Both Holger Carlsen in Three Hearts And Three Lions and Steve Matuchek in Operation Chaos refer briefly to whatever it is that unites the multiverse.
In the above linked post, I disagreed with Matuchek when he called "...the ultimate oneness itself..." "God." If someone formulates a Unified Field Theory, establishing that the four cosmic forces, gravity, electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces, are diverse expressions of a single force, should we call that single force "God"? No, because forces are impersonal whereas "God" either means a personal being or at least is widely taken to mean that even when some philosophers, mystics etc set out to use it in an impersonal sense. The phrase, "...oneness itself..,." implies impersonality.
What can we make of "God" in a multiversal context? Many people believe that "God," meaning either a unipersonal or tripersonal being, created this universe. Therefore, they would extend His (Their?) domain to say that He (or They) created the whole multiverse. However, another possible meaning is that "God" is a single being Who counts as omnipotent within, e.g., the goetic or the Shakespearean universe but Who has no presence within the Norse or other pantheonic universes. A third meaning of "God" is the impersonal one but that merely confuses the issue.
Matuchek's formulation of the ultimate oneness is unobjectionable:
"...if parallel worlds exist, they must be linked in a very fundamental way... Deriving from the same source, embedded in the same matrix, they must in some fashion have a common destiny."
-Poul Anderson, Operation Chaos (New York, 1995), p. 2.
Source and matrix with no implication of personality.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And I would argue for saying God created the entire multiverse, that there is only One and the same Creator for all the universes and timelines.
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment