes experience things as if we were in a body even though the experiences are not those of our sleeping body.

Moreover, I have certainly had many a dream myself in which it was like the theatre experience. I was watching often very vivid scenes of events, things, and persons engaged in various activities of which I was simply an observer, having no self-reflective bodily experience at all.

Nothing prevents God from giving us similar experiences of sensible reality, since anything our natural powers can do to actuate our subjective experience, God can do as well. Call it miraculous or merely how things work in the afterlife. Either way, the experience is that of a disembodied spirit and it can be fully as real, or more so, than any experience we have in this life – only in a disembodied form like that of a vivid dream -- one whose objective reality cannot be epistemically doubted.

I am not trying to offer a speculative defense of the reality of a spiritual afterlife in this essay. My sole purpose has been to show what it might be like to be alive and fully engaged in both intellectual and sensitive experiences in a spiritual afterlife, while awaiting what Christians believe to be a later resurrection of the body. Indeed, we might have to adjust the impertinent observation about an atheist at his funeral that I offered at the beginning of this essay. What if it turns out that the atheist is all dressed up and then shocked to discover that he does have somewhere to go?

As a secular Muslim, I see the Incarnation (the embodiment of God the Son in human flesh) as one of Christianity’s most philosophically rich doctrines that has likely had a substantial impact on the evolution of the European mind. As I understand this doctrine, by inhabiting a human body and being present on earth, Christ as the Son of God not only sanctified the body and material world, but he also conferred some form of divinity upon man¹ and in a sense humanized God,² thereby bridging the hitherto yawning gulf between Creator and man.

My argument is that this key Christian doctrine gave rise in the history of European thought to favorable views of matter and of human nature and predisposed European artists, especially in the Renaissance, to celebrate the human body and to produce awe-inspiring artistic representations of not only Christ, the apostles, and the saints, but also of God the Father. Such representations would have been considered abhorrent or blasphemous in other non-Christian cultures.  

True enough, despite the doctrine of the Incarnation, there was always a stream within Christianity that sought to detach itself from the world of matter, that expressed aversion to the body, and that viewed human beings as incorrigibly sinful. In his Book of Rules, St Benedict of Nursia (c. 480-c. 543), the father of Western monasticism, advised monks to “chasten the body” and to “make [themselves strangers] to the affairs of the world.”³ Italian friar and preacher St Francis of Assisi (died 1226) taught: "We should feel hatred towards our body for its vices and sinning!"⁴

In the 16^th century, John Calvin drew a grim picture of human nature as being “blind, darkened in understanding, and full of corruption and perversity of heart.” Due to such views, especially if those of St Benedict and St Francis are taken at face value or out of context, Christianity is often unfairly characterized as a primarily otherworldly, life-negating, body-hating religion. 

The doctrine of the Incarnation likely played a central role in shifting the Christian worldview away from a gloomy vision of human nature, contempt for matter/body, and absolute focus on the afterlife toward optimistic belief in human potential, appreciation of temporal existence, and concern with the here and now. Bishop Irenaeus of Lyons (130-202) criticized the Gnostic⁵ rejection of material reality, affirming that the body and matter were as holy as the spirit. In his refutation of iconoclasm⁶, Byzantine scholar John of Damascus (died 749) explained that God’s sojourn on earth as a human being for the sake of mankind’s salvation obligated him to respect matter:

“I venerate the fashioner of matter [God], who became matter [the Incarnation] for my sake and accepted to dwell in matter and through matter worked my salvation, and I will not cease from reverencing matter, through which my salvation was worked...Therefore I reverence the rest of matter and hold in respect that through which my salvation came, because it is filled with divine energy and grace.”

The Incarnation, along with the theomorphic conception of man⁷, probably inspired others to write in glowing terms of man’s innate worth and dignity despite the belief in man’s fallen nature. Theologian and philosopher Clement of Alexandria (died 211) is a case in point. Clement underscored the uniqueness and sacredness of man: ”For think not that stones, and stocks, and birds, and serpents are sacred things, and men are not; but, on the contrary, regard men as truly sacred, and take beasts and stones for what they are.” A century later, Bishop Gregory of Nyssa (335 – c. 395) conceived of God as “the best artist” who “forges our nature so as to make it suitable for the exercise of royalty,” adding: “Through the superiority given by the soul and through the very makeup of the body, he arranges things in such a way that man is truly fit for regal power.” Even St Augustine (died 430), who believed man was mired in sin, pointed out the aesthetic aspects of the human body, emphasizing its “beauty” and “concord,” especially the “nimbleness” of the tongue and the hands. He observed that “no part of the body has been created for the sake of utility that does not also contribute to its beauty.” He also waxed lyrical in his description of the world of matter/nature:

“Shall I speak of the manifold and various loveliness of sky, and earth, and sea; of the plentiful supply of and wonderful qualities of light; of sun, moon, and stars; of the shade of trees; of the colors and perfumes of flowers, of the multitude of birds...?”

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) maintained that “rational” human beings were the “most perfect to be found in all nature,” adding: "To take something away from the perfection of the creature is to abstract from the perfection of the creative power itself [i.e. God].” Indeed, though Aquinas, like Augustine before him, regarded human beings as sinful, he believed they were capable of good.

The best was yet to come in the Italian Renaissance. In Oration on the Dignity of Man (1486), one of the masterpieces of the era, Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) describes man as “the most fortunate living thing worthy of all admiration,” “a great miracle,” and “a truly remarkable being” whose “rank” is “to be envied not only by the brutes but even by the stars and by minds beyond this world.” Catholic priest and scholar Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) went further, arguing that “man possesses as it were almost the same genius as the Author of the heavens.” He voiced boundless optimism about human potential: “And who could deny that man could somehow also make the heavens, could he obtain the instruments and the heavenly material...?” Both the bronze sculpture David by Donatello (1386-1466), the first nude sculpture since antiquity, and the fresco painting Creation of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo (1475-1564), celebrate the human body, investing it with value and dignity. The Proportions of Man⁸, a drawing by Italian polymath and genius Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), reflects the artist’s fascination with the human body.

It is worth remembering that though Renaissance scholars often treated moral problems in a largely secular manner and scorned their Scholastic predecessors, they were devout Christians who studied the Bible and the writings of Church Fathers and never questioned the validity of Scripture. As is well known, religious themes⁹ figure prominently in Renaissance art as evident in the works of not only Michelangelo but also Masaccio (1401-1428)¹⁰, Leonardo da Vinci¹¹, Raphael (1483-1520)¹², and Pietro Perugino (1446-1523)¹³.

In addition, the Incarnation possibly prompted Christian theologians to develop a universalistic conception of humanity. Since Christ assumed human form, all human beings were fundamentally equal and endowed with dignity and worth that could not be taken away.¹⁴ Archbishop of Constantinople Gregory of Nazianzus (c. 329–390) advised his congregation to see prelapsarian¹⁵ equality, unity, and liberty as their model:

“I would have you look back to our primary equality of rights, not the later diversity...As far as you can, support nature, honor primeval liberty, show reverence for yourself and cover the shame of your race, help to resist sickness, offer relief to human need.”

Christian philosopher Yahya ibn ‘Adi (893-974) emphasized the unity of mankind:

“...men are one tribe...joined together by humanity. And the adornment of the divine power is in all and in each...of them, it being a rational soul...All men are really a single entity in many individuals.”

Father Domingo de Soto (died in 1560), Dominican priest and Scholastic theologian, wrote of the equality between Christians and non-Christians in terms of natural rights: “Those who are in the grace of God are not a whit better off than the sinner or the pagan in what concerns natural rights.”

