The Divine Reality: God, Islam & the Mirage of Atheism

by Hamza Andreas Tzortzis

Bag of balls: Imagine you had an infinite number of balls in a bag. If you take two balls away, how many balls do you have left? Well, mathematically you still have an infinite number. However, practically, you should have two less than what is in the bag. What if you added another two balls instead of removing them? How many balls are there now? There should be two more than what was in the bag. You should be able to count how many balls are in the bag, but you cannot because the infinite is just an idea and does not exist in the real world. This clearly shows you cannot have an actualised infinite made up of discrete physical parts or things. In light of this fact the famous German mathematician David Hilbert said, “The infinite is nowhere to be found in reality. It neither exists in nature nor provides a legitimate basis for rational thought… the role that remains for the infinite to play is solely that of an idea.”[122]