Does an Infinite God Contain Infinite Evil Too?

 

The infinite stares back. Does sentience within God also include darkness?

For years, I thought I had it figured out. I believed in God. Not the sentimental, robe-wearing, thunderbolt-hurling figure of cartoons, but an abstract force. A non-sentient infinite. A divine algorithm humming beneath reality. I believed that this vision of God was the most reasonable one. After all, if God existed before time, and time hadn’t yet begun, then surely thought—conscious, self-aware thought—was a stretch. And if thought was a stretch, then personality, judgment, or even concern for creation were outright fantasy. A non-sentient God seemed clean. Mathematical. Logical. And that kind of God didn’t get angry or demand worship. That God just was. That belief comforted me for a while. But it didn’t last.

I had a strange realization. Not dramatic or sudden like a bolt of lightning, but slow and creeping, like water finding its way through cracks in stone. At first, it was just a doubt. A whisper that maybe I had misunderstood something deep and cosmic. Then I found myself face to face with a possibility I hadn’t considered: if God is infinite, truly infinite—outside of time, outside of limitation—then the very nature of that infinity includes, at the very least, the possibility of sentience. And once that door opened, everything I believed started unraveling.

Let’s define terms so we don’t fall into confusion. When I say God, I mean the Infinite. Not infinite space. Not infinite power. Not just a vast intelligence. I mean that which is before anything else existed. A being, or force, or principle—whatever you want to call it—that precedes and transcends the entire universe. Before matter. Before energy. Before spacetime. Before entropy had rules to obey. God as the precondition for all that is.

I used to argue that such a being must be non-sentient, because thought requires time. Thinking, by our definition, is a sequence. A sentence starts, flows, and ends. To decide means choosing one thing over another. Choice implies time. Planning implies future. Reflection implies past. So if God is outside time, how could thought even begin?

That’s when the Boltzmann brain argument grabbed my attention. You may have heard of it. Imagine the universe as an eternal sea of particles. Random fluctuations produce things like stars, galaxies, black holes. But given infinite time, one of those fluctuations might accidentally assemble a functioning brain. Just a brain. Not a body. Not a world. A brain that blinks into existence, holds a thought or two, then vanishes. It’s a disturbing idea, but statistically possible. It’s used to challenge certain cosmological models, but I started wondering: what if God began like that?

What if the God who exists before spacetime is not a personality with emotions and goals, but the ultimate, self-arranged fluctuation? Not a creature of time, but an infinite totality that—at some level—contains everything. Including consciousness. Including thought. Including a moment of awareness, which would be enough to generate intention. Could God have "fluctuated" into sentience?

Here’s where the logic gets weird—and powerful. If God is infinite, then everything that can exist, exists within that infinity. God doesn’t have parts, like a machine. But God's being could include all possibilities in their rawest form. The potential for thought. The potential for love. The potential for cruelty. The potential for selfhood. That means that sentience isn’t just likely within God. It’s inevitable. Given infinity, some version of awareness must exist within that being. But that also means—if we’re being honest—that some version of malevolence must exist, too.

That’s the part that shook me. I had been so proud of my tidy idea. A God who was non-sentient was safe. A force that gave rise to the universe but didn’t care about it. A silent backdrop. But now I had to admit: if you believe in an infinite God, you have to account for infinite everything. Not just beauty. Not just math. Not just logic. But rage. Violence. Spite. God would contain all the tools necessary for love and cruelty alike. So why assume the sentience that emerges is benevolent?

Let’s be clear. I’m not saying God is evil. I’m saying that in the structure of infinity, every form of being, every moral axis, every sensation, thought, and motive already exists. You can’t limit an infinite being by our human preference for goodness. The moment you say, “God is only love,” you are limiting infinity. But the moment you say, “God is everything,” then suddenly, God is also the capacity for hate.

Some Christians might object. They’ll point to Scripture and say, “God is love.” And yes, that’s what the Bible says. But now we’re moving away from clean, abstract infinity into a personal God, one who speaks and acts and punishes. One who sends rain and fire, who calls people to obedience, who experiences anger, grief, and joy. That’s a very different God than the one I had believed in. That God is not a fluctuation. That God is not an equation. That God has a face and a voice. That God demands something.

