The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation
Rod Dreher wrote “to order the world rightly as Christians requires regarding all things as pointing to Christ”
Christ is the One in Whom in all things consist and humanity is not the measure of all things. If a defining characteristic of the modern world is disorder then the most fundamental act of resistance is to discover and life according to the deep, divine order of the heavens and the earth.
In this series we want to look at the big model of the universe that the Bible and Christian history provides.
It is a mind and heart expanding vision of reality.
It is not confined to the limits of our bodily senses - but tries to embrace levels fo reality that are not normally accessible or tangible to our exiled life on earth.
We live on this side of the cosmic curtain - and therefore the highest and greatest dimensions of reality are hidden to us… yet these dimensions exist and are the most fundamental framework for the whole of the heavens and the earth.
Throughout this series we want to pick away at all the threads of reality to see how they all join together - how they all find common meaning and reason in the great divine logic - the One who is the Logos, the LORD Jesus Christ - the greatest that both heaven and earth has to offer.
Colossians 1:15-23
The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation
Episode 16 - The Theology of Zero: From Aristotle to the Modern Atheist
Ever pondered on the profound relationship between numbers, the universe, and theology?
In this intriguing episode, we continue on an exploratory journey into the symbolic meanings of numbers and mathematics. We passionately discuss how these are not mere human inventions but play a significant role in the universe itself, springing from the eternal life of the Trinity.
We also delve into the symbolism of numbers found in creation; for instance, the number four representing the wholeness of creation and five signifying grace, gospel, compassion, help, and rescue.
Have you ever thought of zero more than just a placeholder or the representation of nothingness?
We dissect this fascinating concept further, revealing its dual roles in our number system. We engage in a thought-provoking discussion about Aristotle's philosophical struggles with the concept of nothingness and how modern atheists grapple with this idea. We also debate whether attributing a numeric value to nothing is giving it undue substance.
Our journey into the world of numbers would not be complete without touching on the enigmatic concept of infinity. We explore its history and discuss its philosophical implications in Christian theology.
Lastly, we examine the concept of everlasting life as portrayed in the Bible and how it signifies the infinite life of God. Join us in this enlightening conversation that intertwines mathematics, philosophy, and theology.
The theme music is "Wager with Angels" by Nathan Moore
Well, welcome to the Christ-centered Cosmic Civilization Podcast. And we're still in the subject of mathematics, numbers. Last time we thought about the symbolic meaning of some numbers. We could have done many more, but we looked at a lot of the most common ones that occur in the Bible, learning Christian thought. And as we begin, let's just notice what we're really trying to say in this.
Speaker 1:We've tried to argue throughout the podcast that numbers and mathematics are not just a kind of human invention, a human tool, but they are intrinsic into the universe itself. The universe runs by mathematics, it can be explained by mathematics whoever designed it was a mathematician. And furthermore, that mathematics and numbers are part of the eternal life of the Trinity, father, son and Spirit, and that that numbers and mathematics pours out of that eternal life of God into the heavens and the earth right from the beginning of creation and Genesis. Chapter one is packed full of fundamental revelation, truth, design of numbers and maths. And so when we are talking about the symbolism of numbers, one of the great temptations and we've addressed this before in earlier episodes is to think what we're saying is something like human beings like to think of something in a particular way. So we might say, ah, that symbolism is. Humans like to think of the number four as representing the whole world, the whole creation. That isn't what we're trying to say at all. What we're trying to say is that the number four in the mind of God, as the living God, gives that number to the creation. God thinks of that that way that the number four intrinsically has a meaning to do with the whole creation. Five has a number is to do with grace, gospel, compassion, help, rescue, and that the reason we think that way is, of course we've always tried to argue that the mind of the Creator, the cosmic mind of Christ, the mind that was active for everlasting ages before the universe even began, the mind of the Father expressed in the Son by the power of the Spirit, all of that, that mind that thinks of five in that way, as a number. That means something to do with rescue and help. And gospel designed us so that we have five fingers on each hand, five toes on each foot, to indicate that our hands and feet of there, in order to provide help, to do things that are fruitful and useful to live. If, if we were designed to love the Lord, god with everything we've got, and and to love each other properly as church family, globally, like that. Then the one who designed us designed us with hands and feet that every time we look at our hands and feet, he wanted us to think, ah, how can I help, how can I rescue, how can I show practical love as I should? That's an example.
