A.Suarez's Treatment on a Pope's Formulation for Original Sin's Transmission!

Faith & Science Conversation
496

Just finished reading your paper, I found the ideas very interesting even though I had trouble with some of the math and experiments you refered to. If I understood it right, would it be fair to say that your model of the universe would be a type of block universe, with the past, present and future existing simultaneously, but instead of having just one past, present and future, we would actually have all possible events (and therefore a myriad of pasts, presents and futures) that would unfold from stochastic processes from the big bang to the end of the universe existing simultaneously as well? If that is the case then the solution to the “Andromeda paradox” would be to say that the “future” that coexisted with the observer is real, but not inevitable, since there are equally real futures “in the mind of God”, and therefore you could both have a future in which the aliens decided to attack earth and one in which they choose not do so (thereby eliminating the deterministic implications of the paradox)? Also from the paper:

“All this means that what is and is not possible is not
determined by physical \laws” but the other way around,
it is these \laws" which actually arise from what is and
is not possible."

That reminded me a lot of George Ellis idea of “possibility spaces”, which also assume “pixelated” space-time, are you familiar with his ideas and their implications for his ideas about morality and God? I would be interesetd in reading your comments on that if possible.

497

That’s very interesting! I thought it was actually the other way around, using “shortcuts” in within space-time to say that the particles could comunicate with v < c by travelling through them, but it seems I’ve got everything wrong. Thanks for clarifying that!

I will try to check that one as well.

In my naive enthusiast view I always framed it somewhat like that: Quantum events are random, but have probabilities associated to them, and the reason you don’t see quantum phenomena at a macroscopic level would be analogous to throwing dices (even though dice throwing is not truly random): If you throw just a couple of dices and make the average of the values (1-6), it is not that hard to get averages of 1 or 6 (1/36 for each chance if you use two dices, for instance), but as you increase the number of dices, it becomes more and more likely that you will get average results near 3.5 and more and more unlikely that you will get results near the extremes (averages of 1 and 6), since macroscopic events have lots of quantum events occurring in their composing particles at the same time, the random results would tend to average out and produce predictable outcomes, but like you said, it is technically not impossible to see these phenomena at macroscopic level as long as you get “lucky” enough (I.E. throwing 1 million dices and having all of them land at 1). How accurate is that?

498

Even assuming that “God creates the evolving ecosystem using ecological natural selection or symbiosis”, you can’t help acknowledging illness, decay, death, natural catastrophes, etc. as consequences arising from evolution.

These effects can be considered certainly evil as far as they affect mankind created in the Image of God.

So the question arises: Why did God shape creation this way?

My answer is as follows:

  • God creates the first Image Bearers in a stage of “original Blessing” capable of overcoming illness, aging, and death (what is not the same as having “eternal life”).

  • After the Fall God in His mercy decides to give sinners the opportunity to atone instead of throwing them to join the devil and his angels in hell. So sinners remain on earth in the stage of “need of Redemption” (the so called “stage of original sin”).

  • For the sake of Salvation God permits that humans are affected by illness, suffering, death originating from evolutionary mechanisms: Indeed such “side effects” of evolution help us to realize that we are not “like God”.

To this explanation one could object:

If evolutionary “side effects” like illness, suffering and death are supportive for Redemption, why did not Got create the first Image Bearers bowed to all these effects already before they fell?

My answer:

If God had created Humanity in such a way, He would have been the author of evil. So God can let “side effects” from evolution affect Image Bearers only AFTER these have sinned.

Since God in his omniscience foresaw the possibility of sin, He wisely made to Image Bearers only a little population among the millions of human-like animals spread all over the earth, according to Genesis 1:27 and 2:24. This was a population living in Mesopotamia, likely Sumer, who were called to live according to the primeval commandment Jesus refers to in Matthew 19:3-6 and Mark 10:2-9. Before the Fall these Image Bearers were not affected by illness, suffering and death: they lived in a stage of “original Blessing” (in @Aleo’s wording). After some of these Image Bearers (possibly not all) transgressed God’s commandment, this population lost the stage of “original Righteousness and Blessing” and evolved to the population around Noah as described in Genesis 5-6, ending in a stage of great wickedness, corruption, violence and disorder.

In this light the Flood appears as a Second Act of Creation: God wipes out the disorder and re-creates order. At the End of the Flood God transforms all human-like animals around the world into Image Bearers. This second act of creation is referred to in Genesis 9:6.

Since this very moment the following important principles hold:

  1. God identifies “Mankind” and “Being in the Image of God”.

  2. Both, the status of “Image Bearer” and that of “Belonging to Humanity” can be ascertained through cut-off anatomically observable features.

  3. For the sake of Salvation God permits that all Image-Bearers (members of Humanity) are affected by evolutionary “side effects”.

Notice that according to this explanation God is not the author of human evil and sin at any moment. The authors of human suffering are always we, the sinners. Nonetheless God in His mercy revealed us how to use evolutionary “side effects” to the end of salvation: He decided to die on the Cross, to show us (amazing grace!) how to transform suffering into love. This was fully realized by the good criminal being executed in a cross besides Jesus: the guy jumped on the chance with a request (Luke 23:42) we all should have in the lips when “sister death” (this “evolutionary side effect”) comes to visit us.

499

Antoine, this thread that you began so long ago contains enough food for thought it would warrant an entire book devoted exclusively to it. I found your dialogue with @Relates especially pertinent. That’s when I look at the arguments through the “theological” lens of my philosophical bifocals. It is when I view your arguments through the “science” lens (the ones for short-sightedness?) that I have problems. For example:

Science cannot provide a shred of evidence that humankind (or any of its predecessors) ever enjoyed such a condition even on a temporary basis. If one is forced to construct a theology upon A Fall from innocence, then one misses the true meaning of Original Blessing. As Teilhard saw it, evolution continuously led to more complex forms, first in the Cosmos, then in the Biosphere, and finally (just recently) in the Noosphere which produced a creature with a mind and conscience that could choose to cooperate with God as co-creator. The dark side of that Gift was, in freely refusing to cooperate, humankind was the first creature that could sin.

This sounds as if God waited until Adam sinned before deciding to send a Savior. (I realize that is NOT what you meant, but it does sound like it.). It is more satisfying to me to believe that God’s plan was to let the entire universe evolve toward more complexity until a life form reached the level consciousness (perhaps on thousands of other planets), and, if necessary, send them help (in whatever form they had attained) to overcome the innate selfishness of the evolutionary process, replacing it with love. And, not just incidentally, to use the Gift of Mind to overcome the bodily illnesses and suffering inherent in creation through evolution. IMHO bodily death was never in question–it always ended biological life. It took Jesus’ resurrection to show us that death is the way to eternal life.

@Relates
This is the problem that TE has not addressed properly if at all. The best answer is that God does not create using Darwinian natural selection. God does not use evil means to create good ends.
[/quote]
Roger, we as humans see both ‘evil’ (predation, illness, etc) and ‘good’ (symbiosis, ecological natural selection) operating in the evolutionary process. We can only guess as how God looks on them. It seems possible that if humans are destined to be truly co-creators and image bearers, that we must be faced with significant challenges to overcome. In the past, these challenges seemed overwhelming, and it was easy to believe that this earth was not our ‘true home’–that a carefree Heaven is what we should aspire to. Even if humans do find a way to overcome tribalism (true Christianity should be a great help) and we enter a Golden Age, there always will be plenty of challenges remaining in any Heaven on Earth.
Al Leo

500

Astonishingly, in the quote you refer to I am paraphrasing David Deutsch (see Reference [13] in my paper), who declares himself an atheist!

As you state, George Ellis utters a similar idea and interprets (like me) that the Multiverse is related to possibilities in God’s mind.

For me Ellis’ interpretation is what any “normally wired brain” (without “denial mechanism”) should conclude.

Let me add that your quote from my paper is completed by the last paragraph in it:

“But if the universe only starts with our observations, is then the Big Bang here?" To this question John A. Wheeler answered once: “A lovely way to put it -‘Is the big bang here?’ I can imagine that we will someday have to answer your question with a ‘yes’.” ([46], p. 6, note 5). Without “human free choices”, no physical reality!

Could you please tell us which “implications of his [George Ellis’] ideas about Morality and God” you find especially relevant? This may be of interest for all contributors to this thread. Thanks in advance!

501

Your question is quite good.
I am working on an answer and hope to post it in the coming days.

Meanwhile I would like to refer to this answer I have just posted in another thread, which adresses the question of “Miracles and the Multivers” and is somewhat related to your query.

502

The challenge of earth is choosing faith over fear, love over hate, which is why the White House is a terrible example. In heaven that is not a problem. Evil is defeated so we can enjoy life and all its goodness forever.

503

What you state here looks very much like Boltzmann’s view of thermodynamics (see Section X in this paper you already know). So you do justice to your name in this Forum!

Boltzmann description was still classical statistical mechanics. Which ingredients were lacking to have quantum mechanics? It is the word ‘random’ you introduce. In Boltzmann thermodynamics ‘random’ means inaccurate measurement of initial conditions by the experimenter, while ‘quantum randomness’ means impossibility of knowing such conditions by the experimenter even in principle.

‘Quantum randomness’ is a particular case of ‘free will’. This means: Behind the ‘random quantum events’ some (invisible) free will is acting from outside space-time, whose decisions are inaccessible to the experimenter before measurement.

Thus, if this free will behind quantum random processes wants it, you can get “lucky” enough, i.e. “throwing 1 million dices and having all of them land at 1”.

On the other hand, our brain is part of nature. If there were no randomness in nature our brain’s functioning would be completely predetermined and we couldn’t have freedom. Fortunately there is quantum randomness in our brain.

This makes it possible that you control the randomness in your brain through your free-will and bring about purposeful behavior. This is what happens when you are conscious and awake, and for instance write your smart comments. By contrast, while you are sleeping the neurons in your brain fire randomly to a great extent: During sleep your brain is really a quantum Boltzmann-Brain.

504

@AntoineSuarez
I would say that the problem with free will that you are pointing out is dualism. When one sets us a duality between free will and determinism, then you have a problem because free will and determinism are not opposites, but complementary.

The answer to dualism is triunity. Humans have free will because they have the choice between a whole spectrum of choices, not just two. There may be a right and a wrong, but usually there is no choice that has no negative aspect or no positive aspect. We are all sinners, but we are not all Hitlers.

The brain has the ability to compare multiple alternatives, which gives us freedom. The choice is not between Black and White which is no choice at all. The choice is in Whom does one trust?

In evolution variation is created by several factors. Mutations as random changes in DNA is only one of them. God gives us the ability to make a choice and by creating a diverse, triune reality. The free will is not absolute, but based on our ability to understand Reality and to make sound choice.

505

But isn’t the only difference between classical and quantum statistical mechanics the fact that the randomness in classical is just a matter of not being able to measure/know all the variables with perfect precision while quantum random is truly random/stochastic (or controlled by the free will of God if your metaphyisical ideas are right)? That’s what I meant by saying that the dice were not truly random and just an analogy. What I wanted to know if the apparent predictability of macroscopic events is the result of random quantum events “averaging”.

506

I’m working on that, I’m trying to gather the source material so I won’t misquote him, but I’ve been a little bit busy with work lately, sorry for the delay.

507

In my view, this is one of three main differences. Another is the discreteness of space-time we have already referred to in previous posts. And the third is this:

In classical statistical mechanics (Boltzmann) there is no sharp limit to define irreversibility. Suppose an experimenter injects a gas into a box through an opening. During injection the concentration of gas molecules will be high in a little region around the opening. But once injection ends it will decrease and after a time become about the same all over the box. The probability P of having spontaneously all gas molecules around the opening again decreases with increasing number of molecules N: when N tends to infinity, P tends to 0. Nonetheless by putting work into the system the experimenter can revert the process (“play the movie backwards”) to concentrate again the gas around the opening, and eject it from the box.

By contrast, quantum mechanics assumes irreversibility and a sharp limit for defining it, although we don’t know today where this limit lays. This is the so called Measurement Problem, which is the big challenge unsolved to date.

This problem has many implications. One of them refers to the moment when the outcome of a quantum experiment happens and a result becomes available as detection.

Consider for instance single photons being detected in a photomultiplier: The absorption of the incoming photon by an electrode called cathode results in the emission of an electron, which then is multiplied by releasing further electrons in a chain of electrodes known as dynodes; the chain ends with an electrode called anode collecting a huge number of released electrons. So, this amplification triggers a current flowing from the anode that is capable of producing a registered result, i.e.: a count one can hear as a click or see in digital counter.

In this amplification chain there is a moment T when the process cannot longer be reverted by the experimenter to restore the original quantum state of the incoming photon. This moment T marks the time when the detection takes place.

John A. Wheeler has described this moment with the famous quotation:

“No elementary quantum phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is a registered (‘observed’, ‘indelibly recorded’) phenomenon, ‘brought to a close’ by ‘an irreversible act of amplification’.”

The Measurement Problem refers to the fact that today we cannot say when and why this moment T takes place.

There are two main different Answers to this question:

The irreversible registration takes place

  1. at the moment when some experimenter observes and becomes aware of the outcome;

  2. somewhere in the apparatus, but the conditions defining T are related to the processes that happen in our brain when we consciously perceive a signal entering our senses.

I endorse Answer 2.

My answer is NO, and it follows from what I have previously said:

Note that you are introducing the concept of “macroscopic events” without definition.

So, when can an event be called “macroscopic”? We meet here again the Measurement Problem.

Accordingly we can answer:

The apparent predictability of “macroscopic events” is the result of the very process by which quantum experiments produce irreversibly registered outcomes that are accessible to our senses. After irreversible registration, we human experimenters are no longer capable of reproducing the original state because we can only act upon the system by means of operations within space-time: The outcome becomes a visible thing (for instance a blackening in a photographic plate or a mark printed on paper) whose trajectory is apparently predictable for us, that is we can predict it with probability near 1 (but never 1).

Quantum irreversibility has the noteworthy (but often overlooked) implication that we human experimenters cannot produce quantum superposition of “macroscopic objects” as for instance “Schrödinger cats” or “the sun dancing at 2 pm in the sky”. The “quantum esoteric” hype owes much of its success to the “Schrödinger cats”. One overlooks that such phenomena are in fact “miracles”, which can only be produced by someone acting into the system from outside space-time.

In a sense quantum irreversibility at detection is similar to the irreversibility of death: Something happens beyond our capabilities to repair.

I hope this is helpful and will be pleased providing further clarifications.

508

Albert,

actually it was @gbrooks9 who began this thread. I thank you both for your always thoughtful comments.

The idea with the book is interesting: Do you have a suggestion for a publisher?:slightly_smiling_face:

Introducing the conditional “if necessary” you seem to suggest that the alternative case was also possible, the case where “it was NOT necessary send them help to overcome the innate selfishness of the evolutionary process, replacing it with love.”

In my view this amounts to say that an original state had been possible where humans were bestowed by God with capability of overcoming the innate selfishness inherent in the evolutionary process.

But then why could they not have been bestowed as well with capability “to overcome the bodily illnesses and suffering inherent in creation through evolution”?

509

The context in which I used “if necessary” pertained to the possibility (even probability) that God has created other conscious life forms in this Universe through evolution, and that some of them are closer to being in His Image than we humans are. This seems more compatible with Teilhard’s concept of the entire Universe–not just this earth–being on the journey from Alpha to Omega. It also conforms to the concept that, in conceiving how a freely evolving Universe would develop, God would realize that his physical, observable presence would be required to guide some of these inevitable conscious creatures in the desired direction–thus, part of His nature would be that of Messiah, the universal Christ who was in existence before Time, before the Big Bang. This helps (but does not totally) explain how Jesus accepted the role of ‘Son of God the Father’ and could claim: “before Abraham was, I AM.”
Al Leo

510

Thanks for this Albert. I clarify my position:

In God’s mind the two histories are contained: The history where Adam (the first Image Bearer) sins and the alternative where Adam does not sin.

In both histories God foresees that His Son becomes flesh so that God’s Incarnation is the completion of Creation.

For the history where Adam sins God foresees that His incarnated Son acts as Savior as well.

In the history where Adam does not sin one can distinguish two main different histories:

  • Generations after Adam some other human sinned. Also here God foresees that His incarnated Son acts as Savior of humanity after the first sin.

  • No human sins: Here the Incarnation of God’s Son happens obviously at the end of time.

So, according to this position the incarnated God (John 1:14) is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End (Genesis 1:27; Revelation 22:13).

I would like to stress that I am not proposing “to construct a theology upon A Fall from innocence” but upon the following three Principles:

  1. God never violates the freedom of His creatures.

  2. God never is author of the sin.

  3. God always wants to redeem the sinners.

511

I apologize for the delay in answering (I have been engaged in surfing “Flood-waves” in this other thread).

