Then I think you can accept my explanation on the basis of Max Born’s interpretation of quantum physics:
God is kind to us and ordinarily shapes the world according to mathematical equations and regularities so that we can predict it and live in. Nonetheless there is no mathematical equation fitting exactly all the possible outcomes contained in God’s mind: if He considers it convenient, He may also produce events that are outside the ordinary course of nature. These are what people of all times call “miracles”. One of these is certainly the resurrection of Jesus himself and that of Lazarus. But the Israelites Crossing of Red Sea and Noah’s Flood could be other.
In conclusion, “miracles” do not break any “law of nature”. They rather show that God is acting in our world. And the fact that God shapes ordinarily the world so that we can make models that work it is by far “the biggest miracle”.
The problem with the multiverse is that there is no way of verifying and knowing if it works. We might think they work, but that could be wishful thinking. I do not think that God works like that, certainly not in the New Testament or through science.
If God knows what is and what the ending will be, God does not have to know all the ways to get there in advance. God is smart enough and wise enough and powerful enough to work with all of us to save us through history through God’s Love. God does not need any thing and God does not need foreknowledge to do God’s Will.
Independently of whether or not it is testable , as an interpretation it is fitting for certain miracles.
In another posting I have referred to the so called “Miracle of the Sun” or “Miracle of Fatima”, which happened on October 13, 1917 (see for instance this article in the The Washington Post). Since May 13, 1917 the Virgin Mary was appearing to three children on the 13th of each month at Cova da Iria. On September 13 one of the three, Lucia Dos Santos, said the Virgin Mary told her, “In October I will perform a miracle so that all may believe.” On October 13, at about 2 pm the sun ‘danced’ before the astonished eyes of a crowd of 70’000 who had gathered at Cova da Iria to see the predicted miracle. The whirling sun was also seen by people who were not at Cova da Iria but in villages nearby. In the rest of the world nothing extraordinary was recorded.
The fact that 70’000 people perceived the phenomenon whereas billions around the earth didn’t, can be considered a demonstration of the possibility of “parallel worlds” very much in the spirit of the “Multiverse” interpretation of quantum mechanics: God let the 70’000 live in a “parallel world”, which was not less real than “the rest of the world”.
You can apply a similar explanation to Noah’s Flood and the Exodus of the Israelites.
If one understands the Multiverse as the (finite) number of all possible histories contained in God’s mind, then the Multiverse is rather a logical consequence of acknowledging God’s omniscience and human free will.
A particular consequence of this is that God can produce two real worlds running parallel during a time, so that in one world things occur according to the ordinary patterns we are used to, and in the other world deviating from these patterns. This seems to be what happened in the so called “Miracle of Fatima” on 13th October 1917, according to the reports of witnesses. In this perspective this “Miracle” can even be considered an experimental test upholding the Multiverse.
Such an explanation could be applied to the Flood in Genesis 6-9:
Noah, his family and the people who perished, they all can be supposed living in the region of the antediluvian Sumer cities and having experienced the Flood according to the Genesis narrative, while the rest of the planet was populated by creatures that remained safe and became accountable only at the end of the Flood (see the thread “My theory about the Flood”). Additionally at the end of the Flood no geological evidence of the miracle remains. We believe that it occurred on the basis of the narratives in the Old and New Testament, as we believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ on the basis of the witnesses of his disciples and not because of any archeological vestiges.
It may be interesting to discuss whether a similar explanation could also be applied to the Exodus of the Israelites with the Crossing of the Read See and the 40 years journey in the wilderness.
Thanks for this remark. I try to explain things better.
In my view, there are two types of divine interventions in our universe:
I. Those by which God shapes the ordinary phenomena we are used to, which happen according to regularities we can grasp with mathematical equations (for instance the trajectory of the sun).
II. Those by which God produces phenomena deviating from these regularities, that is, miracles (for instance resurrection of Jesus Christ, the sun dancing in Fatima, or the sun stopping in Joshua’s book).
Regarding phenomena of Type I we have plenty of records by means of apparatuses.
Regarding phenomena of Type II sometimes there are presumed records (Turin Shroud or Guadalupe Tilma). These can help to strengthen our belief in the corresponding miracles but are not decisive for it: We believe in God’s miraculous intervention because of accounts done by trustworthy witnesses. Once again miracles don’t break any “laws of nature”; and the “biggest miracle” is the ordinary phenomena God shapes according to mathematical rules so that we can predict and calculate them.
So, when a miracle happens you have two groups of people: the witnesses and the others. It seems clear to me that in the moment of the miracle the witnesses and the others can be considered as living in two real parallel worlds watching even the “same object” appearing in different ways (e.g.: sun dancing vs. sun following its normal trajectory).
Before continuing I would be thankful to know whether or not you agree to the preceding statements.
I mean that in miraculous interventions of God you have people living in two real parallel worlds and watching different phenomena at the same place and time.
I have referred to the “Miracle of Fatima”. Another similar example is the conversion of Paul the Apostle, according to the narrative in Acts 22:9.
On this basis one can already conclude that the hypothesis of the Multiverse may be an argument in favor of Miracles, rather than one against God.
And the hypothesis has many other interesting implications.
