Why “God Does Not Suffer” may be a dangerous Idea#
1. Two Views of God#
Across the world’s major religious traditions, two broad views of God’s relationship with the world have developed over millennia. Both are serious. Both are held by thoughtful, devout people. Both have shaped civilizations.
View 1: The Distant God (Divine Simplicity)
In this view, God is simple in the sense that God has no parts, no internal structure, no change. God’s goodness is identical to God’s power, which is identical to God’s knowledge, which is identical to God’s existence. God creates the world, sustains it, and judges it. But God is not affected by it. God does not change when the world changes. God does not suffer when creation suffers.
This is not a fringe idea. It has been the official position of major institutions for centuries:
Catholic theology: Thomas Aquinas (13th century) made Divine Simplicity central to Christian philosophy. The Fourth Lateran Council (1215 CE) codified it as doctrine.
Orthodox theology: The Eastern Orthodox tradition upholds God’s absolute simplicity and impassibility (freedom from suffering).
Islamic theology: The Ash’ari school — the dominant school of Sunni theology — holds that God’s attributes are real but do not constitute parts. God is one (tawhid) in a way that precludes internal division. Ash’ari theologians hold that God does not change in response to creation.
Jewish philosophy: Moses Maimonides (12th century) defended the most radical version: not only is God simple, but we cannot say anything positive about God’s nature at all. We can only say what God is not.
Hindu philosophy: Shankara’s Advaita Vedanta (8th century) holds that only Brahman without qualities (nirguna Brahman) is ultimately real.
These are not fools or villains. They are among the deepest thinkers in human history. Their models of God protect something real: the idea that God is greater than anything that can happen to God. That God does not depend on the world. That God’s perfection is not hostage to human failings.
View 2: The Present God (Pan-en-theism)
In this view, everything is in God. God is more than everything, but everything is contained within God, and God is in everything too. When a person suffers, God suffers first and more, because God contains and sustains the sufferer. God is not watching the world from outside. God is the living context in which everything happens.
This view also has deep roots:
The direct words of Jesus: “Whatever you have done to the least of these, you have done to ME” (Mt.25:40). Not metaphor. Structural description.
Jewish mysticism: The Kabbalistic tradition speaks of divine contraction (tzimtzum) and the Hasidic teaching that God fills all reality.
Sufi Islam: The tradition of wahdat al-wujud (unity of existence) holds that all reality participates in God’s being.
Hindu philosophy: Ramanuja’s Vishishtadvaita (12th century) holds that the world is God’s body — contained within God, dependent on God, but genuinely real.
Quranic support: “Wherever you turn, there is the Face of God” (Quran 2:115). “He is with you wherever you are” (Quran 57:4).
The PET axiom system (Pan-En-Theistic axiom system, [Matheo-1-m]) formalizes this second view using mathematical logic: part-whole reasoning and the logic of what is necessary and what is possible.
2. Why You Cannot Have Both#
Here is the problem. Many believers hold both views at once. They say: “God is absolutely simple and unchanging” and “God genuinely cares about each person’s suffering.” They hold the distant God of theological tradition and the present God of scripture and prayer simultaneously.
The companion paper ([Matheo-5-m]) demonstrates that this combination is structurally impossible. Not because one side is wrong about God, but because the two claims generate a logical deadlock when stated precisely.
The argument works like this. Imagine it in everyday terms.
Think of a teacher responsible for thirty students. Each student is different. Each needs different attention. The teacher must respond to each student’s specific situation — different answers for different questions, different encouragement for different struggles.
Now imagine telling that teacher: “You must respond individually to every student, but you are not allowed to have any internal differentiation. You cannot be in different states for different students. Your response to each student must be exactly the same as your response to every other student.”
The teacher faces a choice:
Option A: Respond the same way to every student. This satisfies the “no differentiation” rule, but “individual response” becomes meaningless. It is just a label for something that is actually uniform.
