It's an article about paradoxa that arise from a different type of infinity, namely programs that run infinitely long or have infinitely many inputs. They are surprisingly similar to some questions about God, such as: can an all-powerful God create a stone that is so heavy that even God himself can’t lift it?
Though not being a Christian, I've always found questions of Christian ethics and infinite heaven to be quite interesting. One question that I've always had was: under a consequentialist framework, wouldn't the most effective altruism from a Christian perspective be converting people - with high but finite or infinite expected value. It seems like missionizing would drastically outweigh any other decision (like saving people, etc). Perhaps one can still make the argument for longtermism as you get all the value of future christians only if people still exist in the future, but it seems to be really hard to make an argument for, say, animal welfare or global health and development. While one could argue that people dying from global dev stuff would make for less potential christians, it is probably more cost-effective to missionize someone than to save them and then missionize them.
I've heard this question several times in EA contexts from non-Christians but most Christians in the EA movement don't think this way. There's likely a selection effect where Christians who think so don't interact with the EA movement since it doesn't have much to offer in this particular cause area. But there are also theological reasons: there are plenty of verses in the Bible that make it very clear Christians should be giving to the poor, helping the sick, feeding the hungry, and doing a lot of other things other than spending 100% to fund missionaries.
One interpretation of this is that Christian ethics simply isn't consequentialist. Christians should do what God commands, and God clearly commands other things in addition to converting people. But there's also a possibility of a (more) consequentialist "salvation-maximizing" interpretation. Perhaps the best way to promote the salvation of as many people as possible, especially in the long run, is not to focus 100% on missions but also on building loving communities, spiritual growth, and generally trying to be a force of good in the world by helping those who are suffering.
Different theological beliefs also affect what are considered good ways to promote people's salvation. In my own tradition, the Eastern Orthodox church, this might look like focusing on one's own spiritual life first. Saint Seraphim of Sarov said: "gain inner peace and thousands around you will be saved".
Depending on the exact details of your belief there are much weirder implications. For instance, if you believe that people have souls from the moment of conception, and also that all young or unborn children that die go to heaven, the most desirable scenario becomes something like a world where everybody fertilizes all of their eggs, and then most of them die without ever being born.
This view, which seems common, cuts even harder against global health causes for obvious reasons.
Thank you for this article! It made me think a lot.
As soon as infinity is involved, paradoxes appear. If God is infinite, God will be shrouded in paradoxes that we don't understand. It is tempting to say that God either does not exist, or cannot be reasoned about (or is not infinite after all). The paradoxes quickly spread to all our life decisions: if God exists, they cannot be made using reason. One could even say that mathematical logic and decision theory becomes useless. I think this applies even to extensions like alternative arithmetic systems, as long as they are not fully free of paradoxes.
Personally, I don't feel like I have a solution for this. My preference is to strictly keep things finite. I can't understand the afterlife nor be certain of any particular outcome, so I keep it out of my decisions. In this life, I can experience a finite amount of experiences, try a finite amount of options, affect the world in finite and temporally limited ways only*. This works pretty well in practice. Some people think about decisions with outcomes that will last indefinitely or are infinitely good/bad -- I feel this is usually mistaken.
When reading the bible, I see examples going both ways. Jesus tells us to not worry about food, clothing, and other finite earthly things. On the other hand, feeding the hungry is an important part of his teaching and acting. People in the bible seem to make reasoned decisions, while at the same time having direct encounters with God.
I'd be happy to learn more, and find better ways to reconcile reason and faith!
---
* Except in weird theories involving non-causal interactions with parallel universes ;-)
If you like the type of question discussed in this article, you might also enjoy https://allthingsnew.tech/searching-for-numbers-and-finding-god/
It's an article about paradoxa that arise from a different type of infinity, namely programs that run infinitely long or have infinitely many inputs. They are surprisingly similar to some questions about God, such as: can an all-powerful God create a stone that is so heavy that even God himself can’t lift it?
Though not being a Christian, I've always found questions of Christian ethics and infinite heaven to be quite interesting. One question that I've always had was: under a consequentialist framework, wouldn't the most effective altruism from a Christian perspective be converting people - with high but finite or infinite expected value. It seems like missionizing would drastically outweigh any other decision (like saving people, etc). Perhaps one can still make the argument for longtermism as you get all the value of future christians only if people still exist in the future, but it seems to be really hard to make an argument for, say, animal welfare or global health and development. While one could argue that people dying from global dev stuff would make for less potential christians, it is probably more cost-effective to missionize someone than to save them and then missionize them.
I've heard this question several times in EA contexts from non-Christians but most Christians in the EA movement don't think this way. There's likely a selection effect where Christians who think so don't interact with the EA movement since it doesn't have much to offer in this particular cause area. But there are also theological reasons: there are plenty of verses in the Bible that make it very clear Christians should be giving to the poor, helping the sick, feeding the hungry, and doing a lot of other things other than spending 100% to fund missionaries.
One interpretation of this is that Christian ethics simply isn't consequentialist. Christians should do what God commands, and God clearly commands other things in addition to converting people. But there's also a possibility of a (more) consequentialist "salvation-maximizing" interpretation. Perhaps the best way to promote the salvation of as many people as possible, especially in the long run, is not to focus 100% on missions but also on building loving communities, spiritual growth, and generally trying to be a force of good in the world by helping those who are suffering.
Different theological beliefs also affect what are considered good ways to promote people's salvation. In my own tradition, the Eastern Orthodox church, this might look like focusing on one's own spiritual life first. Saint Seraphim of Sarov said: "gain inner peace and thousands around you will be saved".
Depending on the exact details of your belief there are much weirder implications. For instance, if you believe that people have souls from the moment of conception, and also that all young or unborn children that die go to heaven, the most desirable scenario becomes something like a world where everybody fertilizes all of their eggs, and then most of them die without ever being born.
This view, which seems common, cuts even harder against global health causes for obvious reasons.
Thank you for this article! It made me think a lot.
As soon as infinity is involved, paradoxes appear. If God is infinite, God will be shrouded in paradoxes that we don't understand. It is tempting to say that God either does not exist, or cannot be reasoned about (or is not infinite after all). The paradoxes quickly spread to all our life decisions: if God exists, they cannot be made using reason. One could even say that mathematical logic and decision theory becomes useless. I think this applies even to extensions like alternative arithmetic systems, as long as they are not fully free of paradoxes.
Personally, I don't feel like I have a solution for this. My preference is to strictly keep things finite. I can't understand the afterlife nor be certain of any particular outcome, so I keep it out of my decisions. In this life, I can experience a finite amount of experiences, try a finite amount of options, affect the world in finite and temporally limited ways only*. This works pretty well in practice. Some people think about decisions with outcomes that will last indefinitely or are infinitely good/bad -- I feel this is usually mistaken.
When reading the bible, I see examples going both ways. Jesus tells us to not worry about food, clothing, and other finite earthly things. On the other hand, feeding the hungry is an important part of his teaching and acting. People in the bible seem to make reasoned decisions, while at the same time having direct encounters with God.
I'd be happy to learn more, and find better ways to reconcile reason and faith!
---
* Except in weird theories involving non-causal interactions with parallel universes ;-)