The Theological Problem of Evil

Two characters from my book Pieces of Eight discuss the theological problem of evil.

“How can God pre-determine and create a Universe and be consistent with His nature as perfect and without sin or wickedness; sin and wickedness exist in the Universe and hence Multiverse and if they are pre-determined then God has created sin and wickedness too, no?

“I must stipulate a no John. God cannot sin or create wickedness.”

“Yet each exists and the Universe must be predetermined along with the Multiverse if God is to have created it.”

“Hell exists John. And the Lord was crucified. Each were or are at least nominally wicked from my point of view. I don’t mean that the plan of God to allow His Son to be crucified as a substitute for the original sin debt of humanity was wicked; it is just that it was existentially a wicked experience for the Lord; for any human, to go through.”

“Sure Carla; wickedness exists and the Lord God being omni-powerful created not only it- he created everything else; and yet free will exists. For many that is another apparently contradictory point about God. I believe however that the Multiverse and quantum mechanics may account for each, as it also may account for quantum gravity and relativity.”

“How so John?”

“Consider Carla that relativity requires a time dimension to exist as anything besides a static form of space-time composition. If the Universe were entirely pre-determined and pre-created in its fullness from alpha to omega however, comparable to a digital action movie stored on a microchip, the relativistic effects and changes of space-time would be contingent and superficial emergent characteristics of the present time line position of inhabitants of the movie. Even relativity would be an apparent rather than a real experience.”

“Yes John. I follow that. The characteristic of a fully created and static Universe that had apparent motion experienced by people living within it just as minds or thoughts experiencing it as they moved forward within the Universe’s space-time line might well appear to have the qualities of real motion, time and general relativity commonly regarded as actual qualities of space-time.”

“Thus it is that there is a great difference between apparent and actual material facts regarded by a conscious mind, at least potentially or theoretically. Plato’s famous Allegory of the Cave recorded that idea many thousands of years ago in the Earth’s lost past. Still, we have the problem of evil as it relates to God in addition to the nature of the Multiverse and FTL 5 units to consider.”

“Of course John, please continue.”

“An infinite Multiverse could be encompassed by God as an idea pre-determined yet infinitely malleable. For now I will stipulate that the Multiverse created is static and that minds existing within it experience it contingently without awareness that it is their ideas traveling within its spatio-temporal substance rather than Multiverse or any given Universe itself.

Every possible Universe in any form is pre-created within an idea of God that hasn’t spatial-temporal dimension or scale; God is spirit. The Multiverse is a contingent idea of less necessary size than that of a Plank length.”

“Then John, the Multiverse to be consistent would require that each thought of any mind would be consistent with the appropriate pre-determined physical structure of a single Universe; logically then a single thought would switch any individual’s thought to another Universe with a structure consistent with that though selected by the individual.”

“Yes Carla. That is perhaps one of the most remarkable features of a Multiverse with free will and pre-determinism coexisting. All of the infinite Universes existing within the Multiverse allow seamless thought transference laterally. It is just the number of souls that are conscious thought that are finite or at least numbered and known to God that exist within the Multiverse.

And that is why God could pre-determine every possible Universe and pre-create it in its fullness and allow free will to flow within it to such an extent that it could choose wickedness and occupy spatio-temporal material locations consistent with it; until people choose wickedness, the locations of wickedness aren’t used. They are empty shells without spirit within them.”

“Sure John. Hell existed yet one need choose not to be saved to occupy it. Wicked scenes in the Multiverse exist yet until someone chooses wickedness no one goes there.”

“And Carla, though God created Lucifer as an angel of light, Hell was brought into existence to contain him should he choose wickedness. It is amazing that wickedness is selected by some as a creative power of destruction as they hope to create more wickedness. They expand human and other spiritual experience into realms that God never intended for anyone to go. Heaven and hell as something of existential selections would be challenging and even anathematic concepts for many during the passage of time that is human experience.”

“What of the quantum mechanics of it all John? What would the structure of a static Multiverse be in regard to quantum mechanics, subatomic and virtual particles?”

“My thoughts on the topic are nothing more than inferences. Consider how gravity exists transcendently within a Universe yet draws mass only at the speed of light. Gravity need have some sort of faster than light presence to transcend local limitations of space-time yet draws other mass together only up to the speed limits of mass within a field described by general relativity; gravity is another emergent characteristic of the entanglement of virtual particles that for any given particle occupy theoretically every possible location in the space-time of a Universe. The probabilities of entanglement increase compresent with the increase of mass and hence mass is drawn together as an emergent phenomena that seems to be gravity.

Each individual virtual particle and a unique configuration of a Universe as a unique Universe differing from another by as little difference as the location selected through entanglement of one virtual particle from another is required for comprehensive permutations of all possible to exist alongside those of all possible Universe that could be occupied by a human being. Of the switching mechanics of a soul from one Universe to another that is consistent with his or her thoughts and free will selections in a world-line I cannot say right now. I will, God willing, give that some additional thought eventually. It may be either a material or a spiritual mechanics since either is consistent with a theology of a Multiverse fully actualized by God.”

“Then I may infer John, that God has provided people with free will that allows them, existentially, to choose their own destination in hell, should they decide not to accept his call unto eternal salvation through the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ?”

“I agree with that inference Carla. Keeping in mind of course, that wickedness is the evil that men do, while plain evil are those enacted by nature and else without act of human will, so far as one interprets Biblical use of the terms. Satan is wicked while earthquakes that collapse well designed and built structures may be evil, contingent upon their effects on humanity-for instance the city may have been long deserted and an eyesore and the Earthquake served as an accelerated improvisational urban renewal phase one; hence not evil.”

“Evil in nature need impact humans adversely to be evil and therefore is a secondary emergent phenomena?”

“Again Carla, I must agree.”