Interestingly, all these lofty conceptions of human nature, a plausible product of the Incarnation and of an intellectual milieu suffused with Christian values, contrast with the views of Enlightenment philosopher and surgeon Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751).As a materialist thinker, La Mettrie downgraded the worth of human beings and knocked them off their pedestal as the pinnacle of creation. He judged that humans, whose bodies were no more than machines, were not qualitatively different to other creatures: “Man is not molded from a costlier clay; nature has used but one dough and has merely varied the leaven.” Certainly, the likes of Aquinas, Mirandola, Ficino, and Michelangelo would have begged to differ.    

For those who reject the notion of free will, our experience of making our own decisions is nothing more than a deep-seated illusion. “The reality is,” insists biologist Anthony Cashmore, “not only do we have no more free will than a fly or a bacterium, in actuality we have no more free will than a bowl of sugar.”

Those who argue for the nonexistence of free will often do so on scientific grounds. And those who offer a scientific “proof” against free will point to one type of experiment more than any other—namely, those done and inspired by neurobiologist Benjamin Libet.

In 1983, Libet seemed to prove that the unconscious processes of the brain—the interaction of molecules, electrical discharges, and the like, which are associated with decision-making—are ultimately in control. In other words, our voluntary decisions begin unconsciously in the brain. So it is the brain, not the person, that decides the actions we “feel” to be voluntary.

Libet-style experiments involve having a subject carry out a simple prescribed behavior (flexing the wrist, bending a finger, etc.) whenever he feels the urge to do so. Watching a special clock while he executes his movement, the subject notes the specific time at which he decided to move. The goal of the researchers is to plot a timeline of averages, noting the typical sequence of brain activity (e.g., by EEG), muscle activity (e.g., by EMG), and conscious urging (by subjective reporting). The expectation is that if our intentional actions are truly free, associated brain activity will follow the moment of decision. But this is not what Libet found.

Why does this matter? Well, it has obvious implications for the truth of the Catholic worldview. It also concerns human nature and how we understand ourselves as human beings. For if we don’t have free will, then this may dramatically change how we govern ourselves and interact with others. Much of how we operate as individuals, communities, states, and institutions presuppose that we are personally responsible for our actions. But if it were proven that we are not, this would entirely undermine our rationale for structuring and governing society on the assumption that we are free creatures.

So did these experiments really succeed in proving that free will is an illusion? They did not.

First of all, the experiments look exclusively at spontaneously willed behavior with brain activity. Participants were asked to act when they felt the urge. These experiments, then, say little about choices resulting from rational planning. At most, they suggest the nonexistence of free will in the restricted case of willful spontaneity. The voluntary actions with which they are concerned are barely more than split-second reactions. As some critics have observed, such studies tell us more about “picking” than “choosing.”

But even that conclusion might be overly hasty, for the concept of free will is not as plain as often presumed. Free will is a spiritual appetite for the intellectually known good. A decision, moved by free will, is not a quantifiable event like a neuronal discharge. Nor is it reducible to an instantaneous impulse or urge. And a willed movement is not always a purely linear cause-then-effect event like a cue ball striking an eight-ball into action. The activity of the will is more “smoothed out” and pervasive than an impulse. And it is enacted in layers. Thus, even in a setting like the Libet-style experiments, the free will cannot be isolated as cleanly as many assume.

For each study participant, in carrying out the prescribed movement, the will to move in this way at this time is nested within a multiplicity of other intentions motivating the same action. A singular act of wrist flexion is driven also (presumably) by the will to participate in the study; by the desire to follow the specific instructions given; by the desire to contribute to neuroscientific advancement; and in the will to do something for the common good. Additionally, the subject may bend his wrist because he desires to fulfill a class requirement—a class he desires to pass—or because he thinks it will hold the attention of the attractive research assistant across the room. The point is this: due to the complex integration of intentions involved in a single choice to move a body part, these studies cannot account for all the reasons that cause a person to conduct a singular movement. There is a sense in which the free decision of the research subject to flex his wrist “now” originated even before he entered the research lab.

We find ourselves here at an important juncture. It shows that once we have started making claims about free will’s reality or unreality, we have turned from all observation, measurement, and data analysis. We have reached the far side of the physical and have (perhaps unwittingly) thrust ourselves into the realm of philosophy.

Let’s turn to some further considerations. The Libet experiments relied on machines to capture brain and muscle activity. But it must be noted that neither EEG nor fMRI, nor any other form of advanced imaging, can capture the qualitative content of brain activity. When researchers carry out Libet-style experiments, they note the onset of brain activity and compare it to that of muscle activity and, more importantly, the time when the subject reports consciously willing the prescribed movement. But there is no precise way for scientists to know—even when the subject acts on an urge—whether the brain activity recorded or observed is representative of decision, or decision-making, or planning to make a decision.

In fact, more recent research shows the same brain activity believed to induce conscious decision-making is also found in subjects even when they do not make a conscious decision. Libet’s initial conclusion was “that cerebral initiation even of a spontaneous voluntary act . . . can and usually does begin unconsciously.” But these recent studies call such a conclusion into serious question.

There are several other critiques and limitations that have a significant impact on how much (or little) Libet-style studies actually prove. For an excellent detailed discussion of these limitations and their philosophical implications, read Alfred Mele’s little book Free.

At most, Libet-style experiments prove that a constrained subset of willed behaviors is not as freely executed as we are inclined to assume. But as we have seen, they hardly prove even that much. As far as Catholics traditionally conceive human freedom, such experiments pose little threat—and thus, the human person has every reason to believe that he remains infinitely more free than a bowl of sugar.

Skeptics have long objected to Catholicism on grounds that it is obvious that the Blessed Virgin Mary, if real, could not possibly hear and answer all those hundreds of millions of prayers addressed to her personally every day by faithful Catholics and many other Christians.

Given that we can barely concentrate on but a single question at a time, this objection seems, on its face, impossible to answer rationally. This element of Catholic belief seems simply absurd.

Still, there exist several possible explanations as to how this central element of Catholic spiritual practice can be true. These explanations may also apply to other Catholic saints, such as the much overworked St. Anthony, who hear and answer nearly countless prayers each day.

First, there is the possibility that God simply answers the prayers on Mary’s behalf. In this way, the Blessed Virgin might appear to hear and respond to prayers from all over the world at once, while not requiring her to do anything that is impossible on her part – since the entire process would be accomplished by the infinite knowledge and power of God, not directly by Mary herself. Nonetheless, since Mary wills whatever her divine Son wills, her will would be in accord with everything that God thereby does for those whose prayers were addressed to her.

A second possibility results from the fact that time is limited in duration, whereas eternity is entirely outside of time.

It is extremely important to understand that, when we imagine Mary or the saints somehow knowing all these seemingly countless prayers at once, we are thinking about how we ourselves process such information through time in our present bodily state. For us, it takes time to hear and understand and to think of how to reply to a petition. And so, to think of handling all these prayers at once simply defies belief.

Yet, when the soul is free of the body and united to God in eternity, this temporal experience, which is so bound up with our bodily existence, no longer obtains. Trying to imagine all these prayers at once is very misleading. The soul’s actual existence in eternity does not have this daunting temporal component. It must be conceived in an entirely different manner. After death, the separated soul is no longer limited in time by dependence on its physical body. Through infused knowledge from God, the soul can know instantly that which would take much time to assimilate during bodily life.

Since time and eternity are incommensurable, it is also conceivable that Mary could actually hear and respond in the eternal now of eternity “after” the many billions of prayers were uttered throughout a lengthy, but limited, duration of earthly human existence.

Since God is entirely outside of time, Mary’s intercession even after temporal occurrence would impact past events. Her actions would produce effects retroactively, since God would know “ahead of time” that she would intervene on someone’s behalf. Literally, Mary would have the rest of eternity in which to address the prayers of her devout believers.

