Prior study emphasized how God assigns himself names in many ways that can be analyzed with mathematical simplicity, some as unities and some as numerable clusters in relationships. We continue by considering relationships of relationships, namely, recurring patterns between groups of names. This will necessarily be more philosophical but I trust the Biblical examples (ESV today) will keep us grounded.
First, what is in a name? For example, "Whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field .... The man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living" (Gen. 2:19-20, 3:20). A name is a call sign, a repeatable group of symbols such as sounds or written characters, that has a relationship with an object.
This means that we can begin with any creature (to create a monad), assign it a name (to create a dyad), and then institute a call, a relationship between creature and name (to create a triad) expressed in action, knowledge, and responsibility. The call or act of responsibility may include a recognition of salient focused meaning ("mother of life") alluded to by the symbols that make up the name ("Eve"). As Shakespeare alluded, names can become deceptive, but we start by focusing on their eternal meaning rather than any temporal corruption.
While it is possible to extend this theory to tetrads, it is expressed in this way here because we will see triads have a natural repetitive affinity to them that has unique applicability to the subject. In the prior study we learned that each number has its own character, and a character of threeness is its apparent descriptive strength compared to twos and fours.
What is meant by the group of all names or words or thoughts or concepts, and the group of all names that apply to God? We observe that namespace is mathematically infinite, although due to the granularity of the universe creatures only use a finite number of names at any time. God may consider an infinity of objects at once outside of spacetime, but we can only consider a broad but finite class of them at once. "Whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything" (1 John 3:20), implying that our self-condemnation is necessarily finite and superable. This echoes the general principle, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD" (Isaiah 55:8).
A powerful metaphor implies the infinity/finity gap (9-11): "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it." We can see that earth (man) has limits heaven (God) does not have; that all water (word, thought) comes from heaven and is destined for heaven; that water circulates to create fruit (meaning); and that it is efficacious (not corrupt) for that purpose. Because we can see the physical parallel we can infer the metaphoric parallel to God's thoughts and acts.
In the mathematic science this distinction is elaborately known, which I will simplify. Two boundaries of "conceivability" are recognized. One is that an infinity of complex infinities are "conceivable"; the other is that everything man has so far conceived is more limited and always corresponds simply to the same one infinity, not to an infinite regress of them. It's easier (more conceivable) to speak of the natural "three" than the irrational "pi"; going further, some numeric concepts (like Cantor diagonal numbers) might be "conceivable" by God in one sense and yet literally take infinite time to conceive and thus be "inconceivable" by creatures in another sense. It's been said of that word, "I do not think it means what you think it means", so let's be very cautious with our conception of inconceivability.
I earlier wrote, "Is there an unknowable to God? We cannot know!" I believe that, if something exists that no human will ever conceive, no conception would ever reach it, meaning that even the name "inconceivable" does not have a true referent (nor does the name Ein Sof, as if a concept could remain "ungrasped" by any conception). If such a word referred to a thing, it would immediately contradict itself, so it is actually a meaningless word. Often, incorrectly, it merely means "relatively unknowable", not absolutely; all Biblical metaphors speak of relative unknowability that will be revealed someday. "The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law" (Deut. 29:29). "Nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known" (Matt. 10:26). However, it also seems that every disclosure creates new questions, so we never know everything there is to know.
This shows that we don't know what "all" literally means. It can never mean more to us than "everything creatures will ever experience" because we can never know what lies beyond the collective experience of Creation. When we speak of God outside of timespace, that is a metaphor for his ability to influence anything whatsoever within timespace. He is "in the beginning". He is "before all things" in the sense of facing and upholding them all. This can mean "including himself" (the Father and Son stand before each other), or can mean "excluding himself" as well (yet we only experience him as he interacts with all things, not in any theoretical interaction he limits only to himself). Thus "all" has a natural limit of "everything creatures experience" and cannot mean "everything that exists whether we assign it meaning or not": nothing can have and not have meaning at the same time.
This gives rise to the notion that core attributes of God can only be conceived of as negatives, like "infinite". Every name of God is either positive, thus referring to some object of finite human experience and thus always partial and communicable, less than fully God; or negative, contrasting with experience and potentially excluded from all experience, infinite and incommunicable. Were it possible to experience God without any reference to Creation, there would be no words or logic to describe the experience, because words refer to objects of experience. Thus names are meaningless with reference to hypotheticals, and, to answer our question, the realm of "all names" is limited to the bounds of creaturely conception.
This allows me to repeat distinctions I stated earlier. (1) Where Creation contains realities and imaginations of negations of realities, Creator is the reality and not the negation ("God is light, and in him is no darkness at all", 1 John 1:5). (2) Where Creation contains spectra of dialectic realities, Creator synthesizes the reality ("Who dwells in unapproachable light", 1 Tim. 6:16, "He would dwell in thick darkness", 1 Kings 8:12, 2 Chr. 6:1; my use of the same reality as previous in a different way is intentional). (3) Where Creation contains body (matter) and spirit (energy) and their relationship (spacetime), Creator realizes body, spirit, and relationship ("In the beginning" "heavens and the earth", "Spirit" and "waters", Gen. 1:1-2; "But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!", 1 Kings 8:27, cf. 2 Chr. 6:18).
