Knowing God

Many of us wonder whether there is a God. By God, I mean a necessary being who created the universe. There are of course many other concepts of God but, in this blogpost, I focus exclusively on the aforementioned concept of God. Below, assuming that such a God exists, I consider how, if it were possible, might we ever come to know Them.

Aside: It’s a convention to assign God with masculine pronouns (He/Him) but I don’t want to do that, so, I instead use neutral pronouns (They/Them). Nonetheless, I keep with some convention by capitalizing God’s pronouns.

University of Toronto, back campus. Photo by the author.

I: God as a person

Some people not only claim that God exists but that God is, in fact, a person with whom we can come to have a personal relationship. This latter claim is what gets me. I’m not at all important so how could it ever be possible for someone like me to enter into a personal relationship with the creator of the universe? (If such a thing were possible, I guess it’d mean that God has a really bad agent).

II: Understanding God

If we are to enter into a personal relationship with God, it seems like we must first learn something about Them and try to understand Them. So, what’s a way to do that, do They have an address? I don’t think so; though, admittedly, I also haven’t ever bothered to search for one (I’m not crazy!).

There is, I think, a more promising way to God. You see, Galileo Galilei is often misattributed with saying that mathematics is the language with which God wrote the universe. Galileo didn’t say that but, anyway, let’s follow that thought some more and see where it takes us.

According to modern physics, our universe has an unfathomably specific arrangement of certain constants, without which life as we know it would be impossible. This fact is part of a premise in the cosmological argument from fine-tuning (FTA), which concludes that there must be some intelligent designer(s) responsible for the fine-tuning of our universe.

Now, the FTA doesn’t exactly establish that the intelligent designer(s) is God but let’s just assume that that is the case such that God is a person who fine-tuned the universe in order for life to exist. Suppose then that our universe, all we know of as reality, is a mathematical expression of God. That would seem to suggest that God knows mathematics. Maybe mathematics is God’s language? If so, then, by learning God’s language, we might better understand Them.

“An equation means nothing to me unless it expresses a thought of God” - Srinivasa Ramanujan (FRS)

Aside: If one day I’m to be blessed with fatherhood, I’ll have to try and convince my better half to name our child Srinivasa; for that name means, at least to me, pure love.

Although I think that knowing a language usually just means personal knowledge, I don’t think that understanding someone’s language entails that one would then also personally know that person, too. Languages and persons are separate things. So it seems like even if mathematics were to be God’s language and we knew it in a personal sense, we’d still fall short of personal knowledge of God. So then how could we ever enter into a personal relationship with Them? Perhaps, it might be possible if knowing mathematics were to somehow connect us to Them personally, too. But how might that work?

III: Mathematical objects are parts of God

Now, let’s suppose that mathematical objects, like numbers, are really just parts of God. Then, if we somehow interact with such objects, say, by using the language of mathematics, perhaps communication with God or, at least, God’s parts is possible. So, for instance, maybe experiencing a mathematical intuition is really just God communicating with us?

“If you talk to God, you are praying; if God talks to you, you have schizophrenia” - Thomas Szasz

An objection might come from some people like contemporary philosopher Richard Swinburne, who has argued that mathematical objects don’t really exist. Rather, Swinburne (himself a Theist) thinks that mathematical objects are merely useful human inventions and that mathematics is just a language which humans invented to solve various practical problems.

I don’t know anyone who’d disagree about its potential practical value but some philosophers and mathematicians believe that mathematics is both discovered and invented. And, I’d argue that if mathematics is in any way discovered, which I believe it is, then mathematical objects are either necessary or contingent. If they are necessary, then, assuming God exists, they exist necessarily as parts of God or independently of God. If mathematical objects are parts of God, then interacting with such objects might be one way we can communicate with God and come to personally know Them.

Anyway, maybe I’m wrong, confused or actually crazy, I dunno, you tell me.