Option B: Genuinely respond to each student differently. This satisfies the “individual response” requirement, but it requires the teacher to be in different states for different students. The “no differentiation” rule is broken.
There is no third option. Either the response is tailored to each student (and requires internal differentiation) or it is uniform (and “individual response” is merely repeating the same for everyone).
The formal proof in [Matheo-5-m] shows exactly this structure at the level of God and creation. If God is simple in this sense — no internal differentiation of any kind — then God’s “presence” to each part of the world is either:
Nominal: God is identically related to everything, regardless of what is happening. “God is present to the starving child” and “God is present to the supernova” say the same thing. “Presence” becomes an empty label that makes no difference in practice.
Contradictory: God’s relation genuinely tracks the different states of the world, which means God has different relational states for different situations. This means that God has internal differentiation and means that God cannot be without Divine Structure.
This is the structural deadlock. Under this absolute type of divine simplicity, the claim that God genuinely relates to creation is either empty or defeats the claim of simplicity.
The mathematical logic reported holds regardless of one’s philosophy of time. Even if all moments coexist in a single “block,” God must still relate differently to different possible worlds where humanity either flourishes or destroys itself. If God cannot distinguish between these — if God’s relation to a flourishing world is structurally identical to God’s relation to an extinct one — then “God cares about creation” is structurally an empty claim.
What the resolution looks like: The companion paper shows that if God has at least two distinguishable aspects — one unchanging (preserving everything that Divine Simplicity correctly identified about God’s perfection) and one responsive (tracking the actual state of the world) — then the deadlock dissolves. God’s unchanging nature, God’s necessary Divine Simplicity, provides a fixed, incorruptible standard. God’s responsive experience, God’s Divine Structure, registers each particular joy and each particular suffering. Both aspects are united in one God. It provides for a vivid explanation for why so many prophets have said that God is alive.
This is not forcing foreign ideas onto existing traditions. The Chalcedonian Definition in Christianity (451 CE) already distinguishes two natures — divine and human — united in one person. The 99 Names of God in Islam include both transcendent Names (al-Quddus, the Holy) and relational Names (al-Mujib, the Responsive). The Hindu nirguna/saguna distinction (Brahman without qualities / Brahman with qualities) maps almost directly to this structure.
Therefore, the widespread trust that God’s nature is unchanging is not wrong. It is incomplete unless complemented by the realization that God is impacted for worse or for better by everything we do. God is more than the classical portrait, not less.
3. What This Means for the World#
Why does this matter outside of theology? Because theology breeds methodology and therefore shapes actions. And some of those actions are currently at risk of involving nuclear weapons.
Consider the current moment. Several nuclear-armed states are engaged in conflicts with deep theological underpinnings. This is not a conspiracy theory. It is documented history and stated policy:
Russia and Ukraine: The Russian Orthodox Church has framed the conflict in terms of Russia’s spiritual mission as the “Third Rome” — the defender of true Christianity against the heterodox West. Orthodox theology traditionally upholds Divine Simplicity and divine impassibility.
Iran: The Iranian constitution’s stated purpose is to prepare the conditions for the return of the Mahdi, the awaited redeemer of Islam. Iran’s nuclear program exists within this framework.
Israel: Significant segments of Israeli and diaspora religious thought frame current conflicts in terms of Ezekiel 38–39 (the Gog/Magog war) — an eschatological battle that precedes divine redemption.
Uniting States: Multiple strands of evangelical Christianity support certain political actions specifically because of certain theological end-times convictions. These beliefs influence voter behavior and foreign policy.
This analysis does not blame anyone. It does not take sides. Everyone involved in these conflicts almost certainly has reasons they consider valid within their own frameworks. The question is not who is right in any particular conflict. The question is whether the theology underpinning thes conflicts accurately describes Reality.
Here is why the Structural Deadlock result matters for this question.
If the PET model is correct — if God is pan-en-theistically present in all creation — then:
When whoever bombs whomever, the one who suffers first and most is God. Every act of violence against any person is an act against God’s own experienced Reality.