I do not make the mistake here of thinking of eternity as merely endless duration, but rather understand that the soul, even of Mary, that participates in the experience of God’s eternity, does so without the limitations of temporal duration.

One of the reasons we find it so hard to imagine Mary simultaneously knowing so many prayers is that it takes time for us to process such knowledge while in our physical bodies. But, united with God in his eternity, the soul’s knowledge participates without the passage of time, and so, would not be limited as it is in this life as to how many elements could be known “at the same time.” Regardless of the exact way in which time relates to eternity, God can act on the basis of the prayers to Mary, as well as her intercession which God would foresee and apply even to past events.

Third, and finally, just how much diverse knowledge can an individual person possess and respond to simultaneously? Such knowledge could be of immense magnitude. This possibility is drawn from a phenomenon unnoticed by most thinkers, but which is still very real. I take this possibility from what we know about the simplicity of cognition – both at the sensory and intellectual levels. I have written on this topic previously on Strange Notions here and here as well as in the Homiletic and Pastoral Review.

How Immateriality Enables Perception of Wholes

The key insight is that even mere sense perception is based on the immateriality of the knower, since even animals having solely sensory cognitive powers can still know things as unified wholes, that is, all at once. Such unified knowledge of wholes simply cannot be had by any purely physical instrument or mechanism.

Consider how physical instruments store or represent data on an extended medium, such as a computer disk or television screen. Each part of the medium represents one part of the object depicted. For example, to represent an entire carrot on a television screen, the surface of the screen is composed of hundreds of thousands of separate pixels, which are either illuminated or not. Individual pixels know nothing. An entire carrot can be “imaged” by a pattern of thousands of illuminated, but separate, pixels. Yet, the screen itself knows nothing. It takes a living rabbit, with a non-extended sense faculty to see the whole carrot at once as a single object.

The complete explanation is in a Homiletic & Pastoral Review article by me, but here are some of its insights:

 “And yet, our dumb bunny sees a carrot as a whole — with all its parts distinct from its other parts. Seeing something as a whole means apprehending the entire object and all its parts at once (at least as seen from a single perspective) — something no merely physical device can do. And neural patterns in the brain suffer the exact same problem as does a television set, that is, that distinct parts represent distinct parts of the object — be it an image or an externally-sensed object — so that no single part “sees” the whole object apprehended. Attempting to achieve unity would entail collapsing all the distinct parts on top of each other, which would only completely destroy the intelligibility of what was being viewed.”

Since a materialist philosophy depicts a world in which all things are extended in space-time, the fact that animals can sense things as a whole proves that animals must have some immaterial element in them which enables them to sense objects as a whole:

“The basic reason for this inability of material devices to “see” a whole in a unified manner is because every physical entity is extended in space. This means that it can intelligibly depict another object only by having one part of it representing one part of the object and a diverse part representing another part of the object. No single part can “see” the whole. This, in fact, is how artificial recording and observation devices as well as the corresponding neural receptor patterns in biological organisms work. This is true at the macroscopic level, as … [is evident from] … the television example. But, it would also be true at a submicroscopic level (assuming such artificial or natural physical “observation mechanisms” existed.)”

The materialist’s world of purely physical things is not a world in which experience of wholes is possible. Still, animals do experience things as wholes. This means that metaphysical materialism or physicalism is a false philosophy. The existence of certain sentient beings proves that some immaterial realities exist – and they exhibit their reality in cognitive acts of sense perception of wholes, such as is the case with the power of sight.

Role of Immateriality in All Cognition

The argument for sensation’s immateriality is fully developed in my Homiletic & Pastoral Review article. Moreover, I use this necessary immateriality of sense acts to show that the ability to apprehend cognitively many objects -- whether images or concepts or judgments -- in a single unified act is based on the various levels of immateriality of the involved cognitive faculties.

In one of my Strange Notions articles, I show that this immateriality of cognition is how God is able to know all things in a single unified act which is the divine essence:

“What has all this to do with God’s ability to know and to cause the near infinite multiplicity of the created world? Simply this. While we do not know exactly how the immateriality of God’s or man’s cognition enables them to know multiple, whole objects, or even how animals do it at their own merely sentient level of cognition, still, the fact remains that immateriality is the key to explaining how cognition can unify the complexity of experience into wholes, which can be experienced in a single, unified act of cognition.”

Basic Aristotelian philosophical psychology tells us that, because of the immateriality of their intellective souls, human beings are able to form concepts, make judgments, do reasoning, and understand multiple meanings of words in a single complex thought. This is why we do not say, “I hear all your words,” but “I get your meaning.”

Those meanings may be multiple and complex, but express a unified insight or thought, or even a group of related meanings or thoughts. All this is based on the immateriality of intellectual cognition, whose conceptual content, in turn, is abstracted from the images that arise out of initial sense perception. Still, the human material condition limits the quantity of things we can know simultaneously. On the other hand, God knows all things in a single, simple, eternal intellectual act, which is identical with the divine essence.

Just as immateriality enables animals to perceive sensible wholes in  single act of sense perception and just as God can understand all things in a single act of intellectual apprehension, so too, human beings and other finite intellectual substances (angels) can understand multiple things in a single act. Yet, in man, this ability to understand many things at once is limited by the material condition of his bodily organs.

But How Does Mary Know All Our Prayers?

Still, how does all this explain the fact that the Blessed Virgin can know and respond to hundreds of millions of prayers to her each day? While she was living as an ordinary human being on this earth, she could not do so. That is because physical matter limits the number of things we can know at once, even though our ability to do so in a unified way still demonstrates the immateriality of our cognitive powers.

The body that limits the soul in its intellectual activities. This limitation arises particularly because of the dependence of the intellect on the phantasm or image during the thought process.  And, since the image is apprehended under the conditions of matter, our power to apprehend multiple cognitive objects at once suffers from the limitations of matter. The mere fact that we cannot imagine the apprehension of so many experiences at once underlines the limitations inherent in the sense faculties which are dependent on material organs, since the imagination is an internal sense faculty.

But, after death, the separated soul’s knowledge is directly infused in it by God and no longer depends on the operations of either external or internal sense faculties. After death, the separated soul no longer learns through sense experience. After death, God can infuse into the soul multiple cognitive objects at once with virtually no limit other than the soul’s own inherent finitude.

“Just as animals and man can do this at our own finite and limited levels, by way of transcendent analogy, the same explanation must be applied to God so as to render intelligible how he can know all things and cause all things, even in their near infinite multiplicity – all the while remaining absolutely simple and undivided in himself. We do not need to know exactly how he does this, any more than we need to know how we do it – in order to know that it is true (1) that it happens and (2) that it can happen solely because of the immateriality of the cognitive powers involved.”

But, to return to our theme about the ability of Mary to answer a multitude of prayers, all we need know is that (1) freedom from matter is the key to knowing multiple sensory or intellectual objects at once, and (2) that once freed from the limitations of the body, the immaterial soul can know as many cognitive objects at once as God chooses to infuse into it. Hence, both Mary and the saints can have virtually unlimited knowledge of particular things at once, that is, in a single, unified experience – just as God can know all things in a single, unified experience.

While this may also be true of the other saints, who now exist as separated souls in a purely spiritual state, consider the following curious objection. Since Mary is dogmatically defined as having received a glorified body already in Heaven, would not that body, in virtue of its materiality, prevent her from knowing what lesser saints can now know in virtue of their purely immaterial condition?

Now, it may be true that Mary would be limited as to her knowledge insofar as it is gained through the operations of her glorified body’s senses. But, this in no way prevents God from directly infusing into her mind virtually unlimited intellectual and even sense knowledge, which is not dependent for its origination upon the function of bodily organs.

In this life, all knowledge comes through the senses and is limited in the conceptual order by the material phantasms which the body enables the imagination to form. It is understandable that these inherently material limitations as to how we learn and know things in this life would be superseded once the soul if freed from such intimate dependence on material organs, such as the brain. Such independence is easily achieved once God directly infuses knowledge, such as when he gives to Mary and the saints direct knowledge of the prayers of men – entirely independent of the role of the various sense organs of the body.

Conclusion

Therefore, whether (1) God answers the prayers of the faithful on behalf of Mary in her stead, or (2) Mary has an unlimited eternity in which to respond to prayers offered to her by humans living in time, or (3) Mary has virtually unlimited ability to know all prayers offered to her, because God directly infuses that knowledge into her intellect without dependence on the limitations of bodily senses, or (4) in virtue of some combination of the first three alternatives, the objection of the skeptics, who claim that the Blessed Virgin Mary cannot attend to massive numbers of prayers at once, is refuted.

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” While the world definitely had a beginning, there’s a question of whether we can prove this by reason alone (i.e., by philosophical arguments).

Defenders of the Kalaam cosmological argument often use an argument like this one, which is found in William Lane Craig’s book Reasonable Faith:

1) An actually infinite number of things cannot exist.

2) A beginningless series of events in time entails an actually infinite number of things.

3) Therefore, a beginningless series of events in time cannot exist.

I have a problem with the first premise, but that’s a topic for another time. Here I’d like to look at Craig’s second premise.

Is it true that a beginningless series of events entails an actually infinite number of things?

At first glance, the answer would seem to be yes, but the reality is more complex.

The Nature of Time

The answer depends on your view of time. Here we need to consider two major theories of time, which are known as eternalism and presentism.

Eternalism holds that all of time exists. The past, the present, and the future are all real from the ultimate perspective—that is, from the eternal perspective outside of time. We may only experience history one bit at a time, but from the “eternal now” that God dwells in, all moments of time are equally real.

Presentism (as we will be using the term) holds that, from the ultimate perspective, the only time that exists is right now—the present. The past used to be real, but it is no longer. And the future will exist, but it does not yet. Since neither the past nor the future are real, they do not exist in any sense of the word. If you asked God—from his ultimate perspective—“What is real in the created order?” he would answer, “Only the present.”

The Eternalist Option

Supposing that eternalism is true, Craig’s second premise would be true. From the eternal perspective outside of time, God would see an infinite series of past events laid out before him.

Or, if you wish to avoid the question of how God’s knowledge works then, as the Creator, God would be causing that infinite series of past events to exist.

They would all be equally real—equally actual—from his perspective, and—since they have no beginning—they would be infinite. Being both actual and infinite, the events of a beginningless history would represent an actual infinity. Thus, the second premise would be true.

But for a classical Christian theist, there would be a problem, because Christianity teaches that God will give people endless life. While human beings may come into existence at the moment of their conception, they will never pass out of existence.

Therefore, humans have an endless future. And that future also will be equally real to God.

From his eternal perspective outside of time, God sees and creates all the moments of our endless future. They are both real—actual—from his perspective, and they are infinite in number. Being both actual and infinite, the moments of our future also would be an actual infinity.

From the viewpoint of a classical Christian theist, eternalism implies the existence of an actual infinity of future moments, giving such theists reason to challenge Craig’s first premise (that an actual infinity can’t exist).

However, this post is only examining his second premise, so let’s consider the other option we need to look at.

The Presentist Option

If only the present exists, is it true that a beginningless series of events in time entails an actually infinite number of things?

No. At least not an actual infinity of real things.

The reason is that, on the presentist view, only one moment of time exists. No past moments exist, and no future moments exist.

It doesn’t matter how many events took place in the past, because those events are no longer real. As soon as a new moment arrived, all the events taking place in the previous moment evaporated and are no longer actual.

Therefore, it doesn’t matter how many past events there have been—it could be a finite number or an infinite number—because they have all ceased to be actual. The only actual events are those occurring in the present.

So, if presentism is true, the second premise of Craig’s argument is false if applied to concrete, real things like events. A beginningless series of events in time does not entail an actually infinite number of such things because those things are no longer actual.

For a collection of things to be actually infinite, they all have to be actual from some perspective. On eternalism, that can happen, because all the moments of time are actual from the eternal perspective outside of time.

But it can’t happen on presentism, because this view holds that, from the ultimate perspective, only one moment is real, and one is a finite number. This view entails that no actual infinity of moments in time exists, because only one moment of time is actual.

This is why Aristotle could believe that the world did have an infinite history. Even though he thought an actually infinite number of things couldn’t exist at the same time, history didn’t present that problem, because one moment passed out of existence when another came into it, so the total number of moments was always finite.

The Counting Argument

In the Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, Craig and coauthor James Sinclair respond to this issue with two lines of thought.

The first is based on counting, and their reasoning (omitting examples for brevity) goes like this:

[W]e may take it as a datum that the presentist can accurately count things that have existed but no longer exist. . . .

The nonexistence of such things or events is no hindrance to their being enumerated. . . .

So in a beginningless series of past events of equal duration, the number of past events must be infinite, for it is larger than any natural number. . . .

[I]f we consider all the events in an infinite temporal regress of events, they constitute an actual infinite.

It’s true that a presentist can count things that have existed but no longer exist (e.g., the number of days that have elapsed so far this year)—and their nonexistence doesn’t prevent this counting (just look at a calendar!).

The problem comes in the third statement, because it can be understood in more than one way.

In terms of what is real on the presentist view, the number of past events is not infinite, because no past events exist. That’s a key point of presentism.

If you want to talk about an infinite number of past events, you have to shift from speaking of events that do exist to those that have existed, and those aren’t the same thing.

Yes, on presentism, we could speak of an infinite collection of events that were real but aren’t anymore. And that’s the point: They aren’t real.

This points to a second way of reading the statement when Craig and Sinclair speak of “the number of past events.”

If we are talking about the number of events, then we’re no longer talking about the events themselves. Instead, we’re talking about a number, which raises a question.

What Are Numbers?

Mathematicians and philosophers have a variety of views about what numbers are. Some classify them as “abstract objects” that exist independent of the mind. Others think of them as mental constructs of some kind. There are many variations on these views.

Whatever the case may be, Craig doesn’t see infinite numbers themselves being a problem.

In his talks and writings, he has frequently said that he doesn’t have a problem with the mathematics of infinity—that modern mathematical concepts dealing with the infinite are fine and useful as concepts. Thus, the infinite set of natural numbers (0, 1, 2, 3 . . . ) is a useful concept.

Craig doesn’t reject the idea that the set of natural numbers is actually infinite. It’s just not the kind of actual infinity that causes a problem for him because numbers aren’t concrete objects in the real world.

So, actual infinities of the numerical order are fine, in which case it’s fine if the number of past events is actually infinite. It’s an actual infinity of events themselves that he says can’t be part of the real world.

And on presentism, they’re not. Past events would have to be understood in some other way. They might be abstract objects, like many mathematicians hold numbers to be. Or they might be purely mental concepts at this point, as others regard numbers.

Whatever is the case, on presentism they do not exist in the real world. And so, whatever kind of infinity a beginningless universe would involve, it doesn’t violate the principle that—while actual infinities may exist in an abstract way, as in mathematics—they don’t exist in the real world.

Back to the Future

There is another way of illustrating the problem with the argument from counting, and it involves considering the number of future events.

If the universe can’t have a beginningless past because an infinite set of non-real past events can’t exist, then we also can’t have an endless future, because that entails an infinite set of non-real future events.

The argument simply involves shifting from events that used to be real to those that will be real.

If God gives people endless life, then the number of days that we will experience in the future is infinite. As the hymn says about heaven,

When we’ve been there ten thousand years,

Bright shining as the sun,

We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise,

Than when we first begun.

