JOHN ONIMISI OBIDI’S METAPHYSICS: A RESOLUTION OF THE CATEGORY ERROR ON THE EXISTENCE OF GOD FROM FIRST PRINCIPLES

…Now we must step onto that slippery ground — the murky waters of theology and metaphysics, of theosophy and cosmogony — that ancient arena where emotion so easily outruns reason, where belief and faith often drown the sober faculties of homo sapiens. And though I do not consider myself particularly equipped for such a perilous and treacherous undertaking, I am compelled by a certain rational courage born of a different category of faith to venture into this domain, unperturbed by whatever consequences may arise in the hearts and minds of those who have long stood as my closest allies in these deep matters of our communal and supracommunal existences.

If, by this inquiry, I must endure their gauntlet, I can only say they are justified — for their faith has been held under such high emotional pressure that some release must be granted, lest they collapse beneath the weight of their own convictions, which would inevitably have occurred had they failed to act otherwise.

With that uncompromising scene set before us, let us now begin our labors.

We have long divided the Universe and the World into two grand categories: the Physical and the Spiritual. Yet we know — with mathematical certainty — that in any class or group of ensembles, every element of that class or group is limited and constrained by the class or group itself. No element can possess properties beyond the defining boundaries of its group; and every group is limited by its own nature relative to any other group.

In the strict limit, therefore, every identifiable element of a group is an idempotent holographic image of the group itself, so that no maximal subclass of the group can be of nilpotent identity with respect to all other subclasses of that group. That is, if every element is a holographic reflection of the whole, then no part can annihilate the identity of the whole; which means every element reflects the whole, and so no part can annihilate the identity of all other parts. Thus, Obidi uses the logical idempotent to explain why God cannot be a part; and he conscripts the logical nilpotent to explain why no category can “contain” or “limit” God.

Given this fundamental premise, if we declare that God is Spirit, then we have already limited and constrained God more severely than any other argument could — for we have placed God inside a group, and thus beneath the constraints of that group.

Therefore, the only logically consistent way for God to possess the qualities we ascribe to Him — infinitude, transcendence, omnipotence, aseity — is for God to exist beyond all groups, beyond all classifications, beyond all categories. God must stand outside both Spirit and the Physical, outside every conceivable taxonomy of being and yet remain constitutive of it. Because, for us to say God is this or that, is to speak of God as what or who we know as this or that; and whatever or whoever we ascribe the status of this or that is already a limitation of that this and that.

So, whenever we say God is this, then God must be beyond this to retain His Godship; and when we speak of God as that, He then must be actually beyond that also. Thus, this Metaphysics teaches us that as soon as we describe God as infinite, then God is actually beyond infinite. For infinity is an unbounded category of another group postulated by another group which is finite. And by Obidi's Metaphysics, any unbounded category by a bounded category must by itself also be bounded. That is, an infinite set extruded from a finite set by any means must also be finite, otherwise the finite set wouldn't be finite. Stated more strongly: any concept of infinity constructed by a finite mind remains bounded by the conceptual apparatus that generated it.This is beyond apophatic logic. Every time we say “God is X,” God must necessarily be beyond X. That is: Any predicate X applied to God is automatically exceeded by God. This is the core axiom and logical statement of Obidi's Metaphysics — the Predicate‑Transcendence Principle (PTP): Every predicate is not merely inadequate; every predicate becomes evidence that God transcends the predicate itself.

On this mathematical and ontological ground, we must conclude — from first principles alone — that God is not Spirit. This is the only conclusion that resolves all contradictions and dissolves all inherited limitations:

God is neither Spirit nor Physical, nor can we speak of God as the groupless universal Being and Becoming from which all [other] groups arise, otherwise Being and Becoming become privileged categories also. Rather, God is beyond Being, beyond Non-being, and beyond Becoming, and yet sustains all being, non-being, and becoming.

We say “God is Spirit” only because that is the category we know, the one closest to our imagination. But God is not Spirit, for Spirit is a group — and God cannot be limited by the properties of any group, because God is transcategorical. In the same way, God would be limited by the group of Physical elements if we had declared Him Physical. Obidi's Metaphysics, therefore, is that the same way it is illogical to conceive of God as Physical is the same way it should be considered illogical to conceive of God as Spirit! It is just as illogical to conceive of God as Physical as it is to conceive of God as Spirit. Because Spirit and the Physical are two categories and classifications; and God cannot be boxed into any of such miniscule categories of existence, perception, imagination, and contemplation. Spirit is just another category. And any category is a limitation, because every classification operation is a boundary operation.

Thus, the error is not in God, but in our categories.

And Obidi’s Metaphysics resolves this ancient category mistake by restoring God to the only place consistent with [our] reason:

God is beyond all groups, beyond all classifications, beyond all categories, the unbounded ground beyond Being and Non-being, and the inexhaustible wellspring beyond Becoming. Beyond the Physical. Beyond Spirit. And none of the categories can subsist without His yet immanent presence in them all!

For God, if genuinely ultimate, cannot be exhausted by any instrument of finite cognition. Therefore neither religion nor science can give us God in Himself, but only finite approximations, symbolic representations, and category-bound descriptions of that which necessarily transcends all categories.

Science describes the measurable. Religion describes the meaningful. But God, being transcategorical, exceeds both measurement and meaning as finite minds ordinarily conceive them.

Neither religion nor science gives us God. At best, they give us shadows, projections, symbols, models, analogies, and approximations. God remains beyond every category by which the finite mind seeks to apprehend Him, while remaining the ground upon which all categories, minds, and worlds subsist.

[From The Canonical Archives]