GOD AND THE VISION

 *Due to copywrite laws, no image has been provided for the following article.

Someone with whom I am acquainted, and whose name I shall not reveal, mentioned that she did not like Avengers: Age of Ultron as the movie introduced a “Godlike” hero, The Vision. I also saw the movie and had some of my own reservations regarding the introduction of this character, for the same reason. However, after giving the matter some thought I began to contemplate the exhibited powers of The Vision and the attributes of God. Ultimately, I recognize that the whole thing may be moot, comparing the real with the fictional, that which has being or existence and that which does not. 

     Nevertheless, two things I observed that do not make The Vision “godlike”. First, The Vision is Finite in Power. Solar energy is absorbed via the gem in his forehead allowing him to function.  This stored energy allows him to deploy this weaponry optically as beams of either infrared or microwave radiation. This power is amplified if he transmits the energy through a gem in his forehead.  However, to do so drains him of his power significantly.

     By contrast, the God of the Bible is, by definition, infinite in existence. An infinite has no limits or boundaries in time, space, extent, or magnitude.1. As an infinite, God is not limited in power, He is omnipotent. The word “Omni” comes from the Latin “Omnis” meaning “all”, is employed as a prefix and utilized as a compound word. The word “potent” comes from the Latin “potentem” meaning “powerful”. Therefore, the infinite God is Omni-potent or all-powerful.  The attributes of God reflect the nature of God and omnipotence is an attribute of His nature. 

     Some have argued against the omnipotence of God by employing the “paradox of omnipotence”. In this argument the question posed is as follows, “can God create a stone so large that even He can’t move it? The first premise from the question asked being, “If He cannot create such a stone then He is not all-powerful”. The second premise follows from the first, “if He can create the stone but cannot move it He is still not all-powerful”. The question itself involves a contradiction, God cannot be both omnipotent and not omnipotent, omnipotent enough to create the stone in the first place, and at the same time not omnipotent enough to lift it. Such a question violates the law of non-contradiction. You cannot have A (omnipotence) and at the same time not have A (omnipotence) in the same sense to the same extent. The question is posed by the ignorant and borders on the absurd. God is all – powerful but what He cannot do is anything which violates His own nature i.e. He cannot sin, He cannot be tempted, He cannot deny (contradict) Himself, He cannot lie etc. Neither is He capable of doing anything which involves a logical absurdity such as creating “a stone so large that even He can’t move it”. It would be like asking a bachelor how his wife is doing, the question has no relevance to him or asking if it’s possible to have a triangle with more than three sides. A bachelor, by definition, is a male who remains unmarried, he has no wife; and a triangle, by definition, only has three sides it cannot have more, if it did it would cease to be a triangle. Intrinsic to the nature of a bachelor is that he exists in an unmarried state, a married bachelor would be a contradiction. Intrinsic to the nature of a triangle is that it must have three sides, anything different would imply a contradiction.  There is no such thing as a square circle, there are squares and there are circles, that’s it. Aquinas has stated, “everything that does not imply a contradiction in terms, is numbered amongst those possible things, in respect of which God is called omnipotent: whereas whatever implies contradiction does not come within the scope of divine omnipotence, because it cannot have the aspect of possibility”. 2 (italics added) The question posed in the Paradox of Omnipotence is a contradiction because it shows a lack of understanding about the attributes of God.

     I can categorize this problem as having an undefined solution. Undefined solutions usually involve an infinite value that cannot be computed by any known logic. Assume God creates a rock of great mass. Being omnipotent, He can still lift it. Now assume He creates a rock of greater mass. Lifting power is still equivalent. Now take the letter m to represent mass and k to represent potential lifting power. As m grows greater, so does k. Most powers have limits, but omnipotent power has no limits. Thus, as m goes to infinity, so does k. In order to find a point at which God’s power (k) is less than the mass (m) of the rock, we would need to go through every number from zero on through infinity. Basically, we are asking whether infinity is greater than infinity, which turns out to be a nonsense question.3

     While The Vision’s power is significantly drained when he deploys it through the gem in his forehead, the power of God is not so easily diminished. The omnipotence of God is expressed in the Hebrew phrase El-shaddai literally “God almighty”. Isaiah 40:28b states, “He does not faint or grow weary”, Psalms 121:4 says that “he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep”.  His power and strength are not only never depleted, they are not even so much as diminished. 

