Is Heaven in a Parallel Universe?
by Stephen Ferguson | 17 October 2024 |
I am interested in religion, especially its more philosophical aspects—but I would say I have never been a particularly spiritual person. I have always struggled to pray, meditate, or contemplate. The closest thing I have ever had to an extraordinary mystical experience had nothing to do with religion at all, at least not deliberately. It was a consequence of modernist art.
Some time ago my wife and I visited the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Tasmania. This museum is famous for some pretty weird exhibitions, from an artificial poo-making machine, to a wall depicting hundreds of genitals, to various optical illusions.
On this occasion, the exhibit in question was a walkable labyrinth. After spending some time wandering through this confusing structure, with its many blind turns and winding paths, all under soothing but low light, I found myself somehow trapped in the centre of the maze. After what seemed like eons but was probably only a few seconds, and being more than a little confused about where I was or where to go, I looked up and had the fright of my life.
It seemed like my entire body jumped out of its own skin. The only way to describe it was an out-of-body experience, a mystical altered state of consciousness. It only lasted a few seconds, before I realized what I had just seen.
It was a mirror – I had just seen me.
Does God dwell up or to the side?
Don’t ask me why I had this further thought, but after this weird out-of-body experience, I was triggered by a very strong sense of personal introspection. The idea that kept coming into my mind was how the centre of the labyrinth reminded me of the Holy of Holies in the Jewish Temple, that place where God was said to dwell with His people: a succession of increasingly hidden, smaller and more holy chambers, before one finally comes before the presence of God Himself.
Adventists love a good chat about the sanctuary, what it means symbolically, and maybe that upbringing was part of what triggered me. What occurred to me was our common perception that God dwells in heaven, and that this heaven seems to be miles above us in the sky, may be just a fallible human attempt to explain the inexplainable.
The Bible suggests that people may have originally thought of heaven as a place resting on top of a physical dome of the world. This then morphed into seeing it as a place somewhere in the air just above the earth (just as sheol or hell was viewed as a place literally underground beneath our feet), which people such as Elijah or Jesus flew up into. In time, Christians, including Seventh-day Adventists, starting to understand a little bit more about modern astronomy, viewed heaven as another planet, or in some traditions, a sort of star base. To be clear, none of these ideas are necessarily wrong, but perhaps represent a more limited present truth for those accessing limited human language.
It seemed to me that rather than being up, that (using the Jewish Temple as the pattern) heaven was perhaps something that is found at the side of our reality. What we might consider in another dimension. It wasn’t merely a place in the clouds, or another planet, or a space station in a galaxy far far away, but another mirror universe entirely.
Ellen White and the Orion Nebula
Adventist pioneer Ellen White had her own take on this interesting topic, once stating:
“Dark, heavy clouds came up and clashed against each other. The atmosphere parted and rolled back; then we could look up through the open space in Orion, whence came the voice of God. The Holy City will come down through that open space” (Early Writings, p41.2).
I am not sure what to make of this statement, and I am not sure whether to put it in the realm of mere metaphor, like so many other descriptions of heaven, or a literal attempt at cosmology. Nonetheless, what does seem to have passed into Adventist folklore, and inspired not a few Adventist sermons and articles, is the connection between Mrs White’s statement and the black hole that exists at the heart of the Orion Nebula.
While I don’t pretend to be a physicist, even as a lay person I am aware that black holes are places with such strong gravity that nothing can escape them, not even light. The laws of physics, of time and space, begin to collapse at the point of a black hole’s singularity.
As I understand it, some scientists theorize that a black hole might provide a portal or wormhole to another universe. Of course, the transit through the black hole’s event horizon would kill you due to crushing gravity, causing spaghettification. Nonetheless, putting aside that small issue of likely death, it does raise the interesting idea of one’s ability to travel to another universe or dimension.
Is there a connection between heaven—or in this case the New Jerusalem—and black holes?