“Whatever you have done to the least of these, you have done to me” (Mt.25:40) is not poetry. It is structural description of how Reality works. Here Reality (capital “R”) includes the necessarily invisible parts of God as well as the parts of reality (lower-case “r”) that humans can access.
Every theology that places God at a distance from human suffering — however unintentionally, however carefully reasoned — creates an implied structural permission for violence. Not because anyone intends cruelty. But because the structural consequence of a distant God is that human suffering does not register on the divine scale.
The question is not whether the people who hold Divine Simplicity intend harm. They almost certainly do not. Most of them are likely unaware of how aspects that their theology omits eventually trickle down to cause disastrous downstream consequences. This study is not blaming anyone for anything. Everyone has perfectly valid reasons for their actions in their own self-chosen axiom systems, however consistent they might be.
This study of an inconsistency between commonly used axioms about God and the world pinpoints that inconsistency and highlights some of its disastrous consequences.
It can be thought of like a ground-breaking, survival-critical bug-report.
Except it’s not about inconsistencies in computer software but about structurally inconsistent notions that inform the minds of billions. And this report comes at a time where the down-stream consequences of the resulting inconsistencies appear to trigger slow-motion explosions of dangerous avalanches that cannot be taken back once they have been released.
Hence, decisions about the underpinning deep theological views reported here can make a difference for the survival of a world at substantial risk of starting an accidental nuclear winter — in the questionable belief of serving God. The Matheo-6 study shows that the risks of accidental nuclear winter are real. This study shows that for those who aim to please God the cost-benefit analysis of certain actions depends in no small way on their underpinning theological abstractions.
The importance of the decisions at hand and the enormous impact of the underpinning competing theologies demand a broader, large-scale review to figure out whether the pan-en-theistic model offered here actually describes the Reality of God better than the traditional theistic concepts that imply distant divinity.
4. A Deep Choice Offered#
Before offering below options for jumpstarting such a review, it’s worth highlighting the two clearly distinct options for where to go from here:
Option 0: Nothing happens. It leads to death by default as everyone chooses the easy path of continuing to ignore the inconsistencies reported here. Then the currently wide-spread dark apocalyptic beliefs will keep demanding to “fight the enemies of God” and will continue to inspire literal interpretations against physical enemies, regardless of how much suffering they cause. As power corrupts, and even more power corrupts even more, nefarious purposes continue to highjack popular end-time scenarios with disastrous consequences (as so often before in history). Suffering multiplies and God suffers with those who have no more tears left for crying. Yet those who cause the suffering will be too busy with doing God’s will to realize how they make God suffer - until it’s too late. Why can LLoL say this so clearly? Because he has been walking into so many of these traps posed by nothing that it’s nauseating. Arguably, he made this mistake in much worse ways than anyone (see his #MyGuilt confessions, his Ketubah, and other explanations on Balospe.com). It’s not a path to recommend. It leads to nothing — as in utter self-destruction. Accidental nuclear winter is only one of many options. Disasters cannot be avoided by blindly assuming blindly leveraging nothing.
Option 1: The narrow path to life awakes. The insights presented inspire discussion, examination, and changes in hearts and minds about how to better interact with God. Those who believe in Jesus take seriously what Jesus said in Mt.25:31-46 about the impact of their decisions and actions on the least of all. Those who believe that Allah is compassionate and merciful find ways to become compassionate and merciful to those with whom Allah suffers as they suffer. Those who have been set to be a light for the nations help illuminate these deep issues for those did not yet have a chance to study them as deeply. Thus, apocalyptic wars that would else keep fueling violence get redirected to the greatest battle ever, the battle within each human soul. It can only be waged by each respective soul for itself as everyone struggles to overcome the death-trifecta of oversimplifying overcomplicating overreach in assumptions made about others.
