God is Finite

Nak Khid
By Nak Khid in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God,
God is Finite and impermanent as all things are Many religions in the history of the world have worshiped a finite god.
The attribution of the belief in “infinity” has lead toward a de-personalizing of God.  God is in actuality finite and personal but supreme above all other finite and personal beings. God has a specific nature and it includes certain limitations that are not voluntary on God’s part. Among those limitations are that God cannot know the future insofar as it contains events not yet knowable because they will be determined by free will beings other than God and that God cannot coerce free creatures to do his will. These denials/affirmations about God are necessary “contractions” apart from which the “expansion” would make God religiously unavailable if not irrelevant.
Concern with the problem of evil—i.e., with reconciling the existence of evil with that of a good God—becomes acute for thinkers who rest their case mainly on the existence of evil in the world they find around them, and this has led many to realize  a finite God, according to which the world may be under the direction of a superior being who is nonetheless limited in power, though not in goodness. This is a serious alternative to the idea of a supreme and unlimited source of all reality as found in the usual forms of theism. Indeed, it is a moot point whether the idea of a finite God should be classified as a form of theism. It does come close to traditional theism, however, in its insistence on the unity and absolute benevolence of God. There are clearly advantages in the notion of God as a limited being, especially where evil is concerned. Though one could still insist that God intends nothing that is not wholly good, one can now account for extensive suffering and other ills on the basis of the limits to God’s power. God is doing his utmost but there are are evil powers—that he has not yet subdued, though hopefully he will eventually do so. There is also induced in this way a sense of urgency in humanity’s own obligation, as the apex of creation, to cooperate with God—to be a “fellow worker.” God will clearly need this help, though he himself is in the vanguard of the battle against evil. Thus, those who incline to the idea of a finite God usually have been activist in thought and practice.
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