In Poul Anderson's
Operation... volumes, there is both a God and a multiverse. God is more actively present in some universes than in others. For example, the Resurrection of Christ might be historical in one universe but mythical in others. Does one God have at least indirect jurisdiction over all universes or only over some? Opinions are bound to differ. Nicholas van Rijn inhabits the hard sf scenario of the Technic History but is a Catholic and visits the inn between the universes.
In SM Stirling's Emberverse series, a deity emerges from a succession of universes and initiates a divergent timeline. Are all of Stirling's multiverses a single multiverse and does his emergent deity preside over all universes or only over some? This question should be answered only if the answer generates an interesting story.
Most of today was taken up with a big family BBQ at Ketlan's place so there has been little time for blog posts.
23 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I hope you had a good time with your family and Ketlan!
Commenting on your first paragraph. I would insist that God, to BE God, would need to be the Creator and Lord of all the universes. And I can see the Resurrection of Christ being only a fiction, a myth, in those universes where He did not become Incarnate as man and died on the Cross.
And I would have loved to have seen more of Nicholas van Rijn's visit or visits to the Old Phoenix! How on Terra did that happen at all???
I admit that Stirling's theology of an "emergent deity" baffles me. It really doesn't make sense to me, which might explain why I somehow missed it the first time I was reading THE SWORD OF THE LADY. A "god" which is somehow "created" or had a beginning does not SEEM like a "god" to me.
Sean
Sean,
Then we could use some other word? Pagan gods were born. Then, within monotheism, "God" became an alternative name for JHWH, Allah etc. Some of this point is merely terminologial.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, I have to say I simply can't take pagan "gods" very seriously. Hmmm, assuming they are real, should we call them "supernaturally powerful created beings"? I do realize how cumbersome that is!
I used to believe Muslims at least worshiped God, despite believing many errors. But the more I learned about the Muslim "Allah" the less I could believe that. Such as the belief by many Muslim theologians that there are no secondary or contingent causes, everything exists only because of the arbitrary will of Allah creating everything that exists second by second. Harry Austryn Wolfson's THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE KALAM goes into massive detail analyzing how early Muslims reacted to contact with Classical philosophy and Christian theology.
Sean
Sean,
But "gods" meant powerful although finite beings before "God" meant a single omnipotent creator. I think that we should just list all the uses of a word and not give any one use a privileged status.
CS Lewis believed that God timelessly maintained/created the world at every moment.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I would still argue in favor of defining "god/God" to mean either powerful finite beings if pagan, and God for the eternal, omnipotent Lord and Creator.
And I emphatically disagree with C.S. Lewis if he believed God was creating/maintaining the universe second by second. God created the cosmos at the Big Bang and then was content to operate thru secondary causes, including evolution.
Btw, I should have included in my second note that I had the controversy between the Mu'tazilites and Ash'arites in mind. With the Ash'arites triumphing over the former after about AD 1025/
Sean
Sean,
The word is used in both those senses.
It is a scientific question whether the universe began at the Big Bang or whether there were earlier stages.
The belief that God created the universe once in the past but does not sustain it in existence at each moment is Deism, not Theism.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But I don't believe that matter/energy is eternal and uncreated. Rather, I believe there was a "time" when matter/energy did not exist until God created it, whether at the Big Bang or an earlier stage.
I fear I was being imprecise. I do believe that, ultimately, all that exists does because of the will and power of God. But, I also believe God acted thru secondary causes. Because it is a patently observable fact that secondary causes are real.
Sean
Sean,
God could transtemporally decide to create a universe that was beginningless in time.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I admit finding that a difficult concept to grasp--an eternal, beginningless, material universe.
Sean
Sean,
But not an eternal, beginningless, immaterial consciousness?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Odd as that may seem, no. And I still think arguments for the existence of God or a First Cause, such as those given by Aristotle, are convincing.
Sean
Sean,
I think that consciousness has to be consciousness of objects other than itself, therefore that there cannot have been precosmic consciousness.
Can you summarize Aristotle's arguments?
The BBQ went well and we have been invited to another tomorrow.
Paul.
In modern physics, motion is the natural state of everything. Nothing is static, needing to be set in motion.
Even if there were a physical unmoved mover, why should it also be a conscious being?
A causal argument summarised:
every event is caused [comment/question: by a previous event?];
an infinite regress is impossible;
therefore, there was a first cause, i.e., God.
Reply:
there are uncaused events in quantum mechanics;
both premises need to be proved;
if one is proved, then the other is disproved, because they are contradictory;
if every event is caused by a previous event, then an infinite regress is not only possible but actual and there can have been no first cause which, in any case, would have been a past event, not an eternal person;
teleolgical, cosmological, ontological and moral arguments are less obviously invalid but are still IMO invalid.
Certain arguments have become recurrent so I am trying to address them up front.
Kaor, Sean!
If I may quibble, I wouldn't call it a patently observable fact that secondary causes are real (even though I believe that they are). Suppose that you,
I, and a Muslim go camping. I touch a lighted match to the dry twigs we have gathered, and they catch fire; I say that they caught fire because I touched a lighted match to them, but the Muslim demurs, and says that it happened solely by the will of Allah, without which they would not have caught fire whatever I might have attempted to do. Conversely, Allah can cause the twigs, or a bowl of chilled soup, to catch fire, without even what a Christian would call a miraculous intervention in the ordinary course of events and chain of causation. You and I would disagree with him, but we cannot strictly speaking observe that he is wrong. What is actually observed is compatible with either metaphysics.
Or so it seems to me. Do you have any thoughts?
Best Regards,
Nicholas D. Rosen
Kaor, Nicholas!
Thanks for your interesting and amusing comments!
But one reason I object to these Muslim beliefs is because they logically lead to God being arbitrary and capricious, perfectly willing to reverse and contradict Himself. That God can be irrational and illogical. Which is simply not true!
I believe God has freely bound Himself to act according to the laws of nature that He has created. That is, we can understand why chemistry, biology, engineering, mathematics, and all the other sciences WORK because of things like secondary and contingent causes. Only by observation of cause and effect, hypotheses and the testing of them, etc., was science and rational thought even possible (beyond the level of abstract reasoning).
So I would still argue that a bunch of twigs or a bowl of soup could spontaneously catch fire only if another Power, God, DID that. Iow, a miracle.
Regards! Sean
Sean,
Have you any further thoughts on the First Cause argument?
Paul.
In the causal argument, the first premise contradicts not only the second premise but also the conclusion.
Kaor, Paul!
You are far more learned than I am in philosophy, which means I've often felt unsure of myself, depending as I often have to on what I had read many years ago.
But I don't believe "consciousness," when applied to God, has to be aware of others before it could be aware of itself. God logically needs nothing but Himself to be perfectly happy and self sufficient from all eternity. Else He could not BE God.
And I still say there logically had to be a first motion before physics could even work. Iow, I still believe in a First Cause or Mover. And that this applies even to quantum mechanics. I simply don't believe in an INFINITE regression of causes.
I am sorry if my comments seem so weak and inadequate. I only wish John Wright, who HAS made an intensive study of philosophy, would see this and be willing to comment.
Sean
Sean,
Thank you. I have simply tried to move the argument on a bit from some recurrent points. I know we can never get to a resolution!
Paul.
Statements of the form "For God to BE God, He has to be..." etc strike me as on a par with "For Nick van Rijn to BE Nick van Rijn, he has to be crafty and cunning etc." Both statements are true but neither establishes the existence of a being answering that description.
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