Shunryu Suzuki: “In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind, there are few”.

Mother Teresa: “We can do no great things, only small things with great love.”

One answer to this question seems to arise from the fact that Goods are intangible-tangibles; take one of the lowest of the goods, money. While money nearly always has physical manifestation, it need not, and it does not ‘exist’ if there is not one to trade with. But yet it remains a good that constantly ‘justifies’ itself due to its nature, by what it does because of what it is.

I think the answer here is to take a rhetorical approach and 1.discover the goods, 2. arrange them in their proper order and 3. elucidate this order to the other (in this case, the machine.)

The second part is tricky; axioms usually follow a natural ordering (that is to say, like items in a database, their natural order is their order of coming into existence) but that natural ordering, being usually linear, does not constitute a hierarchy (take the ten commandments for instance; the first commandment is definitely the most important, but for the others their importance cannot be sussed out from their natural ordering.)

The ordering then must be determined by mapping to another ‘kind’ of axiom, or another dimension of ‘axiomality’ – if we are dealing with goods, we have two other dimensions; the beautiful, and the true. The ordering of these axioms shall thus not be self-referential and solipsistic, but in reference to the two other dimensions, of their relationship to truth, and their relationship to beauty.

(I apply computer science to the problem but that is only because computer science is one of the few philosophies with any precision left in its terminology. I disagree with the notion that applying computer science terminology is evidence of autism.)

In Orthodox theologizing the term ‘God’ is imprecise and requires further refinement. ‘God’ either refers to one of the members of the Godhead, persons or hypostases, or to the divine nature itself (the godhood.) If we say ‘does God think’ in reference to the godhood it’s an absurd question equivalent to asking ‘does the human nature think?’ The nature has capacities for sure but it does not act outside of an instance.

The further refined question would be, ‘does God the X think?’ Does the poet’s reference to God’s thought being above our thought imply that he thinks? To confound this further other theologians have said that our deliberation (most of what we consider rational thought) is not our natural mode but an accommodation we are capable not unlike your lower back overworking because your abdominal muscles are failing.

Also, our form of thought depends a lot on not seeing into things but seeing the surface of them and trying to figure out things about them. God has no such limitation, either way you look at it.

Finally, at least in the old psychology, thought refers not to logic or thought-in-words, but to the energy that arises from or around the heart which language is used to form into words so it can be transferred between beings via sound or writing. Emotion is a form of unformed thought.

Therefore to even begin to answer the question would involve defining some terms. Given the ones I accept I would say that God thinks, but that God is not ‘rational’.

I think I agree with what you are saying here but, because I do not know, struggling to think further is unavoidable …

The argument you cite, however, is a far more interesting (and indeed thought-provoking) one.