As Craig and Sinclair acknowledge:

It might rightly be pointed out that on presentism there are no future events and so no series of future events. Therefore, the number of future events is simply zero. . . . [O]n presentism, the past is as unreal as the future and, therefore, the number of past events could, with equal justification, be said to be zero. It might be said that at least there have been past events, and so they can be numbered. But by the same token there will be future events, so why can they not be numbered? Accordingly, one might be tempted to say that in an endless future there will be an actually infinite number of events, just as in a beginningless past there have been an actually infinite number of events.

So, why should an infinite number of future events be considered more permissible for a presentist than an infinite number of past ones?

Possible vs. Actual Infinity

Craig and Sinclair’s response involves the difference between an actual infinity (where an unlimited number of elements exist simultaneously) and a potential infinity (where an unlimited number of elements don’t exist simultaneously). They write:

[T]here never will be an actually infinite number of [future] events since it is impossible to count to infinity. The only sense in which there will be an infinite number of events is that the series of events will go toward infinity as a limit. But that is the concept of a potential infinite, not an actual infinite. Here the objectivity of temporal becoming makes itself felt. For as a result of the arrow of time, the series of events later than any arbitrarily selected past event is properly to be regarded as potentially infinite, that is to say, finite but indefinitely increasing toward infinity as a limit.

This reasoning is mistaken. It is false to say that “the series of events later than any arbitrarily selected past event is . . . finite but indefinitely increasing toward infinity as a limit.”

No. If you arbitrarily select any event in time and consider the sequence of later events, they do not “indefinitely increase toward infinity.” They are always infinite.

Consider January 1, 1900. On the Christian view, how many days of endless life will there be after that? An infinite number.

Consider January 1, 2000. How many days are to come? Again, an infinite number.

Consider January 1, 2100. How many days follow? Still an infinite number.

As the hymn says, “We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we first begun!”

What Craig and Sinclair are thinking of is the fact that, if you pick a date and go any arbitrary distance into the future, your destination will still be a finite number of days from your starting point.

Thus, the number of days that has elapsed between the start and finish of your journey grows toward infinity but never gets there, making this span of days a potential rather than actual infinity.

But it does not follow—and is simply wrong—that the complete set of future days is only potentially infinite. To show this, just give each day a number: Today is 0, tomorrow is 1, the next day is 2, and so on. We can thus map the set of future days onto the set of natural numbers, which is actually rather than potentially infinite.

Take any day you like, and on the Christian view the quantity of days that will be after it is identical to the quantity of natural numbers.

The quantity of days that will be—like the quantity of natural numbers—does not grow. This quantity just is.

Unless you say—contrary to the teaching of the Christian faith—that the number of future days is finite and God won’t give us endless life, then there is an actual infinity of future days.

And if a presentist wants to affirm an actual infinity of currently-not-real days that will be, he must allow the possibility of an actual infinity of currently-not-real days that have been.

Conclusion

In summary, Craig’s second premise was:

2) A beginningless series of events in time entails an actually infinite number of things.

Whether this is true will depend on one’s view of time and the status of non-real things.

On eternalism, a beginningless series of events in time would involve an actually infinite number of things, for all these moments exist from God’s perspective outside of time. But so would the actually infinite number of future days that God promises us, giving the eternalist reason to reject the idea that an actual infinity cannot exist in the real world.

On presentism, a beginningless series of events in time would not involve an actual infinity of events existing in the real world, because presentism holds that the past does not exist.

Such a series of events might result in an actual infinity of (past) non-existent days, but so would the actual infinity of (future) non-existent days. And if a Christian allows one set of non-existent days, the other must be allowed as well.

The fact that the past days are countable is irrelevant, because so are the future days.

And it is simply false to say that the days that will be are only potentially infinite. They’re not. Right now, the number of days that will be is actually infinite, the same way the set of natural numbers is actually infinite.

Based on what we’ve seen here, presentism does not exclude an infinite past any more than it does an infinite future.

In recent years, one of the most popular arguments for the existence of God has been the Kalaam cosmological argument.

Ultimately, I think this argument is successful, but many of the ways it has been employed are unsuccessful.

It is an argument that needs to be used carefully—with the proper qualifiers.

Stating the Argument

We can state the Kalaam argument like this:

1) Everything that has a beginning has a cause.

2) The universe has a beginning.

3) Therefore, the universe has a cause (which would be God).

Is this argument valid? Is it sound?

Valid arguments are ones that use a correct logical form—regardless of whether their premises are true. The Kalaam argument falls into this category, which is not disputed by its critics.

If a valid argument has true premises, then its conclusion also will be true. Valid arguments that have true premises are called sound arguments, and I agree that the argument’s premises are true:

1) It is true that whatever has a beginning has a cause.

2) And it is true that the universe has a beginning (approximately 13.8 billion years ago, according to Big Bang cosmology).

Since the Kalaam argument is valid and has true premises, it is a sound argument.

Using the Argument Apologetically

The Kalaam argument is sound from the perspective of logic, but how useful is it from the perspective of apologetics? There are many arguments that are sound, but sometimes they are not very useful in practice.

For example, in their famous book Principia Mathematica, Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead spend the first 360 pages of the book covering basic principles that build up to them rigorously proving that 1 + 1 = 2.

While their book is of interest to mathematicians, and their proof extremely well thought-out, it is so complex that it is not of practical use for a popular audience. For ordinary people, there are much simpler ways to prove that 1 + 1 = 2. (If needed, just put one apple on a table, put another one next to it, and count the apples both individually and together.)

Complexity is not the only thing that can limit an argument’s usefulness. Another is the willingness of people to grant the truth of its premises. Here is where some of the limitations of the Kalaam argument appear. While it is very simple to state and understand, defending the premises is more involved.

The First Premise

The first premise—that everything that has a beginning has a cause—is intuitive and is accepted by most people.

Some object to this premise on philosophical grounds or on scientific ones, such as by pointing to the randomness of quantum physics.

Both the philosophical and the scientific arguments can get technical quickly, but a skilled apologist—at least one who is actually familiar with quantum mechanics (!)—would still be able to navigate such objections without getting too far over the heads of a popular audience.

This—plus the fact that a popular audience’s sympathies will be with the first premise—mean that the argument retains its usefulness with a general audience.

The Second Premise

The second premise—that the universe had a beginning—is also widely accepted today, due in large part to Big Bang cosmology. A popular audience will thus be generally sympathetic to the second premise.

That’s apologetically useful, but we need to look more closely at how the second premise can be supported when challenged.

Since “The Bible says the universe has a beginning” will not be convincing to those who are not already believers, there are two approaches to doing this—the scientific and the philosophical.

The Scientific Approach

For an apologist, the approach here is straight forward: For a popular level audience, simply present a popular-level account of the evidence that has led cosmologists to conclude that the Big Bang occurred.

On this front, the principal danger for the apologist is overselling the evidence in one of several ways.

First, many apologists do not keep up with developments in cosmology, and they may be relying on an outdated account of the Big Bang.

For example, about 40 years ago, it was common to hear cosmologists speak of the Big Bang as an event that involved a singularity—where all matter was compressed into a point of infinite density and when space and time suddenly sprang into existence.

That view is no longer standard in cosmology, and today no apologist should be speaking as if this is what the science shows. Apologists need to be familiar with the current state of cosmological thought (as well as common misunderstandings of the Big Bang) and avoid misrepresenting current cosmological views.

Thus, they should not say that the Big Bang is proof that the universe had an absolute beginning. While the Big Bang is consistent with an absolute beginning, cosmologists have not been able to rule out options like there being a prior universe.

