Commenting
on the Special Theory of Relativity (STR), General Theory of Relativity (GTR),
and its relationship to the Latter-day Saint belief that God the Father has a body, Blake Ostler wrote:
The challenges presented by STR and GTR
confront Mormonism with some force because God the Father is not merely
material, he is corporeal. Any body, even a glorified body, must have
spatiotemporal extension and be located within the three dimensions of space
and a fourth dimension defined by a temporal coordinate. God the Father is thus
located at a place and a temporal, inertial frame of reference. Further, the
Godhead is material though not limited to any particular inertial frame of
reference. A God who is present in space-time must be subject to the law of
entropy which applies to all things in the material universe. Thus, God’s body
is subject to the law of entropy which dictates that his body will increase in
entropy or decrease in organization over time. That is, it is logically
possible that the Father’s body will decompose at some time. If the Godhead is
material and the Father is corporeal, then they are limited to space-time. Any
entity limited to space-time must also be subject to the law of gravity which
defines space-time curvature in local regions defined by matter.
The sense in which the Father’s body is like
a human body must be qualified somewhat. The Father may have a body in some
sense distinctively like a human body, but the Father is not a mere body any
more than persons are mere bodies. The senses in which a glorified body may be
different from human bodies are numerous. For example, a glorified body is
presumably like the body of the resurrected Christ—a pneumikos or spiritual body in the terminology of the Apostle Paul
(1 Cor. 15:44). This type of body, although made of matter, is matter in a very
special or equivocal sense for it is, like spirit, more pure and refined than
crass matter that is visible to human eyes; “All spirit is matter, but it is more
pure, and can be discerned only by purer eyes. We cannot see it, but when our
bodies are purified we shall see that it is all matter” (D&C 131:7-8).
Presumably one of the properties of a glorified body is that it is not impeded
by other material objects like walls, for the resurrected Christ apparently
appeared in a closed room, “the doors being shut,” when he appeared to the ten
apostles in the absence of Thomas (John 20:26).
But what then is a body like that can pass through
walls? If the Father tried to cross the vast universe, would the travel be
limited to the mere speed of light and thus take vast amounts of time to get
from here to there like other material objects in the universe? If God wandered
too near a black hole, would his body be pulled into gravitational forces which
is inescapable by every other type of material body known to us? If the
universe collapsed in the opposite of the big bang, the big crunch, would God’s
body be smashed by the incredible gravitational forces? I don’t mean to be
impious. These questions naturally arise if we take seriously the notion that
the Father has a material body located within the space-time universe, for our
bodies clearly would be crushed by such forces. Yet I think our well-founded intuition
is that God must be impervious to such forces. The theory of relativity thus
appears to provide a strong reason for locating God outside of space-time and
rejecting the notion of a material God.
Of course, given recent experimental results,
it is possible for material objects to travel faster than the speed of light.
Another way to escape these difficulties is to suggest that the matter
constituting God’s body is gloriously transformed so that it is not subject to
the same natural laws that human bodies are subject to. However, such a move
adopts an equivocal meaning of “matter” and “body” so different from their
usual meaning that one has to wonder what cognitive content remains in such
words when used in such ways. Further, the Mormon tradition has squarely
rejected the view that God’s mode of being is entirely other than ours or is
entirely mysterious, though there are many aspects of God’s existence which are
clearly beyond our capacity to grasp. In any event, Mormon writers have
asserted not merely that God is material in some respects or that the Father
has a body, but also that God’s body “is as tangible as man’s” (D&C 130:2).
This assertion suggests at least some continuity of meaning between what a
human body is like and God’s body.
The problems suggested by the natural
properties of material objects, such as being subject to entropy, can be
resolved by the notion of God’s concurring power. As explained in the
discussion of God’s maximal power, God transcends the natural space-time
universe to the extent that properties of natural objects depend on God’s
concurrence for their effective causal activity within the space-time universe.
Moreover, the very fact that material objects organize and define space-time in
the sense that they do is also dependent on God’s concurring power. Thus, the
natural tendency which material objects to decompose and increase in entropy in
a closed system can be frustrated if God withdraws his concurring power. A
glorified body may thus be one that is not subject to the laws of entropy
because God has withdrawn his concurring power from the material objects of
which such bodies are composed. However, he withdraws his concurring power only
to the extent that it relates to the tendencies to increase in entropy. Indeed,
it seems possible for God to constantly redirect the mass-energy of the
universe toward organization in localized regions so that material objects can
expend energy in self-organizing ways. The total sum of mass-energy is never
depleted or reduced; it is merely organized and reorganized in ways that can
serve God’s purposes. That the nomological properties possessed by natural
substances can be effectuated in a world only if God concurs entails that no
natural law is necessarily controlling for God. He can determine whether the
law of entropy defines the behavior of mass-energy.
The problem presented by gravity and black
holes can be resolved in an analogous way. According to GTR, gravity merely defines
the natural tendency material objects have to travel in a straight line in
space-time. If this natural tendency is frustrated by withdrawing concurring
power, then the material object may not travel in a straight line in
space-time. From our perspective, it would thus appear that a material object
would escape the gravitational pull of even a black hole because it would not “fall”
into the black hole even if it went beyond the event horizon.
The notion that God is immediately present to
all things in all inertial frames of reference seems to be impossible, however,
if there simply is no simultaneous “now” which can be defined which applies to
all places in the universe at once. Given Einstein’s version of GTR, there
simply is no such thing as a universe which exists “all at once.” There simply
is no privileged position from which two events can be defined as simultaneous.
The same reality O can be future (and
therefore not yet actual) with respect to one observer in an inertial frame of
reference FR1 and yet O is already present and therefore
actual with respect to an observer in another frame of reference FR2. If O is both not yet actual in FR1
and actual in FR2,
how can God experience O as both
actual and not yet actual? Since whether two events are really simultaneous
depends on the observer given the GTR, there cannot be any being who is present
to all actualities throughout the universe in a single frame of reference. This
problem cannot be resolved merely by reference to God’s concurring power, for
God cannot know as actual what is not actual. The only way to resolve this
problem is to define a frame of reference which is not limited to any
particular perspective or inertial frame of reference but which includes them
all. Yet if Einstein’s theory of GTR is correct, there simply is no such
overarching and inclusive frame of reference. (Blake T. Oster, Exploring Mormon Thought, volume 1: The
Attributes of God [Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2001], 351-54)
