Does God exist? Can a finite mind come to grips with an infinite concept such as God?

Answer 1

yes he exists

no im not sure we can ever really comprehend how great he is... maybe when we die ...

Answer 2

The first quesiton is too difficult and anyone who claims "yes" or "no" is going on faith for there is no way to produce certainty (if certainty is based at the level of knowing equal to the knowing of whether one's own self exists or not). So, both the atheist and the theist (whether Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, etc.) must epistemological accept their assertion as faith.

The second question is more interesting. We use "an infinite concept" in mathematics to do calculus. We have a "feeling" that the universe may be infinite, yet we still know things about it (like that 3-degree isotopic radiation exists throughout it). While we may not grasp completely the totality of that which would be infinite, we can surely understand parts of it. The problem with God becomes the paradoxical elements in "his" construction. Can he make a rock that even he can't lift? What was before him? If nothing, how much time passed before he created everything else? Why did he? Was he just bored?

Answer 3

How does anyone know that any god is infinite? If people can't even grasp the very large (just try an imagine how powerful the finite Sun is - most people can't even come close) what makes them think they can tell a very large thing from an infinite one?

It seems to be that the only people who claim their god is infinite are those who define their dieties into existance ("My mind pictures this so it must be so") and those who say their dieties have claimed such a property for themselves. But even in the latter case, how would we ever know that the diety is telling the truth?

I tend to believe that it is possible to imagine infinite concepts... but I can't say I've ever seen an infinite reality. Which tends to make someone who claims both infinitude and reality to be a bit suspect to me.

Answer 4

Yes, Erik, God does indeed exist. But what are you really
trying to ask here? I have infinite knowledge on the subject(s)
in which you're interested in, but I would first need to comprehend the exact answers that you seek. What mind is finite to the point that it cannot conceptualize
something that is infinite-as time, energy or gravity...just to
name a few? There's God as The Alpha and The Omega;
the Creator; the Almighty; the Omnipresent and the All-knowing. That's perceivable, isn't it?
What is it that you would really like to know and I would do my very best to issue you a viable resolution?

Answer 5

Does He exist? Does anyone know? How can we know anything stemming from the Beyond? For all we know, there may be more than one - or He might be a She! Or neither!

However, the hypothetical question stated by the latter is interesting. The human mind is characterized by multiple constraints and pervasive finity - thereby incapable of imagining infinity. It would be pointless, right? What is infinity? Nothing in existence (as humanity knows it).

Thus, we render infinite concepts into finite bounds by using measurements of finities to attempt to scale infinite proportions.

So bottom-line: no.

Answer 6

Thoms Aquinas, in his "Summa Theologica," provided a five-part "proof" for the existence of God that has satisfied many people. Aquinas was a close reasoner, and it is probable that an even greater percentage of people would concede his conclusion, given his assumptions. He wrote about 750 years ago, so his Latin, translated into English, isn't easy reading. Download him from the first source cited below and search for "THIRD ARTICLE [I, Q. 2, Art. 3]."

Karl Barth, one of the most influential theologians of the 20th Century, said that humankind and God are so different that it is impossible for the former to know the latter -- except as God makes that possible.

Asking someone to prove the existence of God is like asking Sherlock Holmes (an excellent reasoner) to prove the existence of A. Conan Doyle. Doyle did not afford Holmes that opportunity, but he could have.

Good luck with your search.

Answer 7

Depends what you mean by the question. Taken literally - no, there is no "who" Out There, with a petty humanlike mind, who "exists" in the same sense that a park bench exists, or even in the sense that love exists. The "reality" or truth of what the word "God" alludes to is, to many people, unquestionable, self-evident -- but it's not something the "mind" or reason properly comes to "grips" with. Coming to grips, to me, implies "getting a handle" -- which implies representation, separation, definition, limitation, all these many things that are exactly what the divine isn't. Anyone who claims to have literally "come to grips" with the literal "existence of God" is, as far as I'm concerned, deceived.

Answer 8

Our very belief in God happens when we are ready for it.

Let alone, knowing or meeting God. Nothing happens before we are ready for it.

And to believe that we can convince any person otherwise, is sheer human arrogance, and not 'our' love for God. For God doesn't need us, to convince anyone over Him, He can do that job very well. And He does so, using Life that He bestows on us, each time we choose to incarnate here on this planet.

Our very life, and its myriad life experiences, big and small are at 'it', our every moment here, our every breath is a journey to knowing and finally experiencing God.

So let's not rush, for God is in no hurry.

He brings us home, slowly, and yet convincingly over lifetimes. Till we open our hearts out and allow His grace to enter our life and thwart all our reasoning in a moment when non-believers turns believers and a hater becomes a lover. In that moment our journey begins.

That is when and only when we begin to believe that there is a thing called God.

Knowing Him there after, takes further more lifetimes, all filled with magical journeys deep into the kernel of our soul, where the hard shells over our soul are dismantled along with our ego and reasoning.

This definitely is a moment of great celebrations in the heavens, when a soul becomes ripened to believe, and ready unravel the mystery called God, and that is when you become mystic, a reveler into the mystery called God.

So take it easy, and don't you hurry up, for all things happen in time, God's time.

Answer 9

If God existed, why would He give you a brain that couldn't understand Him?

The reason we can't "see" God is because we can't see beyond our own interests.

God is the simplest concept in the Universe to comprehend. At least for me it was, once I let go.

Now algebra! Forget it!! That stuff is crazy.

Answer 10

We can come to grips with the concept, however, it is impossible for our finite and therefore limted minds to completely grasp or understand God in God's totality. Of course it's still worth trying to understand as much as we can :)

Answer 11

God does exist... and we are all fragments of God...
God is consciousness... and we are all fragments of this consciousness...
Can the whole be understood by a fragment of the whole?
Can the infinite universe be understood by a finite mind (which is but a fragment of the universe)?
Why not?