“I think so.”
“All right. What I propose is that Godel’s Theorem marks the dividing line between gods and mortals.”
“Really,” Lawler said.
“This is what I mean,” said Quillan. “It sets a boundary for human reasoning. The gods occupy the far side of that boundary. Gods, by definition, are creatures who aren’t bound by the Godel limits. We humans live in a world where reality ultimately breaks down into irrational assumptions, or at least assumptions that are non-rational because they’re unprovable. Gods live in a realm of absolutes where realities are not only fixed and knowable down beyond the level of our axiomatic floor, but can be redefined and reshaped by divine control.”
For the first time in this discussion Lawler felt a flicker of interest. “The galaxy is full of beings which aren’t human, but their maths isn’t any better than ours, is it? Where do they fit your scheme?”
“Let’s define all intelligent beings who are subject to the Godel limitations as human, regardless of their actual species. And any beings that are capable of functioning in an ultra-Godelian realm of logic are gods.”
Lawler nodded. “Go on.”
“Now let me introduce the concept that came to me this morning when I was sitting up there thinking about the Face of the Waters. This actually is the blackest heresy, I admit. But I’ve been heretical before, and survived it. Though not this heretical.” Again Quillan smiled beatifically. “Let us suppose that the gods themselves at some point must reach a Godel limit, a place where their own reasoning powers—that is, their powers of creation and recreation—run up against some kind of barrier. Like us, but on a qualitatively different plane, they eventually come to a point at which they can go thus far, and no farther.”
“The ultimate limit of the universe,” Lawler said.
“No. Just their ultimate limit. It may well be that there are greater gods beyond them. The gods we’re talking about are encapsulated just as we mortals are within a larger reality defined by a different mathematics to which they have no access. They look upward to the next reality and the next level of gods. And those gods—that is, the inhabitants of that larger reality—also have a Godel wall around them, with even greater gods outside it. And so on and so on and so on.”
Lawler felt dizzy. “To infinity?”
“Yes.”
“But don’t you define a god as something that’s infinite? How can an infinite thing be smaller than infinity?”
“An infinite set may be contained within an infinite set. An infinite set may contain an infinity of infinite subsets.”
“If you say so,” replied Lawler, a little restless now. “But what does this have to do with the Face?”
“If the Face is a true Paradise, unspoiled and virgin—a domain of the holy spirit—then it may very well be occupied by superior entities, beings of great purity and power. What we of the Church once called angels. Or gods, as those of older faiths might have said.”
Be patient, Lawler thought. The man takes these things seriously.
He said, “And these superior beings, angels, gods, whatever term we choose to use—these are the local post-Godelian geniuses, do I have it right? Gods, to us. Gods to the Gillies, too, since the Face seems to be a holy place for them. But not God Himself, God Almighty, your god, the one that your church worships, the prime creator of the Gillies and us and everything else in the universe. You won’t find Him around here, at least not very often. That god is higher up along the scale of things. He doesn’t live on any one particular planet. He’s up above somewhere in a higher realm, a larger universe, looking down, checking up occasionally on how things are going here.”
“Exactly.”
“But even He isn’t all the way at the top?”
“There is no top,” Quillan said. “There’s only an ever-retreating ladder of Godhood, ranging from the hardly-more-than-mortal to the utterly unfathomable. I don’t know where the inhabitants of the Face are located on the ladder, but very likely it’s somewhere at a point higher than the one we occupy. It’s the whole ladder that is God Almighty. Because God is infinite, there can be no one level of godhood, but only an eternally ascending chain; there is no Highest, merely Higher and Higher and Even Higher, ad infinitum. The Face is some intermediate level on that chain.”
“I see,” said Lawler uncertainly.
“And by meditating on these things, one can begin to perceive the higher infinities, even though by definition we can never perceive the Highest of all, since to do that we’d have to be greater than the greatest of infinities.” Quillan looked toward the heavens and spread his arms wide in a gesture that was almost self-mocking. But then he turned to Lawler and said in an entirely different tone of voice from the one he had used a moment before, “At last, doc, I’ve come to an understanding of why I failed in the priesthood. I must have been aware all along that the God I was looking for, the One Supreme Entity who watches over us, is utterly unattainable. So far as we’re concerned He doesn’t in fact exist. Or if He does. He exists in a region so far removed from our existence that He might just as well not exist at all. Now finally I understand that I need to go looking for a lesser god, one who’s closer to our own level of awareness. For the first time, Lawler, I see the possibility that I can find some comfort in this life.”
“What kind of bullshit are you two discussing?” said Delagard, who had come up behind them.
“Theological bullshit,” Quillan said.
“Ah. Ah. A new revelation?”
“Sit down,” said the priest. “I’ll tell you all about it.”
Inflamed by the logic of his new revelation, Quillan went about the ship offering to share it with anyone who would listen. But he found few takers.
Gharkid seemed the most interested. Lawler had always suspected that the strange little man had a deep streak of mysticism in him; and now, enigmatic as always, Gharkid could be seen sitting with shining eyes in a pose of the deepest attention, drinking in everything that the priest had to say. But as ever Gharkid had no comments of his own to offer, only the occasional soft query.
Sundira spent an hour with Quillan and came to Lawler afterward looking puzzled and thoughtful. “The poor man,” she said. “A paradise. Holy spirits walking around in the underbrush, offering benedictions to pilgrims. All these weeks at sea must have driven him out of his mind.”
“If he was ever in it in the first place.”
“He wants so badly to give himself over to something bigger and wiser than he is. He’s been chasing God all his life. But I think he’s really just trying to find his way back to the womb.”
“What a terribly cynical thing to say.”
“Isn’t it, though?” Sundira laid her head on Lawler’s lap. “What do you think? Did any of that mathematical mumbo-jumbo make any sense to you? Or the theology? Paradise? An island of holy spirits?”
He stroked her thick, dark hair. The weeks and months of the voyage had coarsened its texture, giving it a crisped, frizzled look. But it was still beautiful.
He said, “A certain amount. At least I can understand the metaphor he’s using. But it doesn’t matter, do you know? Not to me. There could be an infinity of distinct layers of gods in the universe, each one with exactly sixteen times as many eyes as the ones in the layer below it, and Quillan could have absolute irrefutable proof of the existence of the whole elaborate rigmarole, and it wouldn’t mean a thing to me. I live in this world, and only in this world, and there aren’t any gods here. What might be happening in the higher levels, if there are any, doesn’t concern me.”