Miracles and the multiverse. That’s what dominated the discussion following Phil Clayton’s presentation, “Where it All Begins: Cosmology, Creation and Open Theism.” This is mostly because this is where Clayton’s ideas and those of the conference’s open theists diverged. 

Clayton isn’t particularly convinced of a multiverse, and is really critical of string theory in particular, due to their inability to produce fine mathematical theories supporting themselves. Additionally, he sees many theological concerns if there is a multiverse. Of course, these don’t negate a multiverse, just provide more problems for theologians to deal with. 

The concerns (taken straight from his handout, parenthetical references are from the lecture):

1. Undercuts the specialness of this universe
2. God plays no specific creative role in the origin of universes (We’re a small part of a vast ensemble. It was inevitable that this world must exist and that I must exist in it.)
3. Questions of divine love
4. Problem of evil
5. Purposeness and purposelessness
6. Problem of free will (Is freedom irrelevant within a multiverse?)
7. Problem of justice (Because of infinite replication, for every situation where justice prevailed there are an infinite number of places where it didn’t.)

But the more dominant, and--I’d argue--exciting, part of the talk was centered on miracles, and God’s interaction with the world. 

In Clayton’s view, God cannot break the natural laws of nature for both us to have complete freedom and God to be completely just. (Basically, if God can intervene when he feels like saving one person from pain, why doesn’t he do it for everyone in pain?) Also, if you open that door for God to be involved in one thing, what’s preventing him from being involved like that with all things? So, like most things philosophical, it comes down to how you define things. For Clayton, miracles don’t mean breaking natural laws. God doesn’t break natural laws (he doesn’t do things like smushing atoms, levitating people, etc.) but he does influence miraculously. Clayton called divine intervention in natural laws a “science stopper” — if scientists always think God could be meddling in their experiments and understanding of things, that inhibits them from doing good science. 

This was where most open theists in the room had a problem. In an open view of theology, because God doesn’t know the future and has to spontaneously interact with his creation, a bit of meddling here or there (or, as some were saying, a lot of meddling everywhere) is important to secure the best outcome (most just, most loving, etc) through divine intervention. This means that God can do things that are naturally impossible.