Sunday, April 28, 2019

Blake Ostler on the Special Theory of Relativity, the General Theory of Relativity and LDS Theology


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)