What I know and what I believe

Know
Middle English, from Old English cnāwan; akin to Old High German bichnāan to recognize,
Latin gnoscere, noscere to come to know, Greek gignōskein
Date: before 12th century

Transitive verb:

• To perceive directly, have direct cognition of.
• To have understanding of.
• To recognize the nature of.
• To recognize as being the same as something previously known.
• To be acquainted or familiar with.
• To have experience of.
• To be aware of the truth or factuality of.
• To be convinced or certain of.
• To have a practical understanding of.

From the Merriam-Webster online dictionary



Believe
Middle English beleven, from Old English belēfan, akin to Old High German gilouben to believe
Date: before 12th century

Intransitive verb

• To have a firm religious faith
• To accept as true, genuine, or real
• To have a firm conviction as to the goodness, efficacy, or ability of something
• To hold an opinion
• To consider to be true or honest
• To accept the word or evidence of
• To hold as an opinion

From the Merriam-Webster online dictionary



A few of the things I know

How to use trigonometry to measure the height of a mountain.
That an organism denied nutriments and fluids will perish
That light from the Sun takes approximately 8.2 minutes to travel from the outer edge of the solar photosphere to the surface of the Earth.
That if, while swimming, I allow my lungs to fill with water, I will drown, unless I quickly eject the water.

We gain this type of knowledge either from textbooks or from experience but these examples and millions more like them have another characteristic; they are capable of independent verification by experiment.

Information about the universe may be divided into two broad categories, facts and theories. Facts have been verified by experiments that can be repeated. Theories remain just theories until and unless they are either verified or refuted by experiment. In principle, everything about the universe is discoverable by this method, although some theories may be doomed to remain unproven or unrefuted because experiments to test them are either prohibitively expensive or have apparently insurmountable technical difficulties attached to them. However, the material point is that every physical attribute of the universe, from the physics of the smallest sub-division of an atom to those of the largest aggregation of galaxies, is, in principle, discoverable by experiment.


A few of the things I believe

That the Baltimore Orioles baseball team will win the 2010 World Series, this in spite of the fact that the O’s haven’t won that competition since 1983.
That the next general election in Britain will be won by the incumbent administration, the Labour Party.
That the British monarchy will be abolished within twenty years, in other words no later than 2028
That there may be a God in whose ‘mind’ all that is resides.

It is obvious from these few examples that there is more than one kind of belief. Some, the first three of those listed, might be called reasonable expectations which will, with the passage of time, be seen to have been either right on target or seriously wide of it.

But the forth item is in a category containing only one example. Neither reason nor knowledge informs it. Belief in the existence of God is, in the strict sense of the word, irrational. Not that every philosopher has been content to leave it there. Anselm of Canterbury, Renee Descartes and others have striven to prove that God exists by means of long and complicated ontological arguments with, in some cases, elements of the Unmoved Mover argument attached. Aristotle , who may have invented that argument relied on it entirely in his attempt to prove the unprovable.

For my part, I believe that God may exist because I cannot honestly say that God does not exist but beyond that I cannot go. The God who may exist is as unknowable as the physics that produced the singularity from which the universe was born explosively. We have not the eyes to see beyond either horizon.

But I am sure of a few things about the God who may exist:
He has no attributes
He is neither in time nor space
He is unknowable

In the next chapter, I will demonstrate the truth of these assertions.

Chapter 2

Attribute
Middle English, from Latin attributus, past participle of attribuere to attribute, from ad + tribuere to bestow
Date: 14th century

Noun

• An inherent characteristic
• An accidental quality
• An object closely associated with or belonging to a specific person, thing, or office
• A word ascribing a quality to a person thing or object

Time
Middle English, from Old English tīma; akin to Old Norse tīmi time, Old English tīd
Date:
Before 12th century


Noun

• The measured or measurable period during which an action, process, or condition exists or continues
• The non-spatial continuum that is measured in terms of events which succeed one another from past through present to future

Space
Middle English, from Anglo-French espace, space, from Latin spatium area, room, interval of space or time
Date: 14th century

Noun

• A period of time; also: its duration
• A limited extent in one, two, or three dimensions: distance, area and volume.
• An extent set apart or available
• The distance from other people or things that a person needs in order to remain comfortable
• A boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events occur and have relative position and direction

Unknowable
Date: 14th century

Adjective

• Not knowable; especially: lying beyond the limits of human experience or understanding

All three definitions from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary


What are God's attributes?

Faced with this challenge, a Hindu might first ensure that the questioner was not referring to Shiva, Vishnu or Shakti or any member of the Hindu pantheon because they are are thought of as simply manifestations of Ultimate Reality, a concept about which nothing can be said. Hence the need for something more nearly human through which one might direct one's devotional feelings.

Faced with the same question, a Muslim might say that although God has revealed his will through the prophets, his nature remains unknowable, adding that when we speak, for example, about God being all-knowing and all-merciful, we are simply referring to what we believe has been revealed to us and not to anything actually known.

A Jew might reply that God cannot be divided into parts located in time or space and that therefore the notion that he has attributes is merely an imperfect attempt to understand the nature of the infinite. He or she might add that scriptural references to the Hand of God or to God's anger and so on are simply figures of speech used to make God's apparent actions comprehensible.

A Christian might also say that God is essentially unknowable, and that, therefore, any reference to attributes in respect of God must be seen as allegorical.

In stating what I understand to be the position of Christians, Jews, Muslims and Hindus on this subject, I am, I believe reflecting the views of historical and contemporary scholars from each faith rather than those of the many adherents of these religions who hold and express other, less aesthetic views.

And it is that spirit that I ask the following two questions: when did God create the Universe and where did God create it?

When?
Current theories about the origin of the Universe put its age as between 13.5 and 14 billion years but when did its Creator act to create it?

The word, 'When' refers to time but as reported above, time is "the measured or measurable period during which an action or process or condition exists or continues" and "the non-spatial continuum that is measured in terms of events which succeed one another from the past through the present to the future."

Where?
The word, 'Where,' refers to a boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events occur and have relative position and direction."

The verb to create, is thus seen to betoken an action performed in time and space but God exists outside of time or space. It follows that God did not create the Universe, it simply is in God.

Conclusion
We exist temporally and our existence is bounded by birth and death, God exists eternally and there are no boundaries to God's existence. Anything we say about God is an attempt to humanise God for our own purposes but has nothing to do with God. God is truly truly unknowable and beyond the limits of human experience or understanding.