by Kenneth Harper Finton ©2014

People often say, when they do not know the answer,  “Who knows what is in the mind of God?”

People say that “God knows all.”

Take the common conception of God as a divine being that creates and governs the universe. Then take all the people here on Earth – what they all are thinking, what they all have been, and what they all will be.

Imagine that God knows all that.

Then add all the other conscious forms of life on Earth, the history of the planet and solar system.

Imagine that God knows that as well.

Then realize that the Earth is a small speck of dust in a commonplace galaxy. Remember that there are trillions of stars and billions of galaxies and uncounted billions of planets.

Try to imagine a mind that knows all this.

What would it be like? One thing is certain. It would not be like the human mind. It would be more like consciousness itself.

But would God even have a Self? Is God self-aware?

What need would God have for self awareness?

Humans have self-awareness. Some animals have been shown to have self-awareness. Self-awareness is a curse and a blessing.

It creates loneliness. It creates unhappiness.

If God were self-aware, God would be lonely.

Does God get lonely?

The self only exists when there is another that exists outside. It can only be aware of the self by knowing that there is another outside that is not the self.

If God is everything then what would exist outside God for God to be self-aware?

If God isn’t everything then what is this thing outside that is not God?

What is a mind? What are the makings of a mind? Neural synapses? Connections? Electrical impulses? Fields of energy?

Some would call it a brain, but what use would a brain be for God?

A brain is far too small to hold everything unless it is an infinitely large brain. If God is everything, then God is a brain.

Perhaps we have used the wrong image. Perhaps we should use membrane instead of brain.

Could God be the membrane that binds the electrical impulses––fused, united, linked, and bound together to create thought?

And then the thought creates action?

What is this membrane made of? Electrical fields, atomic and subatomic particles?Quarks and electrons that only have a place in time and space when they are observed?

Are they only mere observations?

If so, then the observation is everything. Observation is what causes the universe to come into being. Observations are the history, the present and the future of all.

Who says that this which observes must be self-aware?

The observer does not need to be consciously self-aware. The world existed before self-awareness. The observer has no need to be self-aware.

So, as far as we can tell––and surely we know little––the universe has only had conscious self-awareness for a minute fraction of an eternal epoch. The universe has gotten along quite well for billions of years without self-awareness.

So do we live in a fraction of an eon when the mud stands up and sees that there are others outside themselves?

And does that matter at all to the mind of God that has no self and no need for a self?