One way apologists have dealt with this concern is to point to the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin (BGV) theorem, which seeks to show that—on certain assumptions—even if there were one or more prior universes, there can’t be an unlimited number of them.

It’s fair to point to this theorem, but it would be a mistake for an apologist to present it as final proof, because the theorem depends on certain assumptions (e.g., that the universe has—on average—been expanding throughout its history) that cannot be taken for granted.

Further, apologists should be aware that authors of the theorem—Alan Guth and Alexander Vilenkin—do not agree that it shows the universe had to have a beginning. Guth apparently believes that the universe does not have a beginning, and Vilenkin states that all the theorem shows is that the expansion of the universe had to have a beginning, not the universe itself.

It thus would misrepresent the BGV theorem as showing that the scientific community has concluded that the universe had to have a beginning, even if it were before the Big Bang. (It also would be apologetically dangerous and foolish to do so, as the facts I’ve just mentioned could be thrown in the apologist’s face, discrediting him before his audience.)

Most fundamentally, the findings of science are always provisional, and the history of science contains innumerable cases where scientific opinion as reversed as new evidence has been found.

Consequently, apologists should never sell Big Bang cosmology—or any other aspect of science—as final “proof.”

This does not mean that apologists can’t appeal to scientific evidence. When the findings of science point in the direction aspects of the Faith, it is entirely fair to point that out. They just must not be oversold.

The Philosophical Approach

Prior to the mid-20^th century, Big Bang cosmology had not been developed, and the scientific approach to defending the Kalaam argument’s second premise was not available.

Consequently, earlier discussions relied on philosophical arguments to try to show that the universe must have a beginning.

Such arguments remain a major part of the discussion today, and new philosophical ways of defending the second premise have been proposed.

Authors have different opinions about how well these work, but in studying them, I find myself agreeing with St. Thomas Aquinas that they do not. Thus far, I have not discovered any philosophical argument—ancient or modern—that I thought proved its case.

This is not to say that they don’t have superficial appeal. They do; otherwise, people wouldn’t propose them.

But when one thinks them through carefully, they all contain hidden flaws that keep them from succeeding—some of which are being discussed in this series.

I thus do not rely on philosophical arguments in my own presentation of the Kalaam argument.

Conclusion

The Kalaam cosmological argument is a valid and sound argument. It does prove that the universe has a cause, which can meaningfully be called God.

As a result, it can be used by apologists, and its simplicity makes it particularly attractive.

I use it myself, such as in my short, popular-level book The Words of Eternal Life.

However, the argument needs to be presented carefully. The scientific evidence we currently have is consistent with and suggestive of the world having a beginning in the finite past, though this evidence must not be oversold.

The philosophical arguments for the universe having a beginning are much more problematic. I do not believe that the ones developed to date work, and so I do not use them.

I thus advise other apologists to think carefully before doing so and to rigorously test these arguments: Seek out counterarguments, carefully consider them, and see if you can show why the arguments don’t work.

It is not enough that we find an argument convenient or initially plausible. We owe it to the truth, and honesty in doing apologetics compels us not to use arguments just because we want them to be true.

God created the universe a finite time ago, but there’s a question of whether we can prove this by reason alone.

Defenders of the Kalaam cosmological argument often claim that the universe cannot have an infinite history because “traversing an infinite” is impossible.

In his book Reasonable Faith (pp. 120-124), William Lane Craig puts the argument this way

1. The series of events in time is a collection formed by adding one member after another

2. A collection formed by adding one member after another cannot be actually infinite

3. Therefore, the series of events in time cannot be actually infinite.

The second premise of this argument is the one that deals with “traversing an infinite.” Craig writes:

Sometimes this problem is described as the impossibility of traversing the infinite.

Still a third way of describing it is saying that you can’t form infinity “by successive addition.”

Whatever expression you prefer, each of these expressions refer to the intuition people commonly have about infinity—that “you can’t get there from here.”

Where Is “Here”?

If you can’t get to infinity from here, where is “here”?

However you want to phrase the problem—getting there from here, traversing an infinite, or successive addition, this is a question that needs to be answered.

Let’s take another look at the second premise:

2. A collection formed by adding one member after another cannot be actually infinite

What does it mean to “form” a collection by adding one member after another?

Perhaps the most natural way to take this would be to form such a collection from nothing. That is, you start with zero elements in the collection (or maybe one element) and then successively add one new member after another.

And it’s quite true that, if you form a collection this way, you will never arrive at an infinite number of members. No matter how many elements you add to the collection, one at a time, the collection will always have a finite number of elements.

This can be seen through a simple counting exercise. If you start with 0 and then keep adding +1, you’ll get the standard number line:

0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 . . .

But no matter how many times you add +1, the resulting number will always be finite—just one unit larger than the previous finite number.

However, there is a problem . . .

The First-and-Last Fallacy

As I’ve discussed elsewhere, any string of natural numbers that has both a first and a last element is—by definition—finite.

Any time you specify a first natural number and a last natural number, the space between them is limited.

It thus would be fallacious reasoning to envision an infinite timeline with both first and last elements.

Yet it is very easy to let the idea of an infinite past having a beginning somewhere “infinitely far back” unintentionally sneak back into discussions of the Kalaam argument.

It can easily happen without people being aware of it, and often our language is to blame:

• The natural sense of the word “traverse” suggests going from one point to another, suggesting both a beginning point and an end point.
• So does the idea of “forming” an infinite collection. If we imagine forming a collection, we naturally envision starting with nothing (a collection with no members) and then adding things to it.
• And if we think of getting to infinity “from here,” we naturally think of a starting point in the finite realm (“here”) and an end point (“infinity”).

Without at all meaning to, it’s thus very easy to fall into the trap of subconsciously supposing both a starting point and an ending point in a supposedly infinite history.

This happens often enough that I’ve called it the First-and-Last Fallacy.

Taking No Beginning Seriously

In Reasonable Faith, Craig denies that this is how his argument should be understood. He writes:

Mackie and Sobel object that this sort of argument illicitly presupposes an infinitely distant starting point in the past and then pronounces it impossible to travel from that point to today. But if the past is infinite, they say, then there would be no starting point whatever, not even an infinitely distant one. Nevertheless, from any given point in the past, there is only a finite distance to the present, which is easily “traversed.” But in fact no proponent of the kalam argument of whom I am aware has assumed that there was an infinitely distant starting point in the past. The fact that there is no beginning at all, not even an infinitely distant one, seems only to make the problem worse, not better (boldface added).

Craig thus wishes us to understand his argument not as forming an infinite collection of past historical moments from an infinitely distant starting point—i.e., from a beginning.

It’s good that he is clear on this, because otherwise his second premise would commit the First-and-Last Fallacy.

But does this really make things worse rather than better?

It would seem not.

Formed from What?

If we are not to envision a collection being “formed” from nothing by successive addition, then it must obviously be formed from something. Namely, it must be formed from another, already existing collection.

For example, suppose I have a complete run of my favorite comic book, The Legion of Super-Heroes. Let’s say that, as of the current month, it consists of issue #1 to issue #236.

Then, next month, issue #237 comes out, so I purchase it and add it to my collection. I now have a new, larger collection that was “formed” by adding one new member to my previous collection.

Now let’s apply that to the situation of an infinite history. Suppose that the current moment—“now”—is the last element of an infinite collection of previous moments (with no beginning moment).

How was this collection formed?

Obviously, it was formed from a previous collection that included all of the past moments except the current one.

Let’s give these things some names:

• Let P be the collection of all the past moments
• Let 1 represent the current moment
• And let E represent the collection of all the moments that have ever existed

With those terms in place, it’s clear that:

P + 1 = E

We thus can form one collection (E) from another collection (P) by adding a member to it.

But Can It Be Infinite?

