by Jeremy Jameson

Created on: December 10, 2006   Last Updated: May 11, 2007

I have read in this category title an article that discusses the author's "plastic cup and ball theory." You'll have to read the article to understand, but basically the author argues that "infinity is a paradox and we are a living impossibility."

I see the same basic problem in the root of every postmodernist argument against truth: you can spin an idea one way but ignore certain elements of the discussion in a way that favors your view, but that spin doesn't automatically make you right or me wrong. It is truth (which is independent and constant whether we acknowledge it generally or specifically) that defines reality, not our perceptions.

Anyway, the author pictures the ball as the earth and the cup as outer space, and asks what is beyond the outside of the cup? He says it cannot be space, but here he is wrong. Space is technically the absence of any matter - a vacuum. So really space goes on out there in eternity. Our galaxy certainly does not, but the universe apparently does. For how can there be an end to the nothingness going out? It would have to be like a donut with space in the middle and then something (some sort of matter) surrounding that space - kind of a bubble (except bubbles indeed contain air). This is where the theory that space ends breaks down: how can space be contained?

Well, maybe it can. But that means there would have to be something bigger than space to contain it. What is "bigger" than the universe if the universe is everything? Everything physical anyway... what about the supernatural?

Yes I just made a jump but faith is basically a jump. If the universe is contained, then it is contained by God. God existed before the universe in eternity past and He will outlast it in eternity yet to come. He has always been and always will be. That's a concept we humans - with our limited minds - can only comprehend on a limited basis. But that doesn't make it any less true. Remember: reality is determined by truth, and truth is independent of our perceptions. At best, our perceptions are the guesses (educated or not) we make at what is truth. But guesses can be right, and faith is the assurance that our perceptions are aligned with the truth (in other words, that we are right).

So a paradox is just something we humans can't get our minds around. We like to believe that we can understand everything and anything that exists, but the truth is that we don't even fully understand ourselves. How then can we aspire to fully know God - to fully know truth?

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