"D. F. Siemens, Jr." wrote:
> ..........................................................
> > If we assume for the sake of argument that God is indeed
> > immutable &
> > is never surprised then the God who was aware of the work of Bolyai
> > and
> > Lobachevsky ~1820 is identical in all respects with the God who
> > spoke with
> > Moses ~1000 years before Euclid. & while speaking with Moses, God
> > knew
> > non-Euclidean geometry. & I don't think that he got that knowledge
> > simply by
> > foreknowing what B & L would do.
> > My question was, you will realize, posed in a somewhat
> > whimsical
> > way. What I would say more substantively is that math pattern is a
> > fundamental aspect of the world that science discovers, and if we
> > believe
> > that the world is God's creation, that pattern is God's creation. &
> > since
> > God created the world freely, God could have (& maybe did) create
> > worlds with
> > other math patterns.
>
> I think two distinct matters are here conflated. First, every
> mathematical calculus is true in all possible worlds. This, of course,
> requires that it be understood within its given axioms, postulates and
> definitions. These may be changed to produce different calculi. Thus the
> Riemannian plane geometry that can be mapped onto the surface of a sphere
> requires that there be no parallel lines. Taking this provision out of
> its context, and the Euclidean proof (original) or postulate (current)
> out of its context, no parallel lines and one parallel line contradict
> each other. In empirical practice, none of our vernier protractors can
> measure accurately enough to establish which multidimensional geometry
> holds in our universe. Second, which mathematical system "fits" the
> universe does not have to be the same if there are more than one. I
> understand that a non-theistic view argues that ours is only one of an
> infinite number of "bubbles" that produced alternate universes. But they
> are inaccessible to us, as I presume an alternate created universe would
> be, at least apart from divine intervention, and so do not affect our
> science. If I understand the situation correctly, even wormholes won't
> connect us.
>
First, our measurements _can_ show that the geometry of the world is
not that of Euclid: The observations that are involved are those that show
the superiority of general relativity to Newtonian theory.
2d, belief in multiple universes is not _necessarily_ non-theistic:
There are, e.g., rabbinic speculations that God had created other universes
before this one. I wasn't referring to such ideas or modern notions about
bubble universes &c but to the theological view that God's creation of the
world is contingent, that God could have created other universes or that he
could have created one universe with a kind of order different from the one
we observe. (The latter belief, BTW, is expressed in the ASA Statement of
Faith. The story of how it got there is a little odd, but that's another
matter.)
Shalom
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
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