It’s an interesting hypothesis that raises questions. Are these “temporary” or “virtual” universes that “resolve” back to one? Something like an uncollapsed wave function?
I wonder, though, if this is merely a conceptual exercise that spurns evidential testing, and again, if Willy Ockham might have a problem with it. It’s one thing to add an extra variable or two…it’s another to add a while universe!
The many-worlds theory was introduced by US physicist Hugh Everett to avoid “the collapse of the wave function” (the so called “Copenhagen interpretation”): It assumes that in any experimental round the universe and the experimenter split, so that all possible outcomes become realized in parallel universes and observed by a parallel experimenter. So the parallel universes are supposed to be as real as the initial universe before splitting. Additionally it is supposed that after splitting the parallel universes are inaccessible to each other.
So there is no “collapse” and thus no need of invoking influences coming from outside space-time. Free-will and the personal identity disappear.
However one can raise the following objection (in accord with Leibniz’s Principle):
If something cannot in principle be accessed by observation, it does not exist in space-time at all. And if we can derive its existence by reasoning, this means that it exits mentally beyond space-time as the content of some mind. The “many worlds” proposed by Everett are not “parallel space-times”, but are rather possible thoughts in the “mind of God”.
So at the end of the day both the “collapse” and “many-worlds” are basically equivalent: Both interpretations imply that the “physical reality” we live in is more than what we can access with our senses.
In this light one can formulate the Multiverse hypothesis a bit differently:
When I perform an experiment by choosing certain settings of my apparatus, all other possible alternative choices I could make are also contained in God’s mind, who assigns corresponding outcomes following the quantum mechanical principles (the so called Born’s rule). So in this version of the hypothesis for each choice we maintain only one outcome and shave all possible alternative ones (Willy Ockham will be happy!).
The interest of this explanation is that allow you to have both: Divine omniscience and human free will. All possible choices humans of all times could do (all possible histories) are contained in God’s mind: God knows what would have occurred in case something would have happened that did not happen. Nonetheless I am perfectly free to realize the history I want for me. From my perspective I experience as real the history where I choose to live. However from God’s perspective all histories are equivalent or equal real, in the sense that all of them have the same end: God’s Kingdom.
In summary, the idea of parallel worlds is interesting to explain miracles (in particular Noah’s Flood) and to solve the outstanding theological conundrum of harmonizing divine omniscience and human free will: If I choose to sin, the alternative history where I do not sin is also contained in God’s mind.
Willy might also be happy to avoid the theological quagmire that infinitely multiplying universes would entail. Which universe gets picked by God as the “real one” with regard to judgment day? The one where John Doe accepted Christ … or another one where he didn’t? Maybe he picks that one rare universe were none of us choose to sin ever! But that world would be so unlike our present one (in terms of who all even exists) that nobody could reasonably suggest any meaningful continuity between the two.
Arguably we would participate in the creation of the future (i.e., the “one future that actually exists beyond mere possibility”), and there is some merit to that idea.
A crucial deference between my explanation All Possible Worlds and the conventional Many-Worlds or Multiverse is that the number of worlds I assume is finite. This means that in God’s mind can be contained only a finite number of possible human histories. So Willy Ockham will be happy in this respect.
Mervin, here you have just hit the nail on the head!
The history where “none of us choose to sin ever” (let us call it H0 for “History with zero sin”) has necessarily to be considered by God as really possible, otherwise we would not be free to NOT sin, what is absurd.
So in this H0 history God defines the precise number of places in heaven and the names of them who will occupy them.
All other histories will in the end bring the same number of saints into heaven as in H0, and consequently the names will be the same as in H0. In this sense if one looks “from the End” (i.e.: God’s perspective) all possible histories are equivalent.
If I commit the madness of renouncing to occupy a place in heaven, the place will not remain unoccupied, but I will remain without name (be none) forever.
So there is “meaningful continuity” between H0 and any other possible history.
A final remark:
If you deny alternative worlds in God’s mind you would deny that “we participate in the creation of the future” (as @fmiddel rightly remarks) and this would mean that God predestines people to go to hell, what is absolutely contrary to God’s wisdom, justice, and mercy. A much bigger “theological quagmire” than the Multiverse!
You seem to have landed on a perfecting mathematics for how this could work! You might have delved further into this possibility than what I’ve grasped here, but it seems to me that I could still rest not-too-uncomfortably in my less exciting notion of our one solitary universe existing here complete with our in-built free will to help determine how things play out in at least one small corner of it.
Regarding the quagmire of having God consign people to eternal punishment if they never were offered any real opportunity to escape from — I hear and agree with you there.
It seems to me that your “less exciting notion” is equivalent to my proposal with “all possible histories” after all:
Suppose you decide to sin and reject God in “our one solitary universe”. If you claim that in choosing to sin you are free, this means that in God’s mind the possibility that you do NOT sin is a real one, otherwise God would have “consign you to eternal punishment”.
This means that in each action where it is possible for a human person to sin, two alternative paths are contained in God’s mind: The path where this person decides to loathe God, and also the path where this person decides to love Him.
Accordingly in God’s mind are contained all possible human histories. Nonetheless for God all these histories are equivalent since all of them will end in “the feast of God’s Kingdom”, where all places will be occupied (Luke 14:15-24).