The Multiverse

Have you ever hypothesized about a possible alternative reality that mirrors yours but has different events and outcomes?  Such an imaginative idea is one of many involved with the concept of a multiverse: a cosmos where our universe is one of multiple, numerous, or infinite universes that exist outside of and alongside our own. In this ontological model, alternate versions of myself and other people could be living drastically different lives in their own self-contained universes.  The potential for interdimensional exploration and storytelling material would be unimaginable, but dreams of discovering a multiverse are destined for futility.

As fascinating and confusing as the concept may be, no evidence for a multiverse exists, though there is no actual way for us to know if the multiverse is real anyway.  Even if our universe is one of multiple or many universes, there is simply no way to know this from our current perspective inside of our own universe.  This places the multiverse hypothesis alongside unverifiable and unfalsifiable ideas like the simulation hypothesis or the existence of extraterrestrial life.

This cosmological model has sparked some speculation that a multiverse would be eternal in the past.  Contrary to what some new atheists like Lawrence Krauss have implied, a multiverse cannot escape an initial "Big Bang" (a beginning of the multiverse).  Allow me to demonstrate why.  It is impossible for there to be an infinite number of events or moments of time in the past.  If I asked someone to count down from 63 to 0, they could do so.  Even if I asked this person to count down from 15,000,000,000 to 0, it would be possible to comply even if an extraordinary quantity of time was spent doing this.  However, if I requested that he or she count down from infinity to 0, they would be entirely unable to.  Why?  With no starting point, this individual could never reach 0, much less even begin their task.  In the same way, there cannot be an infinite amount of time in the past because there would be no way for the present moment to arrive.  Thus, time itself had an absolute fixed beginning that each second moves me further away from.  A multiverse cannot avoid this fact or threaten it in any way.  Note that this proof has nothing to do with whether or not the future is infinite; there can be an infinite number of moments in the future but there cannot be in the past.

Another interesting idea associated with a multiverse theory is the belief that if a multiverse exists there is no need for God as a designer.  According to this objection, if the multiverse contains an infinite or extraordinarily large number of universes then of course some of them will have locations with seemingly perfect conditions for human life.  New atheist use of a multiverse theory to evade the design argument (or in some ludicrous cases even the Kalam cosmological argument) is either a gamble based on blind faith or a tactic of desperation.  Even if this successfully offered a possible alternative to the design argument for God, I demonstrated above that an absolute beginning of the multiverse is still logically inescapable and thus an uncaused cause, what theists refer to as God, is still entirely necessary for any material world to exist at all.

Actually, were a multiverse to turn out to be real, the discovery would only compound the dazzling intricacy and the phenomenal complexity of God's creation.


P.S.  I just watched Doctor Strange last night and was excited by the inclusion of a multiverse in the story, but I began writing this post before I realized the coincidence.  I was very pleased with the depiction of the multiverse featured in the film, which as a whole was MARVEL-ous.