     Some will argue that Genesis 2:2b records “and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done” (Italics mine) and therefore this verse indicates that God was tired. However, when we hear the English verb “rest” most of us immediately think of being tired or needing to recuperate drained energy, but the Hebrew translated “rest” in Genesis 2:2 does not always carry that same idea. In fact, the first two definitions given for the Hebrew word translated “rest” (shābat or shābath) are to “cease, desist.” The Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon documents that, of the 71 times it is used, 47 of those times it is simply translated “cease,” and only 11 of those times is it translated “rest” (“Shabath,” 1995). The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament states: “The translation ‘to cease, desist’ can be illustrated in the following verse: ‘Day and night shall not cease’ (Genesis 8:22) ….” (Harris, et al., p. 902)4. As such this verse (Gen. 2:2) should be understood to indicate that God had completed the creation and simply stopped. Furthermore, Jesus said in Mark 2:27 “The Sabbath was made for man,” not for God. Man needs the rest, God does not.

     The second observation I made regarding The Vision is that he is Finite in Existence, that is, he is a created being in contrast to God’s Eternality or the Aseity (from the Latin a se meaning, from himself) of God which indicates that God is infinite in existence, He exists within Himself, His Being is not contingent upon another. The existence of “The Vision” is contingent upon the existence of another or others (Ultron and Jarvis).  Charles Hodge has stated that,

     “To conceive the Deity as He is, we must conceive him as First Cause, as Absolute, and as Infinite. By First Cause, is meant that which produces all things, and is itself produced of none. By the Absolute, is meant that which exists in and by itself, having no necessary relation to any other being. By the Infinite, is meant that which is free from all possible limitation; that than which a greater is inconceivable, and which, consequently, can receive no additional attribute or mode of existence which it had not from all eternity”.5

     If God is in fact so great that a greater being than He cannot be conceived (Anselm) then according to Hodge, He can only be conceived of in three ways; first as First Cause. Why, well as Aquinas has pointed out,

     “all things in existence have a cause of their existence since whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another. If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover; we cannot have infinite regress seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover…. Therefore, it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.6 (Italics added).

     But some may argue why a First Cause must constitute an immaterial metaphysical Being rather than a material one? Certainly, it would have to be one or the other, either the universe was created, or the universe created itself. Some have proposed a third option namely that the universe is eternal in existence, but this has been ruled out as possible given what appears to be an expansion of the universe. Without going into great detail, if the universe is expanding then it cannot be infinite in existence.

     In 1847 Hermon von Helmholtz developed the concept of the Law of the Conservation of Energy, or the First Law of Thermodynamics. Its basic premise is that matter and energy are not now being created nor destroyed. Matter and energy can change form, matter can be converted into energy, and vice versa, but the total amount of all matter and energy in the universe is constant, it will not change. A corollary of this well-established law is that it becomes impossible that the universe could be responsible for creating itself. How is it possible that something in existence could be responsible for its own origin when before it originated it did not exist.  Everything in existence originated from something that was already in existence. It is impossible that the universe should have sprung into existence from absolutely nothing, ex nihilo nihil fit.