The main objection in these “responses” you refer to against the discreteness or granularity of space-time (i.e.: the claim that “the universe actually has minimum size for space and time intervals” or “space-time is pixelated”) is the following:

“However, the issue here is not the existence of smaller time and length scales, but the observability of them. Given current technology and knowledge, we have no way to actually probe that scale at all.
It should be very clear that the inability to probe a certain scale does not imply the non-existence of lower level structure. If that were the case then we would have concluded that atoms do not exist just over a century ago, contrary to what we know today.
The strongest conclusion that might be drawn is that space and time have a minimal observable resolution. The issue of whether time and space are actually discrete as suggested here, is by no means settled.”

The fallacy behind this argument consists in assuming that space-time can be actually continuum while observably discrete because of a “minimal observable resolution”.

Space-time is the realm of all what is observable. If something is not observable in principle, it does NOT exist in space-time at all. Accordingly, assuming that there is a “minimal observable resolution” is exactly the same as assuming that “space-time is actually discrete”.

Recently I have posted this video:

I am interested in your opinion, if you find time to watch it.

512

In my view Alpha and Omega of the entire Universe is the Incarnated of God’s Son, Jesus Christ (Revelation 22:13): It is the Incarnation of God what was aimed by the Big Bang and the subsequent evolution.

In Genesis it is said for three times that “in the image of God has God made mankind” (Genesis 1:27; 5:1; 9:6).

Therefore by “making mankind in the image of God” God is designating the kind of body He prepares for His Son.

From this we are led to the conclusion:

If there are life forms being in the Image of God in other planets outside the Solar System, they necessarily are human ones.

513

Dr Suarez, I’m confused.
NT alludes to “form of a servant” in the terms of Christ’s taking it on.
Genesis uses a different word–image–which in ANE times alluded to a governing representative of the central king.
You are alluding to a governing representative, not a hominid carbon based life form (to take on Star Trek allusions), right?

Thank you!

514

The Son of God is in the likeness of God and the genuine Image of God (Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3; 2 Corinthians 4:4).

“Making mankind in God’s image” (Genesis 1:27) means determining the body God wants for the Incarnation of His Son: God makes his Son in human likeness (Philippians 2:7) in order to make mankind in God’s likeness; it is by becoming Jesus Christ (embodied God) that humans and humanity becomes God’s body, and therefore in the Image of God.

So God’s Incarnation is the achievement of the whole Creation: It is the Incarnation of God what was aimed by the Big Bang and the subsequent evolution.

By “taking the human body” God also “takes the form of a servant”, as you rightly say:

“He made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:7-8).

Humans sin because they delude themselves believing that God is power and glory, and then desire equality with God to use it to their own advantage. In the cross God hides His power and glory so that humans can only see what He actually is: love, and sinners are moved to freely love God.

515

I fully agree to this.

This is the reason why I propose a Two-Phase-Creation narrative.

In the first phase God created a little population of Image Bearers bestowed with the Gift you refer to: capability for freely loving God. By this act God defines the kind of body His Son will take and thereby He defines Humanity as well: God’s choice founds the dignity of humanity, which implies that each Image Bearer has to respect any creature exhibiting a specific human body.

Some of these primeval Image Bearers (probably most of them but not necessarily all) “freely refused to cooperate” with God (as you rightly say). The so fallen population evolved to the situation referred to in Genesis 6:5-7, 11-12: “The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth […] the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.”

How could such an evil thing happen? Apparently because the sinners did not realize that God let them on earth to give them time to atone.

The Flood closes this first phase.

In the second phase God makes to Image Bearers all creatures sharing a human body. This is the moment referred to in Genesis 9:6 where God explicitly and solemnly enacts the prohibition of homicide. Furthermore God establishes an everlasting covenant with all humankind putting the rainbow as sign (Genesis 9: 8-17), which makes plain that God does not like to see wicked people die but wants them to turn from their wicked ways and live.

So the Flood reveals an important aspect in God’s strategy for Humanity:

He could very well have renounced to a Redemption plan, removing again and again the sinners from earth and letting here only sinless people who were not in need of Redemption.

However God in His love for Humanity preferred to redeem the sinners.

One could say that Genesis 1-2 is a “Creation narrative” while Genesis 6-9 is a “Recreation and Redemption” narrative:

The first Image Bearers (Genesis 1-2) were not in need of Redemption, while the new Image Bearers coming into existence after the Flood (Genesis 9) are in need of Redemption.

Christian theology is definitely not “constructed upon a Fall from innocence” but “upon Freedom and Redemption”.