Heller M, Woodin W.H. (eds.) Infinity. New research frontiers (CUP, 2011)(ISBN 1107003873)(O)(327s)_MAml_

theological lesson 227as derivative ones. Modern thinking about infinity was influenced by John Locke, who,in his “Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding,” noticed that one can comparefinite things, whereas no comparison is possible between the finite and the infinite(the same idea was much earlier expressed by Boethius in a theological context). This“lack of proportion” between the finite and the infinite is the essence of the apophatictheology. God is “totally different” from anything else to such an extent that even thenoncontradiction law should be applied to Him with the utmost caution. For instance,Nicholas of Cusa thought that even in mathematical infinity the “opposites” can beidentified: “the curved” and “the straight” are opposites with respect to each other,but the circumference of a circle, having an infinite radius, is both curved and straight(Nicholas of Cusa 1990).Modern mathematics owes the rationalization of the infinity concept to GeorgCantor and Richard Dedekind. Cantor’s theory of sets and Dedekind’s theory of numbersbecame cornerstones of mathematics and paradigmatic models in thinking aboutinfinity. Cantor considered his work as providing a great contribution to Christiantheology by offering to it, for the first time in history, the true theory of the infinite. 22The “taming of infinity” in modern cosmology, which we briefly reviewed in Sections10.2 through 10.5, is just an application of highly elaborated ideas, seminallypresent in Cantor’s work, to the field of differential geometry. The question ariseswhether these purely scientific ideas can have any theological significance. Supposingthe positive answer to this question, we can approach it in a naive or in a less naiveway.The naive approach would be by drawing an analogy between infinities in cosmologyand the infinity of God. We start with certain properties of the world model (withsome of its geometric aspects referring to infinity), and we argue that these propertiescan illuminate, or help us to imagine, the relationship between God and the universe.Both “infinitely distant” and “infinitely divergent” transcend the regular parts of spacetimeand at the same time are, as nonlocal elements of the model, somehow presenteverywhere in the model. Analogously, God transcends the world and at the same timeis present within it. This approach is qualified as naive, given that the term “transcends”has a drastically different meaning in the cosmological and theological contexts.A less naive approach starts with a theological or philosophical doctrine of God (itshould be remembered that no doctrine of God can be devoid of naive elements) andtries, in light of it, to interpret some aspects of the cosmological model. One could,for example, start with a theological (or philosophical) doctrine of God, known underthe name of panentheism. Etymologically, the term means “everything-in-God.” 23 Itgoes beyond pantheism (identifying God with the world) in claiming that God “islarger” than the world; the world “is contained” in God. The world should be regardedas “godly,” but the Divine infinitely surpasses the world. In some stronger versions,panentheism asserts that the Absolute, transcending the world, does not include itdualistically, but rather monistically, as an aspect in a whole. Panentheism could alsobe interpreted “in the Einstein style,” by asserting that the mathematical structure of22 On Cantor’s concept of infinity see Dadaczyński (2002, pp. 98–142).23 The term “panentheism” was devised by Karl C. F. Krause in 1828. The doctrine itself gained popularity owingto the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne.