From: Dr. Blake Nelson (bnelson301@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Jul 09 2003 - 05:28:54 EDT
I still get hung up on statements like, in another
universe did Jesus marry, was Mohammed the Messiah,
(Nero raised from the dead), etc. These are not on
their surface quantum events and thus are not
possibilities that readily flow from the MWH (at best
one can hypothesize that these events are due to a
vast conglomeration of quantum events, but it is not
clear to me that they are). Just because something is
imaginable doesn't mean that a universe exists where
it happened, even if MWH is true, which has been my
point all along with where this line of what ifs seems
to go too far.
I am also uncertain that the MWH says much about
eschatological hope. On one level, if we use Glenn's
way of talking about it (which I have the
aforementioned issue with) then everyone is saved in
some universe (for Glenn's infinity in Hell there is
an inifinity in Heaven). I don't see this as a
problem with vindication that George may because --
leaving aside what Hell means -- divine justice is not
in anyway compromised. I find the notion, even if it
were theoretically possible, of a quantumly entangled
infinity of Glenns no more difficult a problem for God
to sort out than one Glenn. Certainly, our hope is
not in a particular Hubble volume, but in a different
kind of life after death, which perhaps reconciles any
particular difficulty one may think inheres in there
possibly being multiple me-s (of course to go back to
a point Howard, those me-s may be considered DIFFERENT
people, not the same person. Plenty of philosophers
think there is a new and different "me" each moment
and pose the question, which one does God save? The
"last" one? How are parallel quanum "me-s" any
different, assuming they are all "me" whatever that
means).
Finally, for reasons discussed above, I don't see how
the MWH allows for Nero, for example, to be raised
from the dead. If raising from the dead is an act of
God, even if it is built in from the beginning, it
would be an act it seems to me that is done, if
necessary, to vindicate the incarnation of the second
person of the trinity. Thus, it only occurs in those
universes where that is necessary, i.e., it is not
possible that Nero (as we know him) is raised from the
dead in any possible universe. As I have said, it
does not follow to me, and maybe I am thick, that just
because all possible quantum event outcomes are
realized that all imaginable macro events occur.
Likewise, if it is an act of God that occurs in a
supernatural way (however, ill-defined we want to use
that term), then it is not a matter for MWH at all.
I just don't see how MWH particularly effects
eschatology in a different way, but it may be my own
lack of understanding that prevents me from seeing
this point.
--- Glenn Morton <glennmorton@entouch.net> wrote:
> George wrote:
>
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: George Murphy [mailto:gmurphy@raex.com]
> >Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2003 2:26 PM
> >
> > I think that Glenn's point can be stated better
> than by
> >putting it in terms of
> >who will be in Hell & who won't, & that Howard's
> description in
> >terms of acceptance or
> >non-acceptance of a set of propositions is
> something of a
> >caricature of traditional
> >Christian belief. But there is a significant issue
> here: How can
> >there be an
> >acceptable Christian eschatology with MWH?
> >
> > By "acceptable eschatology" I mean one that
> involves some
> >ultimate vindication
> >of the good and defeat of evil.
>
> Wow. I guess since I am at the other end of the
> Bible most often, I hadn't
> thought of that one. As I understand the MWH, there
> would probably be
> universes where evil ultimatly prevails, in a
> supposedly God-created
> universe.
>
> And would their be universes in which Mohammed was
> the Messiah?
>
>
>
>
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