Multiplying the Universe

If you haven’t already had your “far out” moment for the day, be sure to check out a new essay in Seed Magazine by Nathan Schneider. It’s a summary of multiverse theory—the idea that there isn’t just one universe, but many—and how this radical cosmology is compatible with Christian faith. First Things board member and physicist Stephen M. Barr even makes an appearance:

Catholic particle physicist Stephen Barr writes and lectures on how physics demonstrates evidence of God, yet he builds some of his own research on multiverse theory. “There are physics reasons why the multiverse has to be taken seriously as an idea. It absolutely is not kooky,” says Barr. When speaking at Christian universities and churches, he often fields questions on multiverse theory from a largely receptive audience. He says their questions tend to focus on the scientific details, not the religious consequences. Yet there are books by some Christian intellectuals, like Benjamin Wiker and Jonathan Witt’s A Meaningful World , which Barr admits [reject] the multiverse too carelessly: “It seems to me very stupid for religious people to go around and attack ideas like the multiverse because they think it somehow hurts a religious argument. It may turn out someday demonstrable that it’s true, and it’ll backfire on them.”