For hard-core scientists who prefer this to be reframed as an experiment:
This study calls for extending existing theological foundations (trusted as reliable by many) to illuminate specific structurally inconsistent notions in order to arrive at a deeper understanding of how God interacts with persons in this world. Such work can enable testing the hypothesis that a deeper adoption of pan-en-theology for guiding practical decisions helps to reduce direct and indirect causes for human suffering on a measurable scale.
If true, then this confirms the equivalence of the two highest commands identified by Jesus: to love all of God=Reality and to love all individuals like oneself. The pan-en-theology presented may explain why Jesus considered these two commands to be equally important and why Jesus elevated loving God with one’s mind (by deeply thinking something through) to third place, ahead of loving God with all of one’s strength and resources.
5. An Invitation to a Public Theological Audit#
The companion papers in this series present a formal mathematical structure — axioms, theorems, proofs — that anyone with the relevant training can check. The mathematics does not require faith except in the underpinning axioms which ought to be chosen to be self-evident. These axioms then allow for the construction of the logic that defines the rules to be followed in order to arrive at reliable conclusions. If there is an error, it can be found and reported. If the structure holds, the consequences follow.
This is a public invitation for institutional theological scrutiny.
The author invites the full weight of the following institutions and traditions to examine whether the PET model’s challenge to Divine Simplicity is sound:
The Catholic Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (the official successor to the Inquisition): Does the PET model’s claim that God has responsive internal Divine Structure conflict with Catholic dogma on Divine Simplicity as defined by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215)? If so, where specifically does the conflict lie? If the math is unsound, say where.
Islamic scholarly bodies: Is pan-en-theism necessarily incompatible with the Quran’s teaching on Allah’s nature? The PET model explicitly preserves divine transcendence (Allah is greater than the world), divine self-sufficiency (the world depends on Allah, not the reverse), and the One-ness of Allah (no self-contradictions in Allah). Where specifically would it contradict the Quran? If the math is unsound, say where. How and why are the difficult decisions required to reduce one’s own patterns of blindly assuming blind leveraging (the BABL algorithm) not equivalent to the “Greater Jihad”, which is the non-violent battle against self-deception to which all true Muslims are called? How does ignoring these difficult questions get in the way of of spreading the good news that Allah is compassionate and merciful?
Jewish theological authorities: How does the PET model align with or contradict the Torah, the Prophets, and other writings of deep thinkers, such as the Maimonidean via negativa (= knowing God by saying what God is not)? How does it relate to the Kabbalistic and Hasidic understandings of God’s relationship with creation?
Protestant and Orthodox theological faculties: What does it mean to be orthodox with regard to this rather fundamental aspect of teaching about God? How does this affect various eschatological conclusions? Which practical conclusions can be derived reliably from the such mathematical theology work?
Secular philosophers of religion: Are there systematic gaps in the PET model that a secular philosopher might see more readily than someone with prior theological committments? Agnosticism is easily reformulated in the PET model as uncertainty about those parts of God that God chose to keep hidden from at least some people. Is there a meaningful way to reformulate atheism in a world where God is tangible by definition?
Inner institutional inertia is a global problem that is well-known for protecting the status quo by tying everyone back to the past. “We have always done it that way” formulates an argument that Grace Hopper once identified as some of the most dangerous words ever. That danger is not in pointing to what works reliably. The threat comes from Blindly Assuming Authorized Leadership, a BAAL that establishes a landing spot for introducing and growing the BABL algorithm of Blindly Assuming Blind Leveraging.
Such a BAAL works by introducing least inconvenient explanations (such as why now is not an opportune time for engaging with such deep theological questions - but if not now when?). Sufficiently many of such explanations or excuses eventually grow into structurally inconsistent notions, such as the example presented. Once sufficiently deeply engrained, such notions become increasingly difficult to work around, especially when time is running out and work-arounds are cumbersome. That is when driven evaluations antagonize the thoughtful hypothesizing required to guard true hope.