Speaker 1:There are loads of examples where, when we look at the natural world around us, whoever designed it thinks of the creation, thinks of the numbers with these meanings. I often like to think about spiders who have eight legs, and as soon as we see such an obvious number proclaimed at us in a particular creature, we ought to be provoked into thinking why is that? Why is the number eight manifested in that creature? Why, how is that creature preaching new creation to me? Well, with a spider, we can go into that quite a lot.
Speaker 1:And the web, the concept of the web. But let's think of the main thing we think of. What's the web for? First thing is there's a lot about the structure of the web.
Speaker 1:A web is designed to catch flies, and the spiders entire existence really is to be the enemy of the fly. Well, fly Hebrew word, fly, z-bub, bail-z-bub, bail-z-bub is the devil, the lord of the flies. Why is he called that? Because the fly. I don't know what the fly was like in the original Eden design set, but now flies are completely bound up with decay, disease, and we don't want flies on our food or on our person because they spread disease and death and they are attracted to the very worst decay of all anything that's unbelievably foul. The flies go to it.
Speaker 1:Now we could argue there is a way in which they perform a valuable function in a decaying, in a universe that's full of death and decay, and the flies work with the death and decay to get rid of it with maggots, and so you could argue well, that's a good thing to do. Yeah, I understand that, but we don't want to live in a world, we don't want a creation that's marked by death and decay and disease. That was not how it's supposed to be. So the fly symbolizes what has gone wrong with the entire cosmic order at the deepest level, the level that decay and diminishing and death are fundamentally written into the universe, and the fly is a symbol of that. And so Satan loves to think of himself as the Lord of the flies. Of course, in the Exodus one of the lovely things there is the Lord reminds him that, no, he didn't create the flies and ultimately the flies listen to his, the Lord's voice, not Satan's voice. But Satan is characterised as Bale Zebob, the Lord of the flies, because he is the one who was brought about this age of death and decay and disease, where the flies are so necessary, and everywhere.
Speaker 1:But the spider reminds us, because the spider is the enemy of the fly. It lives to get rid of flies and we think, well, you can't get rid of all the flies, can you? Can there ever be a time where there are no flies? And this little creature with its eight legs has this hope and it preaches to us of hope that there is a time coming when the flies will either be completely different or they won't be there anymore. And so the number eight on the spider makes us look at the spider differently and we might say I don't want spiders around, they creep me out or something. Yeah, but think about them more deeply, with their eight legs, what is it about them that speaks of new creation and resurrection and hope. Of course we could think about the octopus, but we'll leave that for another time. So symbolism and numbers. That's why it's important that it's not just us inventing meaning, but this is the meaning that the creator himself has and we see it all over when we address the subject of chemistry, which we'll do in I don't know quite a few. It will be a while before we get to chemistry, but when we do we'll discover the importance of the number eight written into the basic makeup of molecules.
Speaker 1:Okay now, what we'll get into this episode is the number zero We've been thinking through. We're on day three of creation, in a way in our thinking, and we're about to launch into day four when we get into multiplication. But I just want to briefly pause and think about zero, because it's been hanging around the question of zero in our minds. Zero, now, if there was a time when the universe did not exist at all, if the creation was from nothing, then the number zero is easily containable within Christian theology and maybe necessary within Christian theology. But the idea that the creation comes from absolutely nothing is a complicated idea and isn't totally straightforward. It's something that's really invented, maybe in the third or fourth century, because if you read the Bible it's not totally clear that the universe comes from absolutely nothing, but that there is this idea that there might be pre-existent material. And certainly the ancient Greeks believe that and that's why they hated the number zero, because the idea that there ever was nothing, it was offensive to them. But Christians definitely have a strong suspicion, at least, that there was once nothing. And so there is this doorway to the number zero, because zero is a concept that's kind of, let's say it's a problem in mathematics Because it disobeys basic rules of mathematics and causes paradoxes and anomalies.
Speaker 1:Like when you start to try and use zero as a number, things go wrong. So one divided by one is one, or two divided by four, that's half, and so on. That all works quite neatly. But if you go, one divided by zero, that's infinity. And you go, what's infinity, I don't know. It's just like it just goes on and on and suddenly we're almost into strange fantasy, almost. And that zero over one is that nothing divided by one, nothing. So all these things don't work properly once you start introducing zero as a number. So should we avoid it or try to get rid of it? Is it morally right to use the number zero?