     The second way in which God exists according to Hodge is as “Absolute” and as such He exists in and by Himself (His Aseity) and He exists as a non-contingent Being. A contingent being is one who can not exist, and a Necessary Being is one who cannot not exist.7 In other words, it is possible for a contingent being to not exist, they only exist because something (or someone) else caused them to exist. They do not exist necessarily. By contrast it is not possible for a necessary being not to exist. Those things which exist necessarily do so of their own nature, it is impossible that they should not exist. But most things in existence do so contingently, there are very few things which exist necessarily. So far as we are able to determine only abstract objects exist necessarily such as shapes and numbers; but abstract objects are incapable of creating anything.  Aquinas has stated that, “…that which does not exist only begins to exist by something already existing. Therefore, if at one time nothing was in existence, it would have been impossible for anything to have begun to exist; and thus, even now nothing would be in existence--which is absurd…but there must exist something the existence of which is necessary”.8 (italics added)

     The third and final way in which God exists according to Hodge is as Infinite. He breaks down the infinitude existence of God into three particular areas, 1. He is “free from all possible limitation”.  In other words, He is Omniscient, Omnipotent, and Omnipresent and these three are some of the incommunicable attributes of God. His omnipotence I have already covered, but His omniscience (Omni a prefix from the Latin meaning all and science from the Latin Scientia meaning to know or knowledge) indicates that He knows, or has knowledge of, all things that can be known about anything. His omnipresence indicates that he is everywhere present. He is not bound by space and time like we are. 2. Hodge states, as part of the Infinitude of God, that we are incapable of conceiving of a being greater than He. Here Hodge is borrowing from Anselm’s Ontological Argument. Anselm's Ontological Argument is an a priori approach (or prior analytic) to determining the veracity of the existence of a necessarily perfect Being (God). Anselm held that our thoughts about God imply the existence of God. He defined it as, God is “…that being than which nothing greater can be conceived”.9. He argued that the very fact that we are even able to conceive of such a perfect being such as God would be inconsistent in its substance if the notion of His being was not actually true. That which exists in reality is greater than that which exists only in the mind. We have an idea of an infinitely perfect Being; but actual existence is included, in infinite perfection.10

     If such a being should exist in the mind only and not in reality, then He would be neither perfect nor necessary.  3. Finally Hodge states that such a Being "can receive no additional attribute or mode of existence which it had not from all eternity.”11

     As such He lacks all potentiality, those attributes which He holds He does so by His own nature to the fullest extent. He is not in a state of becoming, or evolving, He just is. None of these things can be attributed to The Vision.

     In summary, The Vision is not really “God-like” in the truest sense. He is neither infinite in power nor in existence but is limited in both as I have shown. Only God possesses these qualities. Indeed, they are part of His very nature.

 

1.      http://www.dictionary.com/browse/infinite?s=t

2.      Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica (Complete & Unabridged) (p. 132). Coyote Canyon Press. Kindle Edition. 

      3. https://withalliamgod.wordpress.com/2013/05/03/omnipotent-god-and-the-paradox-of-the- stone/https://apolojetics.wordpress.com/ (here italics indicates a word insertion to improve syntax)

      4. Harris, R. Laird, Gleason Archer Jr. and Bruce Waltke, eds. (1980), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Chicago, IL: Moody).  “Shābath” (1995), Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon (Electronic Database: Logos).  From the Article posted by:  Kyle Butt M.A., Does God Need to Rest, http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=6&article=785

      5. HODGE, CHARLES (2014-06-30). SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY (All 3 Volumes In 1): ADDRESSING THEOLOGICAL TOPICS ONE BY ONE (Kindle Locations 6656-6660).  Kindle Edition.

      6. Aquinas, Thomas (2010-06-19). Summa Theologica (Complete & Unabridged) (p.10).  Coyote Canyon Press. Kindle Edition.  

      7. Geisler, Norman L., Systematic Theology: (In One Volume), (p.439).

      8. Aquinas, Thomas (2010-06-19). Summa Theologica (Complete & Unabridged) (p.10).  Coyote Canyon Press. Kindle Edition. 

      9. Allison, Gregg R., Historical Theology-An Introduction to Christian Doctrine, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2011, Pg.192

      10. HODGE, CHARLES. SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY (All 3 Volumes In 1): ADDRESSING THEOLOGICAL TOPICS ONE BY ONE (Kindle Locations 4633-4634). Kindle Edition. 

      11. Ibid., Kindle Locations 6659-6660. Kindle Edition.