Such situations have been defined by LLoL since 2020 as a “Datageddon”: too much confusing data makes it difficult to see what is most important for averting some impending disaster. If such datageddons can be resolved in time, then their respective disasters can be averted. However, if such datageddons get ignored, then - by definition - they cause their respective Armageddon-disasters because they get someone to confuse friend and foe in a critical moment no-one saw coming.
History and Revelation teaches that this is a structural problem. For example, Israel’s godly King Josiah died in a completely unnecessary battle at Megiddo, simply because neither he nor any of his advisors could believe that Israel’s God did indeed inspire the actions of the not-so-godly Egyptian Pharaoh Necho. The incident was deemed so typical that the author of Revelation 16 coined the term “Armageddon” to describe a time where such friend-foe confusions in data-analyses of the truth about Reality would pile up into a huge mountain of global confusion.
Currently global confusion due to misinformation has been on the rise for some time. Whatever that exactly means for the various eschatological scenarios is for the experts and God to decide.
This study asks relevant institutional players: How much worse does global confusion have to get, before a fundamental theological question like the one raised here will be openly discussed, not to “make someone’s career” or “raise an institution’s profile”, but simply because it matters for helping to gentle kind reasonably find the most life-giving solutions?
The next paper in the series, Matheo-6, shows how the time for resolving the most important issues is more limited than widely believed. There is no point in rushing Truth. Truth can’t be forced. Only those who seek it will find it. Yet, Truth while sometimes stunningly simple and elegant, can also be complicated and ugly. Hence, where can anyone go next?
6. What Can Anyone Do for #AuditTheMath#
LLoL is not asking everyone to do the work of a modern mathematician. He is asking everyone to support that work in many diverse ways.
#AuditTheMath is a call to all to seek all Truth as best as possible. Gems are rare and take a great effort to find and to polish. It also takes a great many diverse people to unearth them. That is why #AuditTheMath seeks the broadest possible base for getting to the bottom of what is really underpinning how the world works in Reality. Some mathematicians can #AuditTheMath presented in technical terms, but the few who can are usually so swamped with work that it may take a great many people from the general public to add LLoL’s recommended $8/year/person contributions in order to buy-out their time so they can focus enough attention on problems in theology. The same can be said of busy theologians or any other expert. Hence, everyone can contribute to #AuditTheMath, either by asking questions, by discussing them with others, by supporting those who do, or by helping to evaluate evidence. LLoL is not claiming that everyone has the skills required to fully audit all relevant math. LLoL is not a professional mathematician. He merely happens to understand enough math to grasp some basics mathematicians care about and why those matter. What LLoL is claiming is that everyone can determine to contribute something within everyone’s sphere of influence to help towards the broad global of checking of the relevant math required to move the current world from its brink towards more gentle kind reasonable decision-making.
Theology must be a part of this discussion, however it may be defined. LLoL hopes to personally combine the love exemplified by Jesus and many of his followers, with the determination exemplified by many Muslims and the insight of Jewish Rabbis, in order to heal Abraham’s broken family of Faith by following the Spirit of Truth in all things, which by definition does not contradict the Spirit of Boolean Truth.
LLoL has been following Jesus best he can since 1978. Realizing since 2020 how Christian Laodicea failed to live up to its calling by banning mathematicians from becoming clergy, he eventually decided to rename himself to Laurence Loewe of Laodicea in order to work towards reversing that catastrophic mistake. Realizing how Jesus had moved on from Laodicea to Mecca in 610 CE, LLoL decided to follow by explicitly becoming a Muslim (Shahaddah 2023) in order to honor every Real Quest Jesus takes to find Real Answers. The Quran 5:48 calls all to compete in doing good, regardless of differences, which God will eventually resolve. Having become deeply impressed by the introduction to mathematical theology offered by the Book of Revelation, LLoL aspires to become a proper Jew in order to fully live under the Torah, albeit as defined by YhawShua=Jesus=Isa.