The first distinction uses all light energy as an example of what we call an Absolute, a monad. The negation of an Absolute is not a thing, but an absence of a thing. The second distinction uses situations (dwellings) of more light or more darkness as examples of what we call Relatives in dyads. A relative cannot be fully negated but is on a spectrum where broad differences are separate things. The third distinction uses the relationship between members of a dyad as a "tertium quid" (literally, third thing), creating a triad typically called Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis. All three are real things. That means in naming things, we mix freely among referring to an Absolute Thesis; referring to a spectrum from that Absolute to a Relative Thesis and a Relative Antithesis; or referring to a harmony of these two in Synthesis. Many things, like light, are thus Both Absolute and Relative.
In God, all opposites synthesize, if they are true things (dwelling in light, dwelling in darkness); Paul illustrates this in himself didactically. "Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone .... To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) .... To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law) .... I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some" (1 Cor. 9:19-22). By this relative use of all Paul describes himself as able to accommodate both sides of the spectrum: how much more is God able.
Yet, if a concept is not a true reality (like darkness, contradiction, or evil), God is the Absolute of that concept and not the negation: "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." This speaks of total light unmixed with any kind of darkness anywhere.
To summarize, the concepts Absolute, Relative, and Both, and Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis, describe other names but are themselves names. God is Absolute, but he is also both sides of Relative spectra, and so he is Both Absolute and Relative in one. In the same way he is a Thesis (Absolute), an Antithesis (Relative), and a Synthesis (Both). God can be revealed as a unity from any one name, or as a diversity from among a group of names, or as an all-in-one that comprises both (a "uni-versity").
This background is stated to allow readers to recognize that God accepts all kinds of names unto himself because he is the source of every named creation. It appears that the answer to our last question is that every concept whatsoever that has reality (excluding constructs like evil that refer to absences of real principles of creation) can be applied to God in some sense, though this is a tentative conclusion that needs more fleshing out from Scripture and experience in a later study. For now let us consider that by inhabiting all things God identifies with all things, yet without evil. Paul talks about this in two related Scriptures I close with, without immediate explication. Discussion is warmly invited.
"For 'God has put all things in subjection under his feet.' But when it says, 'all things are put in subjection,' it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all" (1 Cor. 15:27-28).
"And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all" (Eph. 1:22-23).
Prior study emphasized how God assigns himself names in many ways that can be analyzed with mathematical simplicity, some as unities and some as numerable clusters in relationships. We continue by considering relationships of relationships, namely, recurring patterns between groups of names. This will necessarily be more philosophical but I trust the Biblical examples (ESV today) will keep us grounded.
First, what is in a name? For example, "Whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field .... The man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living" (Gen. 2:19-20, 3:20). A name is a call sign, a repeatable group of symbols such as sounds or written characters, that has a relationship with an object.
This means that we can begin with any creature (to create a monad), assign it a name (to create a dyad), and then institute a call, a relationship between creature and name (to create a triad) expressed in action, knowledge, and responsibility. The call or act of responsibility may include a recognition of salient focused meaning ("mother of life") alluded to by the symbols that make up the name ("Eve"). As Shakespeare alluded, names can become deceptive, but we start by focusing on their eternal meaning rather than any temporal corruption.
While it is possible to extend this theory to tetrads, it is expressed in this way here because we will see triads have a natural repetitive affinity to them that has unique applicability to the subject. In the prior study we learned that each number has its own character, and a character of threeness is its apparent descriptive strength compared to twos and fours.
What is meant by the group of all names or words or thoughts or concepts, and the group of all names that apply to God? We observe that namespace is mathematically infinite, although due to the granularity of the universe creatures only use a finite number of names at any time. God may consider an infinity of objects at once outside of spacetime, but we can only consider a broad but finite class of them at once. "Whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything" (1 John 3:20), implying that our self-condemnation is necessarily finite and superable. This echoes the general principle, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD" (Isaiah 55:8).
A powerful metaphor implies the infinity/finity gap (9-11): "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it." We can see that earth (man) has limits heaven (God) does not have; that all water (word, thought) comes from heaven and is destined for heaven; that water circulates to create fruit (meaning); and that it is efficacious (not corrupt) for that purpose. Because we can see the physical parallel we can infer the metaphoric parallel to God's thoughts and acts.
In the mathematic science this distinction is elaborately known, which I will simplify. Two boundaries of "conceivability" are recognized. One is that an infinity of complex infinities are "conceivable"; the other is that everything man has so far conceived is more limited and always corresponds simply to the same one infinity, not to an infinite regress of them. It's easier (more conceivable) to speak of the natural "three" than the irrational "pi"; going further, some numeric concepts (like Cantor diagonal numbers) might be "conceivable" by God in one sense and yet literally take infinite time to conceive and thus be "inconceivable" by creatures in another sense. It's been said of that word, "I do not think it means what you think it means", so let's be very cautious with our conception of inconceivability.
