Friday, December 17, 2010

The Physics of the Resurrection?

My friend Michael Turley asks:

Do I understand from a previous post that you are a Physicist? If so, I want to ask you your professional opinion about Dr Francis Tipler's Omega Point theory (tried to read physics of immortality and could only grasp it in a very elementary fashion) and also what do you think of Dr Russell Humphreys' White Hole Cosmology and the plausibility of that....I understand it has problems, and if it does have problems are they as great as the problems facing naturalist's Big Bang cosmology. Thanks!!! :)

My answer:

Tipler is not Biblical. His Omega Point theory is not much better than Eric Van Daniken, who went to town in his Chariots of the Gods with the strange spacecraft of Ezekiel Chapter 1, which he interprets as a detailed description of a landing alien spacecraft.

How would Tipler use his Omega Point theory to explain Jesus' Resurrection from the dead? He can't, since what he's talking about has no real reference to the God of the Bible. But Bible believers know that "Surely the Lord does nothing without revealing his secrets to his servants the prophets" (Amos 3:7). And God tells us that "on the third day, He will raise us up, that we may live before him" (Hosea 6:2).

The best book on resurrection that I've read is John W. Cooper, Body, Soul & Life Everlasting, Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate, 1989, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids. 


Sorry, it does not try to deduce principles of the resurrection from fantastic models of physics.... Instead, Cooper goes to both the Old Testament and New and gives a very satisfying explanation of what awaits believers after death, in both the intermediate state before they receive their glorified bodies, and who they will be after judgment day.

Humphrey's White Hole Cosmology is really cool. I really like the way it starts with a huge ball of water. It also has a neat explanation of the uniformity of the background cosmic radiation field. Humphrey admits that his model is incomplete. It has been tweaked a little, but remains unfinished.

But the best physics explanation I've read so far of God's 6 day creation is Anisotropic Synchrony Convention—A Solution to the Distant Starlight Problem, by Jason Lisle. He demonstrates with some amazing relativistic equations that "starlight from the most distant galaxy can reach earth on the fourth day of the Creation Week when the correct relativistic synchrony convention is employed". I don't understand the math there yet, but I hope someday to write a blog entry on it.

~ Marko, M.S. Physics, M.Div Pastoral Ministry