Is God Infinitely Good, or is Good Finitely god?

While reading Jonathan Hill’s History of Christian Thought, I came across the following quote from Origen, followed by Hill’s explanation:

We must maintain that even the power of God is finite, and we must not, under pretext of praising him, lose sight of his limitations. For if the divine power were infinite, of necessity it could not even understand itself, since the infinite is by its nature incomprehensible.On First Principles, II 9 i

Today, we are so use to thinking of God as infinite that we forget that this is not explicitly stated in the Bible. To the ancient mind, to be infinite would actually be an imperfection, because it was thought that to be infinite would involve being indefinite, vague, incomprehensible – all marks if an imperfect being. So Origen’s claim here is intended to support the divine perfection. It would not be until Gregory of Nyssa, 150 years later, that the notion of God’s infinity would be introduced into Christian thought.

I feel that as a big fan of both Plato and Origen, and as one who refuses to dismiss any thought without deep contemplation (my obvious Achilles’ heel), I must give this ancient and long forgotten idea a chance. Allow me to attempt to simply explain why this idea makes sense to me, though I am by no means a definite follower.

I have come to realize that love is the highest form. It is the greatest state one can be in. Thus, “God is love” (1 John 4:16). However, such an expression, from certain point of view, is boxing in God. One could argue that it is only describing God, not putting him in a box. Well, allow me to take it one step further: God must be love, because love is the highest form. If God is not love, he is not the highest form, and is not God.

Numbers 23:19 says that “God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind.” Does this mean that God can not lie? Hebrews 6:18 says that “God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie…”. I know that second verse is somewhat absconded from context, yet it seems to say there is a situation in which it is “impossible” for God to lie. I would suggest that God cannot lie, because if God lied he would be imperfect and no longer be God. Does that make him finitely truthful?

Thirdly, if God is omniscient, he must know that good is the best state to be. Therefore, if he was anything but good, he would not be the best state and not be God. He must be good to be God, and cannot not be good. I rather like this idea, because it makes it easy to understand why God is good. It makes much more sense than trying to philosophize that God could be bad if he wanted to, and could change the definition of bad if he wanted to in order to make him able to be bad, which would mean he is still good. Tell me that is not more confusing and nonsensical than God simply being finitely good?

Now, here is the most basic flaw with this theory. It requires me to put moral law (the existence of right and wrong) above God. I must say that God has to be good, and this is his limitation. If that is the case, what created moral law? Did moral law create God? I think it’s possible that God created moral law, and in doing so bound himself to it. Or perhaps he is bound to it by choice, which would be the optimum argument for God’s infinity and existence with moral law.

I feel at this point that I must bring up an annoying quote from The Simpsons. There is an episode in which Homer Simpson, while somewhat high, asks Ned a reworded classic theological question: “Could God microwave a burrito so hot that he cannot eat it?” This seems like utter nonsense, of the lowest philosophical and theological value. But perhaps the answer is simply “yes”. Thus he is all powerful, and as such has the power to create a law he is unable to break.

My favourite book of Plato’s is one called “Euthyphro”, in which he records Socrates wrestling with the idea of whether good is good because it comes from God, or God is good because good is good. The book ends without a conclusion. For the moment, so does mine.

If God is in a box, he is in a box much larger than our plain of thought, which means he is infinite compared to us. That makes this question mostly irrelevant, though my proposition that God must be good, and must be love, is perhaps a useful frame for viewing much Biblical Theology. The earliest Christian theologians believed God to be finite, which suggests that the Biblical authors immediately preceding them also wrote out of an understanding of God as finitely all powerful. Even if we judge this idea false, we should try to understand it in order to understand ancient Biblical views, and other ancient theological ideas.