So I find myself caught between two visions. One is the philosophical Infinite, which contains every possibility. The other is the revealed God of faith, who chooses between possibilities. The Boltzmann God—random, neutral, encompassing—is terrifying precisely because it offers no answers. No moral compass. No direction. But the Christian God—selective, purposeful, mysterious—offers meaning, but also raises harsh questions. Why suffering? Why silence? Why hide?

And yet, we might ask: is there a third option? Can God be infinite and still be personal? Can a being exist before time, possess all capacities, and still choose a moral direction? If so, then perhaps God’s sentience isn’t a byproduct of randomness like a Boltzmann brain, but a core truth of being. Maybe the infinite didn’t just randomly become sentient. Maybe it always was. Maybe we were wrong to think of thought as requiring time. Maybe time is a function of thought, not the other way around.

Think about it. We assume that thinking requires a beginning, a middle, and an end. But what if, at the highest level, thought can exist as a whole, not a process? Like a song that is played all at once instead of note by note. What if divine awareness is not a sequence but a totality? Then the argument that God can’t be sentient without time collapses. It’s like saying a book can’t exist until it’s read. The pages are already there. The meaning is there. Our reading just moves through it line by line. Maybe God is the book. Already written. Already complete.

But then we’re back to the original problem. If the Infinite contains all things—including thought and choice—why do we assume God chose good over evil? What guarantees that the sentience within the Infinite is friendly? If God contains everything, how do we know what part of God we’re dealing with? What if the “face” God shows us is only one of many faces?

Let’s be honest. History is full of divine contradictions. Some people see God in acts of mercy. Others see Him in war and vengeance. Some pray and feel warmth. Others pray and feel nothing. Religious texts speak of God’s love but also His wrath. Of His peace but also His jealousy. If this is the same God, then He must be more complex than we’re comfortable with. More than love. More than logic. More than light.

So I ask again: if God is infinite, is it possible that He also contains infinite malevolence? Is the darkness of the world just a side effect of human freedom, or a reflection of the deeper complexity of God Himself? Can we really separate the Creator from the chaos that exists? Or does He hold it all in His being, balancing it with a hand too large for us to see?

I don’t have answers. Just questions. But I think that’s okay. We like to think of belief as certainty. But belief, real belief, is often born in tension. In the unresolved. In the gap between what we know and what we feel. And that’s where I live now. Not in the clean world of a non-sentient God. Not in the simple faith of a purely loving deity. But in the vast, open sky of the Infinite, where anything is possible—including thought. Including love. Including wrath.

And maybe that’s what makes God worthy of awe. Not because we can explain Him, but because we can’t. Not because He makes sense, but because He breaks our sense wide open. A non-sentient God asks for nothing. But a sentient God—a God who chooses to be aware, to feel, to respond—demands everything. He challenges our comfort. He shakes our categories. He dares us to think beyond safe boundaries.

Still, I wonder. If that Infinite truly contains the potential for sentience, and that sentience includes both love and hate, then how do we live? Do we pray, hoping we reach the part of God that listens? Do we act justly, hoping we reflect the better face of the Infinite? Or do we simply acknowledge that in this life, we stand in the mystery—awed, uncertain, but still speaking, still seeking?

And so, after all these years, I return to the same question that started it all: if God is infinite, can He be sentient? And if so, what kind of sentience would that be? Is it love? Is it justice? Is it wrath? Or is it something altogether beyond those words?

Maybe the question itself is the beginning of wisdom. Maybe it’s not the answer that matters most, but the courage to ask it. Maybe belief isn’t about certainty, but about being brave enough to sit in the paradox.

And maybe, just maybe, that paradox is the truest reflection of God.

So here we are. Back at the threshold. I once believed God couldn’t think. Now I believe He might. I once believed the Infinite was silent. Now I believe it might speak. And with that shift, the world becomes stranger—but also more beautiful.

If you’ve ever thought that believing in a sentient God was unreasonable, I understand. I was there. But if you’ve ever dared to wonder what such a God might actually be like—then welcome to the journey. It’s not neat. It’s not simple. But it might just be true.

And maybe that truth is enough to change everything.