Now we come to Craig’s second premise, which said that you can’t form an actually infinite collection by adding one member after another.

If you imagine forming the collection from nothing—and thus commit the First-and-Last Fallacy—then this is true.

But it’s not true if you avoid the fallacy and imagine forming an actually infinite collection from a previous collection by adding to it.

The previous collection just needs to be actually infinite as well. If P is an actually infinite collection and you add 1 to it, E will be actually infinite as well.

And this is what we find in the case of an infinite past. Let us envision an infinite past as the set of all negative numbers, ending in the present, “0” moment:

. . . -7, -6, -5, -4, -3, -2, -1, 0.

The set of all the numbers below 0 is infinite, but so is the set of all numbers below -1, all the numbers below -2, and so on. Each of these collections is actually infinite, and so we can form a new, actually infinite set by taking one of them and adding a new member to it.

Understood this way, Craig’s second premise is simply false. You can form an actually infinite collection by adding new members to an actually infinite collection—which is what we would have in the case of a universe with an infinite past, one that really does not have a starting point.

Conclusion

What we make of Craig’s argument will depend on how we take its second premise.

Taken in what may be the most natural way (forming an infinite collection from nothing—or from any finite amount—by successive addition), will result in the argument committing the First-and-Last Fallacy.

But if we take it in the less obvious way (forming an infinite collection by adding to an already infinite collection), then the second premise is simply false.

There may be other grounds—other arguments—by which one might try to show that the universe cannot have an infinite past.

But the argument from “successive addition,” “traversing an infinite,” or “getting there from here” does not work.

Depending on how you interpret it, the argument either commits a fallacy or uses a false premise.

Sometimes defenders of the Kalaam cosmological argument defend its second premise (i.e., that the world couldn’t have an infinite past) by proposing a paradox involving counting.

The line of reasoning goes something like this:

A. Suppose that the universe has an infinite history (the kind of history you’d need to do an infinite countdown).

B. Suppose that a person has been counting down the infinite set of negative numbers (. . . -3, -2, -1) for all eternity, and they finish today, so today’s number is 0. It took them an infinite amount of time to reach 0 in the present.

C. Now suppose that we go back in time to yesterday. How much time was there before yesterday? Also an infinite amount of time! Given that, they could have counted down the infinite set of negative numbers so that they reached 0 yesterday instead of today!

D. So, we have a paradox: If the person had been counting down the negative numbers for all eternity, they could have finished today—or yesterday—or on any other day in the past, since there was always an infinite number of days before that.

E. There needs to be a sufficient reason why they stop on the day they did.

The Kalaam defender then challenges the Kalaam skeptic to name the sufficient reason, and if he’s not convinced by the answer, he rejects Step A of the argument—the idea that the universe has an infinite history—since there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with Steps B, C, D, or E.

What’s problematic about this line of reasoning?

Arbitrary Labels

To see what the answer is, we need to think about the arbitrariness of the labels involved in the countdown.

In Part B, the Kalaam defender chose to use the set of negative numbers, but he could have chosen something else.

For example, he could have chosen the digits of the irrational number pi (3.14159 . . . ) in reverse order (. . . 9, 5, 1, 4, 1, 3), in which case today’s number would be 3.

Or he could have used the Golden Ratio and chosen the digits of the irrational number phi (1.61803 . . . ) and reversed them, in which case today’s number would be 1.

Or he could have picked anything else, such as an infinitely long string of random numbers—or random words—or random symbols.

Any string will do for an infinite count of the past—as long as it’s an infinitely long string.

The point we learn from this is that the labels we apply to particular days are arbitrary. It depends entirely on what labels we choose. We can pick any labels we want and use them for any set of days we want.

Forward Counts

To underscore this point, let’s consider counts that go forward in time rather than backwards.

For example, we could choose the set of natural numbers (0, 1, 2, 3 . . . ), assigning 0 to today, 1 to tomorrow, 2 to the day after that, and so on.

Or we could use the digits of pi, in which case today would be 3, tomorrow 1, the day after that 4, etc.

Or the digits of phi, so today would be 1, tomorrow 6, the day after that 1, etc.

Or we could use something else—such as an infinite string of random numbers, words, or symbols.

We can pick whatever labels for a set of days, beginning with today, that we want!

A Count-Up Paradox

Now consider the following line of reasoning:

A*. Suppose that the universe has an infinite future (the kind of future you’d need to do an infinite count going forwards).

B*. Suppose that a person starts counting the infinite set of natural numbers (0, 1, 2, 3 . . . ) today, so that today’s number is 0, tomorrow’s is 1, the next day is 2, etc.

C*. Now suppose that we go forward in time to tomorrow. How much time is there left in the future of the universe? Also an infinite amount of time! Given that, the person could start their count of the infinite set of whole numbers so that they begin with 0 tomorrow instead of today!

D*. So, we have a paradox: If the person counts the set of whole numbers for all eternity, they could have started today—or tomorrow—or on any other day in the future, since there will always be an infinite number of days after that.

E*. There needs to be a sufficient reason why they start on the day they do.

If we’re challenged to name the sufficient reason why the person starts counting on the day they do, what will our answer be?

Mine would be, “Because that’s how you set up the thought experiment! You made this determination in Step B*. You could have chosen to start the count on any day you wanted (today, tomorrow, yesterday—or any other day), and you chose the set of numbers that would be used to label these days. Your choices are the sufficient reason for why the count starts and why it labels the days the way it does.”

Turn About Is Fair Play

And this is the answer to the original line of reasoning we presented. The same logic is present in A-E that is present in A*-E*, so the answer is the same.

The reason that the original countdown stopped today, which was labelled 0, is because those were the choices made in Step B. The person setting up the thought experiment chose that the countdown stop today, and he chose that it would stop with 0.

Once again, it is the choices that the person made that determine when the count stops and what it stops on.

There is only a “paradox” here if you lose sight of the fact that these choices were made and demand a sufficient reason over and above them.

To say—in the first case—“I know I made these choices in Step B, but I want a reason over and above that to explain why the countdown doesn’t stop on another day” is the same as saying—in the second case—“I know I made these choices in Step B*, but I want a reason over and above that to explain why the count doesn’t start on another day.”

No such reasons are needed. The choices made in Step B are sufficient to explain why the countdown works the way it does, just as the choices made in Step B* are sufficient to explain why the count-up works the way it does.

So, like a lot of paradoxes, the “countdown paradox” has a perfectly obvious solution once you think about it.

God as the Decider

Now let’s apply this to the question of whether God could have created the universe with an infinite past. In this case, we’re doing a thought experiment where God is the one making the choices.

A**. Suppose that God creates a universe with an infinite past (the kind you need for an infinite countdown).

B**. Suppose that–within this timeline–God creates a person (or angel, or computer, or whatever) that counts down the negative numbers so that he finishes today, and today’s number is 0.

Why didn’t the person stop counting on some other day or with some other number? Because that’s not what God chose. He chose to have it happen this way, with the person counting the number -2 two days ago, the number -1 one day ago, and the number 0 today.

Could he have have done it differently? Absolutely! God could have made different choices!

In fact–to go beyond what we’ve stated thus far–God may have created other people doing just that.

C**. Suppose that God also created a second person who has been counting for all eternity such that he ended yesterday with the number 0.

D**. Suppose that God further created a third person who has been counting for all eternity such that he ended two days ago with the number 0.

These are also possible, and we can modify our thought experiment such that God creates any number of people we like, finishing an infinite count on any day we like, with any number (or word or symbol) we like.

In each case, it is God’s choice that is the sufficient reason why the person finished when he did and with what he did.

The situation is parallel to the following:

A***. Suppose that God creates a universe with an infinite future (the kind you need to do an infinite count going forward).

