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Chris Wicker

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PHI101

Minner

God, Descartes, and the Limitations of Time and Space

French philosopher Ren Descartes wrote in the beginning of his first Meditation that

one must free his mind from cares and pre-existing conceptions before one could seek

objectivity in the matters of philosophy. Descartes claims to have done this. He mentions that

he had come to a point in his life where time had become irrelevant and he could pursue deep

thought in the 17th

-century equivalent of retirement. Descartes is very linear in the first

paragraph of the First Meditation in which he discusses positions and opinions over time.1

These references to development over time and within space, here, expose a sound fallacy in

his whole claim objectivity.

The human mind is entirely limited to thought processes within space and time. The

brain itself is a series of neurons organized, having taken up space, with space between them.

The connections among the various nodes also take up space and conduct signals on their

surface which take time to travel. Thus the observable, physical functions of thought inherently

limit humans to thought platforms that exist within spacial dimensions traveling over the curve

1(Descartes 2006, 9)

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functions of the planet Earth. Earths functions are much less complex than the cumulative

functions of the Milky Way; the Milky Way is far more simple than the universe. If it is assumed

that God is prior to and created the universe, He must be vastly more complex when put into a

time-based reality. This complexity and the mere complexity of infinity would limit the ability of

God to act in any form of concerted manner. The reality of time is, thus, incompatible with an

all-perfect God. Gods interaction with time is something beyond humanitys time-based

conceptualization of reality.

The difficulty of intellectually separating God from time pushes the limits of the minds

capabilities. While we cannot fathom infinity and visualize it in our minds, we can represent it

with an arrow on a line plotted on a grid. This reduction makes infinity mathematically useful.

The same goes for separating God from time: the mind can take relatable characteristics (divine

perfection versus human imperfections) and focus on those and employ them as a

representative of the greater, thereby making the idea of God logically useable. What do a

couples focus on when looking up at the night sky? The stars, of course; we primarily judge

outer space to be big because there are a massive number of huge plasmatic fireballs

distributed throughout the expanse. By taking a number of necessary characteristics of Gods

perfect existence and separating them from time, we can effectively separate the whole from

time. The same conditionality can apply to space.

If being incapable of bringing into reality a fathomed action is an imperfection. The

material world requires certain spacial arrangements of matter and energy for things to take

place: the material would limit Him. If God is unlimited in action and thought, His existence

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must not be rooted in the material. Rather, Gods relationship to the material must undeniably

be something ethereal. The limitations of space create a paradox of his omnipotence commonly

referred to the Paradox of the Stone. It is said a little like this:

Can God make a stone so large He cannot move it?

The idea is that if God makes an unmovable object, He is limited; if He cannot make an

unmovable object, He is limited. This conferring of spacial realities displays how limited our

thinking is about the Greatest Conceivable Being. However, it shows that the way in which our

thinking quantifies and makes conditional many of Gods characteristics. Given this logical

paradox, Gods being material is seemingly impossible and if we combine the two conditions

humanity is limited to, there is a strong case for Gods existence outside of the material world.

Matter is composed of atoms that decay and rearrange constantly. Everything in our

universe changes and rearranges. If God is forever and unchanging, He is not material. If He was

composed of matter, God would inevitably grow and decay. Also, if He is a large and permeated

cloud of ethereal goop, why have we not found him yet? All this is reasonable evidence to

conclude that Gods perfect existence exists outside of space and time. However, the chief flaw

in even writing about this subject is the use of linear and spacial language.

This is something both Descartes and myself are forced to fall into. Human

communication is only 10% verbal while 90% nonverbal: our language is very limited. On this

subject, though, it is extremely limited given that the formation and expression of words is

purely sequential. The words formulated are among a number of tenses all organized around

past-present-future contexts. Even saying God exists is a time base statement. If we cannot

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talk about something, we cannot compile ideas and make intellectual progress on the subject.

Even this paper has little to no worth in analyzing the subject given that it sectionalizes God into

time, forced to focus on a tiny extension.

Thus our language, minds, and reality cannot contain God. Descartes attempt to explain

a God he cannot understand is the equivalent of a recently discovered Amazonian tribe picking

up an automobiles drive belt and trying to explain all the functions of a modern day internal

combustion engine. God is so far beyond the human experience that fathoming His existence is

impossible without restraining Him to human conditions. In other words: we are too imperfect

to think of God.

Whereas Descartes attempt at discerning God is noble, he gets humanity no farther in

understanding the queries he attempts to look into. While his thought models are worth

reading and understanding, the real work will be to create a completely new tense in the

English language to incorporate such timeless realities. This is an absurd proposition, yes, but

necessary to measurably free ourselves from the linear and spacial thinking that now taints our

attempts; perhaps saying God exist is a grammatically incorrect start.

Bibliography

Descartes, Rene. Meditations, Objections, and Replies. Edited by Roger Ariew and Donald Cress.

Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2006.