Speaker 1:And, as we said, aristotle with his foundations in the completely pagan religion of Greece, which cannot conceive that the universe was ever nothing, and that's important to grasp, because the modern atheist is stuck with the same problem, like, if the universe really does, the once was a time when there really was nothing, nothing. Aristotle doesn't like that, because how can you explain a universe that has nothing, that begins with nothing? And the modern atheist is the same. And so the modern atheist will come up with extraordinarily fantastical ideas in order to try and avoid that. Because if there really was absolutely nothing then of the universe at all, there is no way for it to happen, to come about, to exist, and then you are compelled to go out. The only rational explanation is this everlasting God, who is Father, son and Holy Spirit. So Aristotle with his pagan religion, and modern atheist too. But modern atheists don't have a problem with the number zero, oddly enough, or don't seem to do. But Aristotle did. He understood the threat of the number zero, so he couldn't accept the idea of zero because he believed in the eternal nature of the universe.
Speaker 1:But what do we mean, first of all, by the concept of zero? It's not simple. If you ask me how many apples I have, well, right now I'm sat at my desk, I've got a glass of water, that's it. So I would go I don't have any apples. I don't have any apples, but it doesn't. It seem strange if I say I have zero apples. Now we might actually say that, but it's a very weird thing to say we should just go I don't have any apples. But if I say I do have a number of apples and my number is zero, I have zero apples. So why would I say that? It's an odd thing?
Speaker 1:We've been conditioned to use the number zero as if it meant something. If I have no apples, is it right to assign a value or number to nothing, to not having any apples? So it's a strange thought and it's. If you've never thought about the strangeness of zero, it's perhaps worth spending a bit of time doing that. How weird it is to sign a number or a value to nothing at all. Like are we giving too much substance to nothing if we give it a number? Because number, as we've seen, is a powerful thing, is nothing or nothing less worthy of having a number?
Speaker 1:Now, there are actually two ways in which we use zero, the, the symbol zero, and the way it's done. The first is we're not really thinking of it as a number. What it is is a place holder in our number system. So when we, the way we in in the Western world, use numbers and it's become the dominant but not necessarily the only form of expressing numbers, many of us are quite familiar with what we call the binary system of expressing numbers with ones and zeros, because that's how computers handle numbers, using ones and zeros. And there's a kind of beautiful elegance to the binary system and I enjoy that and I quite often find myself calculating or expressing numbers in a binary form just for the kind of fun of doing that, because there's something beautiful about it. But we we tend to use this, the system that has just become kind of built into keyboards and everything.
Speaker 1:Now, when we do that, we, if we express a number between one to nine, we just use the single digits to do that, but then once we get to ten, we it's as if we're on a grid and the first column of it, on the far right of the grid, is, is numbers one to ten. Then the next line is that is what we call tens, and then hundreds, and then thousands, and then ten thousand, hundred, thousand, million, like that a grid going across. So if we say want to express the number 14, we would, in the first column we put a four and in the second column we put one, meaning there's one ten. But if we wanted to say it was 64, we put a six in the tens column. And then when we then, if we want to say 428, we put four in the hundred column, two in the tens column and eight in the units column. Okay, do you understand how? We know how that works, but I'm just expressing it. But if we want so, quite often we want say, we want to just express the number 500, we'll put five in the hundreds column and then to show that we want to make that, that is, in the 500 column we put a zero in the tens and a zero in the units 500. I mean, really we could put five, dash, dash, if we were thinking about that system where it's a grid, really. So the zero there is just functioning to show us in what column the five is in, if that makes sense. So there's a way in which we use zero to space out our numbers in that way to express what number we're thinking about, but then of course, so in a way that's not a big deal, that's quite the number zero, that eight or zero could be replaced by a different symbol, because it's not really necessarily functioning strictly as a number in a way. But the other way is when we are using it to mean nothing. Nothing and it's. These two things are related, the way we express numbers in that form, but also meaning zero as a value of nothing, and that's a problem.