B***. Suppose that–within this timeline–God creates a person who starts an infinite count today, beginning with the number 0.

As before, we can include any number of counters we want:

C***. Suppose that God also creates a second person who begins counting tomorrow, starting with the number 0.

D***. Suppose that God further creates a third person who begins counting the day after tomorrow, starting with the number 0.

As before, we can modify our thought experiment to include any number of counters we want, they can start on any day we want, and they can start with whatever number (or word or symbol) that we want.

Yet in these scenarios, it is God’s choices that determine who is created, when they start counting, and how the count works. These choices are the only reasons we need to explain what is happening.

If there is no unsolvable paradox preventing the scenarios described in A***-D***, then there is no unsolvable paradox preventing the scenarios described in A**-D**–or in any of the previous scenarios we’ve covered.

There just is no problem with the idea of a person doing an infinite countdown ending today–any more than there is with the idea of a person beginning an infinite countdown today.

The heart and foundation of Christianity is belief in a God who is worthy of worship: in the words of Anselm, that being than which none greater can be conceived. And so, when the Bible depicts God as acting in a manner that appears to be less-than-perfect, this creates a challenge for the Christian reader. There is perhaps no more glaring an example of this problem than God’s command to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 20:16-17:

“16 However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. 17Completely destroy them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you.”

The problem, to put it bluntly, is that it looks like God is here commanding genocide. Needless to say, genocide is widely recognized to be an unconscionable evil, a crime against humanity. And no perfect being worthy of worship would command people to carry out an unconscionable evil.

Christians have offered many solutions to resolve this difficult issue but in this article I will focus on an approach that is currently quite popular: I call it the Just War Interpreter. According to this position, while the texts might appear at first blush to entail genocide, a closer reading warrants the conclusion that God was actually commanding actions consistent with just war.

Just War Interpreters offer several arguments for their position. For example, they claim that the language of Deuteronomy 20:16 -17 should be interpreted as hyperbolic. Further, they assert that the cities such as Jericho and Ai which are the primary targets for mass killing were, in fact military outposts serving a largely rural population. And finally, they argue that the primary directive within the text is not eradication but rather removal of that rural population: in other words, God’s primary intent was always to drive the Canaanites out of the land rather than to kill them en masse. In this article, I am going to offer a rebuttal to that third argument, the one that appeals to the theme of displacement. I will argue first that displacement still entails another war crime, that of ethnic cleansing. Second, I will argue that a closer consideration of the act suggests that it still qualifies as genocide even when the primacy of the language of displacement is taken into consideration.

Genocide and Driving Out

Let’s begin with a definition of genocide. The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide offers the following legal definition of the concept in Article II:

“In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” (link)

It certainly appears that the command in Deuteronomy 20:16-17 to “completely destroy” these people groups such that no members are left alive would meet the first and most overt example of genocide, that of killing members of the target group on the basis of their identity as group members.

However, the Just war Interpreters offer a different view. As I noted, they argue that the language of total eradication in Deuteronomy 20:16-17 should be interpreted in light of the central theme of expulsion. For example, in his book God Behaving Badly, David Lamb writes that “the primary image to describe the Canaanite conquest is not of slaughter.” Rather, “Yahweh tells the Israelites that he will drive out the people of the land….”¹ Similarly, Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan argue that the language of displacement is predominant in Deuteronomy and Joshua: “Israel’s chief responsibility was to dispossess or drive out the Canaanites rather than kill them.”² And as Joshua Ryan Butler observes, “Being ‘driven out’ is the language of eviction, not murder.”³ Underlying the entire account is an assumption that the Canaanites were illegitimate squatters who had no right to live on the land.

We should keep in mind that the question before us is whether the actions of the Israelites meet the above-cited definition of genocide which is operative in international law. With that in mind, we can set aside attempts to justify the action based on God’s command because divine commands are not relevant considerations in international law. To put it simply, whether or not you believe God commanded the action is not the issue: the issue, rather, is whether said action would be recognized as genocide by way of established definitions in international law. So do the Just War Interpreters succeed in recasting the directives as being actions consistent with international law?

Ethnic Cleansing

Let’s begin with the concept of ethnic cleansing. While this term has been much discussed in recent years, it only entered common usage in the early 1990s during the conflict in Yugoslavia. While the term as yet lacks a formally recognized legal definition equivalent to the definition of genocide cited above, Klejda Mulaj provides a helpful working definition:

“Ethnic cleansing is considered to be a deliberate policy designed by, and pursued under, the leadership of a nation/ethnic community or with its consent, with the view to removing an “undesirable” indigenous population of a given territory on the basis of its ethnic, national, or religious origin, or a combination of these by using systematically force and/or intimidation.”⁴

So here is our first question: does the Just War Interpreter’s account of driving out of the land satisfy Mulaj’s definition of ethnic cleansing?

Note first that at the time of the conquest, the Canaanites would have been resident in the land for several centuries. That would be sufficient to describe them as an indigenous population. Moreover, they are then targeted for expulsion because of their cultural-religious identity, and this expulsion comes through a military invasion that involves targeting population centers like Jericho and Ai, driving out the rural population (Deut. 7:1), and destroying their cultural products: “This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire.” (Deut. 7:5)

To conclude, this picture of driving out an indigenous population by force and destroying their remaining cultural products would indeed appear to be a textbook instance of ethnic cleansing by Mulaj’s definition. While ethnic cleansing may not be quite as morally problematic as genocide, it still is a war crime. And it still appears deeply problematic to construe a perfect God as commanding war crimes.

Genocide Revisited

Ethnic cleansing is bad enough, but a closer look suggests that the Just War Interpreter’s focus on expulsion fails to exempt the Israelite actions from qualifying as genocide. To see why we can begin by noting that the Just War Interpreters tend to avoid a very important question: what happened to the rural Canaanites who failed to outrun Israel’s advancing armies? The answer provided in texts like Deuteronomy 7:2 and Joshua 6:21 is that they would have been slaughtered.

With that grisly detail in mind, we can now put together the picture provided by the Just War Interpreters. While the Israelites did not enter the land intent on killing every single Canaanite, that intent is not required for an action to qualify as genocide. However, they did enter intent on forcibly driving out the Canaanites, slaughtering every Canaanite who remained, and destroying every manifestation of Canaanite culture to the end of destroying Canaanite identity as such. The assertions of the Just War Interpreters to the contrary notwithstanding, these actions clearly do conform to the definition of genocide in Article II (a-c). Just imagine a contemporary situation where one religious-ethnic-cultural group attacked another to the end of displacing the other group, killing members of that group based on group identity, and destroying all aspects of the target group’s culture. Would anyone seriously dispute that these actions would qualify as genocide?

There is one final point to note, a point that is regularly overlooked by Just War Interpreters. Ask yourself: in any given society, which residents are the least mobile? The answer is the poor, the elderly, the very young, and the mentally and physically handicapped. In other words, the Canaanites most likely to escape the advancing Israelite armies would be the rich, powerful, and influential while those most likely to be left behind to face mass slaughter at the hand of the Israelites would be the weakest and most vulnerable. Does that sound like a just, wise, and merciful policy from a perfect God?

Conclusion

To conclude, the Just War Interpreters offer some important caveats when reading the biblical text, not least of which is their attention to the primacy of the language of displacement over that of eradication. Nonetheless, it must be said that their argument ultimately fails to justify reclassifying the directives as being consistent with principles of just war. Rather, those actions continue to look very much like not one but two distinct war crimes: ethnic cleansing and genocide. That would suggest that a more radical approach to the problem may be required.

(This article is a brief synopsis of one topic I address in chapter 9 from my book Jesus Loves Canaanites: Biblical Genocide in the Light of Moral Intuition.)