quantum

I believe that the Open View of God may, in fact, explain one of the greatest mysteries facing physicists today: the so called "quantum wave collapse", and it's theoretical corollary: the "Many Worlds Interpretation".

Dr. Boyd's compelling argument for the "Open View" of God uses extensive scriptural references as support. Anyone who takes Scripture at face value will have a hard time coming away from this argument with a (continued) belief that everything about the future is exhaustively settled. I highly recommend that you examine this argument for yourself:

Though much about the future God leaves intentionally open, there are certainly times when God decides He must have things go a certain way. Dr. Boyd frequently cites God's ability to influence the future by way of identifying and ensuring the presence of likely situations, or more specifically, likely types of people. The idea is, for instance, that by ensuring that there are "enough" of a certain type of people around, God can pretty well ensure that something He wants to happen will happen. For example, here is one quote from Dr. Boyd's work:

Matthew 20:17-19

"The Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and on the third day he will be raised."

God knew perfectly the hearts of all the Jewish and Gentile people who would be involved in the crucifixion. Indeed, it seems he chose this moment in history to send Jesus into the world precisely because he saw that circumstances were developing in such a way that his plans would be readily accomplished. Hence Paul says that "at the right time" Christ died for us (Rom. 5:16, cf. Mark 1:15, Gal. 4:4, Eph. 1:10).

The Lord knew that, with a minimal amount of providential intervening, these evil people would act in certain ways toward his Son. We need not conclude, therefore, that God had to foreknow from the foundation of the world every decision each of these people would make--together with all the free agents in world history--for him to achieve his objectives. He is wise enough to ensure the success of his plan while working around and through the free agency of people. And he does not need "crystal ball" vision of the future to do it.

Dr. Boyd in no way doubts that God can do whatever He wants to do (and I certainly agree!), as exemplified by the following from his work:

However, I admit I was somewhat uncomfortable with his theory as to how God would ensure certain events. It felt a little "soft" to me. Rather, it would seem more likely that God knows all possibilities ahead of time, and can view the consequences of each potential "future path". From these, He can determine which paths He'll allow, that will still result in accomplishing His Plan. Sometimes, He may restrict the possible paths to one.

So, is there evidence that such myriad "future paths" actually exist to be seen? I believe so. Enter -- the "Quantum Wave"!

The "new physics" of quantum theory has, at its core, a mathematical model which is remarkably good at predicting actual behavior in the world of sub-atomic particles. Better than any theory before it. But there's a catch. For the math to work (and it does!), it requires that a particle (like an electron) is not in any one particular (no pun intended!) place at any given time (like in orbit around a nucleus). Rather, it must be in many places at the same time (like a "cloud" of ghostly electrons around a nucleus). The physics of an atom actually require that this be the case, else in very little time, the electron would lose energy and fall into the nucleus. Everything would cease to exist. So the cloud is not just a mathematical construct to try to make sense out of numbers. It's a requirement for reality (by the way, anyone who would take the time to study the sub-atomic world even at the surface would have to come away with the realization that such awesome complexity and exactness of design require a Designer!!).

It seems that only the act of measuring (looking at) the electron "pins down" a single location. Once this is done, the reality of "where" the electron "really" is can be known. Until then, all locations are possible. Some are more probable, but all exist until one is "selected" by measurement. So it turns out that things (at least at this level) behave more like "waves" (all smeared out across a spectrum of possibilities) than as single "points" (well defined in particular locations). Weird, but true. So where do all the possibilities "live" if all the possibilities which exist at the same time are real? And does this "simultaneous existence of possibilities" apply to "big things" as well as "tiny things"? The concept that all possibilities exist as a "wave of possibilities" yields some interesting necessities of reality. Let's look at one theory: "Parallel Universes", also known as "Parallel Worlds" or the "Many Worlds Interpretation" (MWI):

(Excerpts from "Parallel Worlds" by Fred Wolf):

For example, a flipped coin falls heads. The same coin falls tails in a parallel world. The wave that represents the coin contains both possibilities. It contains even more possibilities for the coin. It contains the possibility that the coin could land on its side. It contains the possibility that the coin could suddenly absorb a great deal of energy and boil off into separate atoms. It contains the possibility that the coin could vanish right before your eyes and then reappear on the other side of the room. Anything that can happen, even though extremely remote, is contained in the wave.

The different possibilities are limited only by the imagination of the experimenter. If a certain event is more likely to occur somewhere rather than somewhere else, the wave that represents the different possibilities will be more concentrated, higher in intensity, in the neighborhood of that event. The wave takes advantage of each opening possibility for it to flow into. Just as an ocean wave splits into parts flowing into different channels, eddies, and God knows whatever, the wave of possibilities takes advantage of every opening, every nook and cranny, every smidgen of possibility that an experimenter can devise.

If an observer or experimenter changes those possibilities, the wave changes accordingly. Just as a wave can be split into parts and then recombined after passing through or around obstacles, the wave of possibilities can be split apart and can be merged too. Always, like the great oceans that surround us, the wave persists.

What is perfectly simple from a wave point of view is perfectly bizarre when one puts oneself into the picture or when one attempts to describe what is going on at the level of atoms and molecules. At this level, the wave is totally invisible. The different possibilities are not waves spilling over jetties and around barriers or piers, they are realities in different worlds. Each world appears and disappears--re-combining back into one world--each time a subatomic particle interacts with something.

The world seems flimsy when seen from the wave of possibilities-parallel worlds--view. Its strength comes from the fact that many, many possibilities combine, creating what appears to be one gigantic reality. But this reality is just a combination of other flimsier realities. And these realities are continuing to split apart and rejoin every time something called an interaction takes place.

In the new physics, there are an infinite number of trails that we can follow, all starting at one place and time and all ending at another place and time. There is literally an infinity-to-one correspondence between what we predict and what we observe. We need an infinite number of maps to guide us through the quantum universe. But these aren't just mathematical exercises designed to confound our minds. Such concepts as infinity and a space that "contains" all possibilities including other universes, called a superspace, appear to be necessary, indeed indispensable, to describe the real world.

Told you it was weird. Reality -- what a concept! But look at it like this: God sees all possible futures and He can know every detail of each future (for example, knowing that the Peter would betray Jesus 3 times before the cock crowed -- the kind of detail that requires a fairly in-depth knowledge, rather than a "soft" predictability). Free agent (that's us) choices will impact which future path we travel, but God can see all details of all futures. He can intervene at whatever level of detail (from sub-atomic up) is required to achieve His goals. Being omnipotent, He can cause the choosing of a particular future (even if it means overriding His moral agents at times), or He can simply "restrict the possibilities" if necessary, since more than one road may lead to His goals. For example, prayers request a certain future (God's intervention at a certain level). If God determines that a prayer can and should be answered, and that intervention will not jeopardize His Plans, it will be answered.

Recent experiments have added weight to the intuitively hard-to-accept idea that sub-atomic particles can be in two places at the same time. See the link below for a review by Bill Koenig (www.watch.org) and extracts of a recent article in the UK times:

God leaves His fingerprints all over His design. Could this all be part of the mechanism God designed into the universe to be able to foresee all possibilities and guide the future? I wouldn't put it past Him!!