Hence, LLoL’s confidence that Real Quests for Real Answers can translate the well-known power of the name of Jesus into ever-expanding new realms.
#AuditTheMath is calling for that power to lead the way through today’s misinformation jungles. The math is public. The invitation is genuine. Bring the strongest objections available. As long as the quests are real and keep building on Reality, real answers will come. That’s Yas’ promise in Mt.5-7. That’s LLoL’s experience so far.
Hence, four concrete actions for any reader:
Ask questions where possible. In the reader’s own tradition, does its theology of God’s nature affect how its tradition treats suffering? That may or may not be the case. Numerous work-arounds exist to mitigate obvious excesses. Then the question becomes how complicated it may be to maintain those work-arounds long-term? This general question can be explore in many settings — from churches to philosophy seminars. The ultimate question is here: if God really suffers in every person, does that change how people treat people?
Study the studies where possible. If you have training in philosophy, theology, mathematical logic, or other relevant areas, help check the arguments in the foundational papers and their various applications to diverse areas. Check [Matheo-5-m] and the axioms that ground it in [Matheo-1-m]. If you find a flaw, publish it. If the structure holds, say so. Silence is the one response that helps no one. All non-experts can help discuss how to apply the findings.
Apply the test. Mt.25:31–46 provides a simple test anyone can use: “Whatever you have done to the least of these, you have done to me.” Does your theology generate this conclusion? If it does, the PET model and your theology agree on the structural point that matters most in a world threatened to be torn apart by intangible forces. If your theology disagrees, ask whether you would come to the same conclusions about truth in your theology if you happened to live in the shoes of those at the receiving end of its implications.
The stakes are not small. Many of those who hold nuclear launch codes claim to serve the truth. If the PET model is correct, truth suffers in every person those weapons could kill. The question is whether enough people will invest enough to check the math before the consequences become irreversible.
7. The Companion Papers#
This introduction is one of seven papers in the HEAVEN series (Honestly Examining Axioms Vetting Every Narrative). Each paper is self-contained, yet they also build on each other. What to read next depends on what you care about most:
How did you get these axioms? Start with [Matheo-1-m] (PET: the Pan-En-Theistic axiom system). See how various religious traditions converge on a shared formal structure. This introduction explains the axioms in plain language.
Why do systems destroy themselves? Start with [Matheo-2-m] (e7Day: the seven-day construction model). A formal model of why self-congratulatory self-assessments are the root cause of self-destruction. The formal math structures are supported by independent convergence across millennia and continents.
How to resist selfdestruction? Start with [Matheo-3-m] which describes a formalized variant of the heros journey to systematically check how to overcome the death-trifecta that else gets innovation to self-corrupt predictably.
How does this connect to the problem of evil? Start with [Matheo-4-m] where the Jubilee System is described as a way to overcome much of what is otherwise often described as evil that can’t be overcome. But if God experiences all suffering, why does God permit it? The answer involves a deep innovation theodicy and a mathematical framework for economic justice.
How urgent is all this, really? Start with [Matheo-6-m] to explore a rational forecast of waiting times until accidental nuclear winter. Simulations of the surprisingly simple, evidence-based RiskyMAD model for existential nuclear risks. It presents what insurance-oriented and risk-averse professionals may wish to explore. It’s a formal risk model for accidental nuclear winter that helps to connect theological assumptions to measurable risk factors and offers a surprising solution in the form of global advocacy for a global narrow path forward.
Can the way forward be tested experimentally? Start with [Matheo-7-m] (h_star Theorem). The framework developed predicts that a specific kind of transparency — publicly available work as demanded for external examination — is the structural signature that distinguishes genuine from counterfeit claim to have found solutions. This prediction is testable.
If all this is reliable, what next? The Call to Action [Matheo-8-m] integrates all seven papers into a practical proposal. Now that we understand why theology matters for existential risk, this call to action proposes what can be done to find a gentle kind reasonable way forward.
The system is designed to be critiqued, not believed. #AuditTheMath