I earlier wrote, "Is there an unknowable to God? We cannot know!" I believe that, if something exists that no human will ever conceive, no conception would ever reach it, meaning that even the name "inconceivable" does not have a true referent (nor does the name Ein Sof, as if a concept could remain "ungrasped" by any conception). If such a word referred to a thing, it would immediately contradict itself, so it is actually a meaningless word. Often, incorrectly, it merely means "relatively unknowable", not absolutely; all Biblical metaphors speak of relative unknowability that will be revealed someday. "The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law" (Deut. 29:29). "Nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known" (Matt. 10:26). However, it also seems that every disclosure creates new questions, so we never know everything there is to know.
This shows that we don't know what "all" literally means. It can never mean more to us than "everything creatures will ever experience" because we can never know what lies beyond the collective experience of Creation. When we speak of God outside of timespace, that is a metaphor for his ability to influence anything whatsoever within timespace. He is "in the beginning". He is "before all things" in the sense of facing and upholding them all. This can mean "including himself" (the Father and Son stand before each other), or can mean "excluding himself" as well (yet we only experience him as he interacts with all things, not in any theoretical interaction he limits only to himself). Thus "all" has a natural limit of "everything creatures experience" and cannot mean "everything that exists whether we assign it meaning or not": nothing can have and not have meaning at the same time.
This gives rise to the notion that core attributes of God can only be conceived of as negatives, like "infinite". Every name of God is either positive, thus referring to some object of finite human experience and thus always partial and communicable, less than fully God; or negative, contrasting with experience and potentially excluded from all experience, infinite and incommunicable. Were it possible to experience God without any reference to Creation, there would be no words or logic to describe the experience, because words refer to objects of experience. Thus names are meaningless with reference to hypotheticals, and, to answer our question, the realm of "all names" is limited to the bounds of creaturely conception.
This allows me to repeat distinctions I stated earlier. (1) Where Creation contains realities and imaginations of negations of realities, Creator is the reality and not the negation ("God is light, and in him is no darkness at all", 1 John 1:5). (2) Where Creation contains spectra of dialectic realities, Creator synthesizes the reality ("Who dwells in unapproachable light", 1 Tim. 6:16, "He would dwell in thick darkness", 1 Kings 8:12, 2 Chr. 6:1; my use of the same reality as previous in a different way is intentional). (3) Where Creation contains body (matter) and spirit (energy) and their relationship (spacetime), Creator realizes body, spirit, and relationship ("In the beginning" "heavens and the earth", "Spirit" and "waters", Gen. 1:1-2; "But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!", 1 Kings 8:27, cf. 2 Chr. 6:18).
The first distinction uses all light energy as an example of what we call an Absolute, a monad. The negation of an Absolute is not a thing, but an absence of a thing. The second distinction uses situations (dwellings) of more light or more darkness as examples of what we call Relatives in dyads. A relative cannot be fully negated but is on a spectrum where broad differences are separate things. The third distinction uses the relationship between members of a dyad as a "tertium quid" (literally, third thing), creating a triad typically called Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis. All three are real things. That means in naming things, we mix freely among referring to an Absolute Thesis; referring to a spectrum from that Absolute to a Relative Thesis and a Relative Antithesis; or referring to a harmony of these two in Synthesis. Many things, like light, are thus Both Absolute and Relative.
In God, all opposites synthesize, if they are true things (dwelling in light, dwelling in darkness); Paul illustrates this in himself didactically. "Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone .... To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) .... To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law) .... I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some" (1 Cor. 9:19-22). By this relative use of all Paul describes himself as able to accommodate both sides of the spectrum: how much more is God able.
Yet, if a concept is not a true reality (like darkness, contradiction, or evil), God is the Absolute of that concept and not the negation: "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." This speaks of total light unmixed with any kind of darkness anywhere.
To summarize, the concepts Absolute, Relative, and Both, and Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis, describe other names but are themselves names. God is Absolute, but he is also both sides of Relative spectra, and so he is Both Absolute and Relative in one. In the same way he is a Thesis (Absolute), an Antithesis (Relative), and a Synthesis (Both). God can be revealed as a unity from any one name, or as a diversity from among a group of names, or as an all-in-one that comprises both (a "uni-versity").
This background is stated to allow readers to recognize that God accepts all kinds of names unto himself because he is the source of every named creation. It appears that the answer to our last question is that every concept whatsoever that has reality (excluding constructs like evil that refer to absences of real principles of creation) can be applied to God in some sense, though this is a tentative conclusion that needs more fleshing out from Scripture and experience in a later study. For now let us consider that by inhabiting all things God identifies with all things, yet without evil. Paul talks about this in two related Scriptures I close with, without immediate explication. Discussion is warmly invited.
"For 'God has put all things in subjection under his feet.' But when it says, 'all things are put in subjection,' it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all" (1 Cor. 15:27-28).
"And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all" (Eph. 1:22-23).