— Midweek Meditations:
thoughts, inspiration and encouragement
from ACF community members —
Last week, I completed teaching a unit on mathematics as part of the course ‘Theory of Knowledge’ at UWC Robert Bosch College. It’s not an ‘area of knowledge’ that I particularly enjoy teaching, as I have limited background and competence in mathematics. During this year’s ‘iteration’, however, I’ve become intrigued by one mathematician and one groundbreaking idea of his, namely Kurt Gödel and the first Incompleteness Theorem.
(Before I continue, be reassured that in this meditation, I won’t try to explain these in terms of the foundations of mathematics! Instead, I’ll refer to Gödel’s theorem in order to consider the foundations of our religious belief.)
Evidently what Gödel proved with his theorem is that in any consistent formal system like arithmetic, there will always be statements that can neither be proved true nor be proved false. A state of completeness cannot be achieved because not all statements are decidable within the same system, as they are self-referencing. Gödel recognized thereby that there are definite limits to human reasoning, which in turn make it impossible to answer meta-mathematical questions with certainty.
I can now explain more readily the significance of Gödel’s theorem in the context of religious belief. By analogy, there are particular statements within our Christian system whose meaning cannot be definitively verified. The world and more, whatever is beyond it, may elude human attempts to comprehend and elaborate them. The existence of God, for example, is not to be ascertained by our ontological arguments (i.e., recourse to logic alone, though Gödel did attempt that proof later), cosmological arguments (per the notion of the first mover), or teleological arguments (based on evidence of design). These arguments may tell a part, but they don’t tell the whole, of the story.
The foundation for belief is a question whose answer is not to be found within our minds, as a human realization. It exists in a higher realm that we cannot access through rational thinking, however precise. The question of God’s existence will remain for us unsolvable, as we are not equal with our human capabilities to the task of solving it. His existence may instead be considered an axiom of our belief. It is, in other words, a fundamental statement that is taken to be true without proof, from which other truths, here theological, are deduced.
The cause of our inability to develop a complete and hence unchallengeable system of religious belief lies in our ways of knowing. More obviously, it lies in our asking after God’s existence in the first place. Why do we seek a justification for Him through our human logic and in our mundane terms? (It certainly seems presumptuous and self-defeating in view of the omnipotence and mystery of the God that we seek.)
In short, there will always be limitations to, or undecidable problems in, our understanding of reality. This perspective of incompleteness suggests that however we might strive, we should accept that where certain meaning lies beyond our grasp, there we should keep faith. To put this idea in terms of the example above: because we cannot objectively know God, we must trust in Him.
The ACF Midweek Meditations
are written by a diverse group of our church members with the intention to seek God’s fingerprints in our lives. They range from somber to humorous and are inspired by all facets of live and faith. Written by ordinary people from all walks of life, they reflect a wide range of Christian backgrounds and spiritualities.
Each week’s text portrays the individual viewpoint of its author. They might not always resonate with everyone, and are not meant to be understood as representing the Anglican Church Freiburg as a whole. Yet, as a church that is aiming to ‘Build a Community of Grace’ we seek to practice learning from and listening to one another.
We pray that these humble ponderings add a small spark of blessing to your week.
Freiburg Anglican Church 