This page last updated on 01/26/2019.

Copyright © 2001-2019 by Russ Meyer

This little essay was inspired by a conversation between my Mother-in-law and I.  She asked a few questions about string theory that ultimately led to a discussion about Science, the Bible, and the nature of God.  I thought this would make an interesting topic for a web article, so here it is:

For God to really be God in the sense of being an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent creator of the universe, he must be outside the universe...outside normal spatial dimensions.  The universe, in it's entirety, is His creation.  He's not bound by its characteristics or physical laws.  This makes Him supernatural, that is beyond nature, it's what makes Him God.  He just reaches into the Universe at will and does whatever He wants.  He is not bound by the physical laws of the universe.

So, how is it that he can see the whole universe at once?  How is it that he can do something that seems beyond understood physical laws?  A simple analogy can illustrate this very well.

Imagine an inflated balloon.  Now imagine putting a bunch of dots on it with a marker.  Say each of those dots is a person...a two dimensional being of some kind.  The surface of the balloon on which these beings live is their whole universe.  To them it looks like a continuous two dimensional surface.  Being two dimensional people, there is no up and down to them, only left and right, forward and back.

When you pickup the balloon, you can see that it's actually a two dimensional membrane that curves back on itself to form a three dimensional sphere, but the two dimensional inhabitants on that balloon can't even imagine a third dimension.  They cannot imagine how one might "look up" to see you, their "god" looking down on them...but for you, it's no big deal.  You, standing there and holding the balloon in your hand, are outside their spatial dimensions.  You can see all the people simultaneously; scurrying around, living their lives.  By their definition, you are omniscient.

You can even perform miracles for them...like picking up one of the two dimensional people and moving him to another place on the balloon.  The two dimensional people cannot even imagine how to do that without moving over the surface of the balloon.  The walls of their dwellings are like a solid line on the surface of the balloon.  You can make them "walk through walls" by just picking up one of the little critters and moving him to the other side of the wall.  The person you moved seems to wink out of existence at one point and almost instantly appears at another point in this two dimensional world.  All the two dimensional people are really impressed by this.  By their definition, you are omnipresent and omnipotent.

It may very well be like that with God and ourselves.  It's just that more dimensions are involved...but God must exist outside our space and time.  It's not that He isn't present within our universe, He's here too; it's just that he also transcends the created universe.