Speaker 1:So in Charles Seif's or Seif's infamous or famous book, depending whether you like it or not I'm not totally keen on it, but it's called zero, the biography of a dangerous idea, he shows how the concept of zero grew up in the nihilistic religions of Babylon and India and because they are part of a religious background in which the idea of attaining nothingness, losing self in this kind of nothingness, that is, that's quite a core thing religiously, and so the number, the concept of zero, emerges from that. But in the clash with the Greek philosophy the Greeks did not believe in. The goal is nothingness at all. Rather, for the Greeks the goal is thinking, logic, order, analysis. The universe has always existed and it is to be analysed rather than forgotten. Almost. For the Greeks, the universe there is an ultimate reality that is eternal, whereas in that other religious tradition it's all an illusion, kind of idea. Well, charles Seif's argues that not only the pagan Greeks but also the medieval Christian theologians were hostile to zero because they were so influenced by Aristotle. So yeah, we see what he's arguing there.
Speaker 1:Let me give a quotation from his book. He says zero conflicted with the fundamental philosophical beliefs of the West, for contained within zero are two ideas that were poisonous to Western doctrine. Indeed, these concepts would eventually destroy Aristotelian philosophy after its long reign. These dangerous ideas were the void, nothingness and the infinite. Okay, so that's the idea, then, to assign mathematical values to nothing and the infinite. It's common in conceptual mathematics. But in that book Charles Seif wants us to accept something of the Hindu philosophy of the infinite and the void, and he seems to rejoice in this Hindu idea of nothingness as the other side of infinity. That's not at all straight forward to do that.
Speaker 1:There are problems in both nothingness and infinity To even now. Just as a little footnote on that, now it's very common for us to say God is infinite. I often hear that God is infinite, but that wasn't said by the earliest Christians at all. That was introduced, I think, in the fourth or fifth century. I can't just remember off the top of my head. I think one of the maybe one of the Cappadocians did that introduced this idea that God is infinite, and the Bible doesn't say that. The reason it's a problem is because it's an undefined, empty concept really. Anyway, that's enough for us on that. We were dealing with zero, not infinity. We might have to do infinity in another week, right? So Robert Kaplan has also written a book about zero and that's called the Nothing that Is, and I think that's a more profound attempt to deal with the issue of zero and the theological, philosophical issues surrounding it, and also what the benefits of introducing zero as a number See, I think it's fair to say that the Bible is not so horrified by the idea of nothing as the Greek philosophers were, and neither is the Bible so thrilled or so mystical about nothingness as the Hindu philosophers are.
Speaker 1:So the Bible seems to take a different view, that it can cope with the idea that there is nothing and an abyss of nothingness. And nothingness is, in the Bible, more of a threat rather than something to be enjoyed or studied or plunged into, as Hindu philosophers might do so often. Hebrews 11, verse 3, is indicated to be the Bible, teaching that the universe was created from that there was nothing at all before the universe existed. We must be careful to say the universe was created out of nothing, because that makes it sound as if nothing is like something that gives birth to the universe, like created out of nothing, like the universe is pulled out of something called nothing or nothingness or emptiness. That we shouldn't say. I mean the universe is created. If it's out of anything, it's out of the living God. The living God is the source of the universe, certainly the source of the order and structure and light and life and everything in the universe. Everything that's come into existence has come into existence by through in Jesus Christ. We don't want to, so we just. It's just a bit odd to say. We should be careful to say the universe is created out of nothing, it's created out of the living God. But there might, we might want to say but there was nothing existing, nothing, no creature existed, nothing material existed before God did that. But Hebrews 11.3, straightly doesn't exactly teach that. It actually says that the visible universe, the universe, was created from. What cannot be seen Now is what cannot be seen. That is that the living God, father, son, holy Spirit. Yes, yeah, that's true. But does that mean that there was nothing at all before? Possibly probably, but it's not as totally straightforward as sometimes people make it seem. So the Christian doctrine, then, of creation from nothing, criato it's Neal-o, is very deep in us and goes back a long way, and it's had a major influence over Christian thought down through the ages, and it means that the idea of the being nothing is not alien to Christian thought and there isn't an intrinsic hostility to the idea of nothing or nothingness. So if the universe had an absolute beginning, then the Bible has the idea of there being a year zero and a moment when no aspect of the universe existed. And so, as we've said, christian theologians were not so hostile to the very idea of zero as the Aristotelians were.
Speaker 1:Andrew Hass from the University of Stirling has explored the concept of zero and he's looked at how it comes from India, and I'll just give a little quotation from him. He says in India, the Sanskrit word for empty or blank is saññā. This saññā is transliterated within the Indian system of numerology as the idea of zero and indeed the symbol zero as we know it today. And if we think about the round circle, it suddenly takes on an appropriateness to the notion of nothing, even pictographically, because it looks like it. You know, the zero seems to encompass nothing, as he says. Andrew Hass says at the center of its circumference, of the just the symbol of a zero, at the center of its circumference, is a blank avoid, an abyss. It is as if we are peering into an empty chasm, brought into greater relief by the circumference, but of course a relief that's an inverse relief with an infinite inversion. So that's again idea that just looking at the, a zero creates a feeling of emptiness but also infinity. He also describes how that symbol moves to the west and how the Islamic world picked up the zero, form of of nothing, when they conquered India in the eighth century and from there it came to the west.
Speaker 1:The number zero. That's enough, for you know I'm tempted to get into that more, but let's leave that. Now the history of how it's spread and the reactions to it. So the concept of zero has a dimension to it that takes us to the very, very foundations of judgment and eternity. Really, if the universe was called into life with nothing before and then it's kind of redeemed into order from chaos, so it's created, in the beginning was the heaven. God created heaven to the earth and the earth was formless and empty. There's a chaos, a kind of nothingness, that that is over this mass of the heavens and the earth and then out of that, redeemed into order, the heavens and the earth, given order, structure, meaning light, life. All of that, that idea that there is a nothing though, that without Jesus the universe is nothing, is nothing without him.
Speaker 1:So that's a powerful idea that is deeply in Christian theology, the idea that if we and it's in there's something of that in Jeremiah 4 that if we do not know him, do not know this Lord Jesus, the cosmic Emperor, then our light and life and order and structure just ebbs away into nothingness. Nothingness. And what of the creatures who refuse him, who refuse the order, life and light of the universe? Well, the Bible then has this idea of the bottomless abyss, that the, the total nothing that goes down and down and there's no way to comprehend it, there's no way to make sense of it. You kind of analyze sin and dark that dark abyss. You kind of analyze it and get to the bottom of it. Because there is no bottom of it, you just fall down into it ever deeper, darker, more deadly, more lost. The outer darkness a scripture has it. It's the loss of all, all life, all light, all order, all hope. That the the kind of cosmic zero, a final eternal experience of zero, of nothingness. In the, the German philosophers, I think, they call it Das Niktiger, the nothingness. But with that, yeah, we won't get into infinity, because with zero comes the concept of infinity.
Speaker 1:I think, or maybe just to say this, that the difficulties of infinity and we'll say this as we come to the conclusion of our time this week if you say God is infinite, it doesn't really mean anything at all. It's like if you say to a person imagine you had infinite money. It functions the same as saying imagine, for most people, for most ordinary people, it functions the same as saying imagine you had a million pounds or a billion pounds. You might have to say nowadays, but a million pounds or a billion pounds, that that means infinite money for an ordinary person. And so the word infinite is kind of like a what you say if you can't be bothered.
Speaker 1:I can't be bothered to say how powerful God is, I can't be bothered to define his knowledge, I can't be bothered to say how he governs the universe or exists or lives or thinks or loves or anything like that. So I'm just going to go. It's infinite. It's infinite, which doesn't mean anything. It has no real content to it. And if we say it is limitless, again that means it's empty. Really there's no substance to such a word, and so I'm very, I've become quite hostile to the word infinite, because it's the other side of zero. Zero is just telling you there's nothing in it. Infinite is hiding almost the fact that there's nothing in it. It's just a vacuous word that has no content because it's it's, it's just, it goes on and on forever.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, if, if, if we want to say that the living God has a life that has, it has been for everlasting and will always keep going on, say that, say that that's the way the Bible speaks of the life of God in the Bible doesn't go.
Speaker 1:The life of God is infinite. That what the Bible does is says that the living God is from everlasting to everlasting. Now, with that, your mind can work at that and go. Well, everlasting has always been and always will be, and that's like a more defined thing. It's indicating, that seems to indicate a never ending sequence of consecutive moments, both in the past and into the future. Now we might say, oh, I can't be bothered thinking of that. I'll just say infinite, yeah, okay, but acknowledge that you're using the word infinite because you're lazy, you can't be bothered to think properly. But it's better to find out to be more specific, and the Bible's like that. You might say it's more mythological rather than abstract. Yeah, but it means it's got. It's more concrete, more real, more specific, more logical, something that your mind can actually deal with.