The science and science fiction of parallel dimensions
If this all sounds a little bit like science fiction, well, you would be correct. The idea of parallel dimensions is a well-trodden trope in the science fiction genre. From Dr Who’s various adventurers through time and space via use of a TARDIS, to Star Trek’s mirror universe with its evil Terran Empire, to The Man in the High Castle (where the Nazis won the Second World War), to Disney’s various attempts to relaunch its faltering brands via use of a multiverse in shows such as Loki, the idea of parallel universes is now well-known in popular culture.
Nonetheless, this is not to say the idea of multiple universes is just fiction. The many-worlds interpretation appears to be taken seriously by serious scientists, especially those who study the unusual effects of quantum physics. The idea of quantum superposition, where something can paradoxically be in two states at the same time, is taken seriously and underpins modern technological developments, such as the development of quantum computers.
Do we live in God’s original universe?
Although the idea of multiverses and parallel dimensions is often attributed to eastern philosophical systems, it does have a long pedigree in the West going back to Anaximander in the 6th century BCE. Within a Christian context more specifically, in battling the Gnostics the early church father Origen (c. 184-253 CE) came to the conclusion that our universe was not in fact God’s first creation:
“According to Origen’s speculative system, God created not this material world in the first instance, but a realm of spiritual beings endowed with reason and free will and dependent upon the Creator. To explain the Fall Origen took an idea from Philo of Alexandria; he suggested that the spiritual beings became ‘sated’ with the adoration of God, and fell by neglect, gradually cooling in their love and turning away from God to what is inferior. The material world was brought into consequence of this Fall, not, as the heretics said, as the result of an accident, but as an expression of the direct purpose of the Creator himself, whose goodness is manifest in beauty and order. So the material world is not a disastrous mistake in which humanity is involved by a cruel chance, but a realm created under the will of a supreme God and expressing his goodness, justice, and redemptive purpose….”
It seems to me that the Bible itself hints that what we consider “heaven” is another realm, dimension, or universe, that God created with static perfection. Its citizens, whom we call “angels,” are sexless, immortal creatures that were essentially made completed adults.
The problem, however, is this static realm did not last, and did not turn out the way it should have. There was a cosmic war – whatever that really means, given the limitations of biblical authors’ understanding – and this perfect place lost some of its shine.
Our dimension, which we typically call “earth” but may well encompass our entire universe, is of a very different quality. Unlike heaven, our realm encompasses things who are temporal, who die but can also procreate, and who evolve or devolve as the case may be. We may live short lives, but we can grow and change in a way our angelic cousins might not easily be able to do.
There is a great line in that Adventist television series The Record Keeper, where it is explained how fallen angels are jealous of human beings, because for all their angelic powers and inherent immortality, only humans can bring forth new life. In this way humans share a quality with the Creator Himself, which angels lack. While the series was ultimately scrapped at the direction of the General Conference, I think that world-building idea had spiritual merit. A similar idea seems to have found in other modern parables of biblically inspired cosmic conflict, such as Tolkien’s unageing elves and their undying lands in Lord of the Rings.
The theological implications of heaven and earth as parallel dimensions
There are several interesting theological inferences and implications of viewing heaven and earth as parallel universes, not merely different planets, places, or stations within our same universe:
- Helps explain some odd biblical passages, such as angels’ suddenly appearing and disappearing (Acts 12:7).
- Helps explain the nature of humanity’s resurrected form as beings of celestial and spiritual flesh (1 Cor. 15:40, 44), exemplified by Jesus’ own apparent teleportation into the disciples’ locked room (John 20:19-23).
- Suggests that the cosmic biblical conflict, which Adventists call the Great Controversy and other Christians historically named Christus Victor, and which started with a war in heaven between Satan and his angels (Rev. 12:7-10), may in fact be a much bigger and much older clash (potentially billions of times so) than we first thought.
- Suggests the role of Jesus in the plan of salvation may likewise be a much bigger deal than the mere salvation of a single planet, so that when God sent His son into the kosmos (John 3:17), this does not mean He saved only the “world” (as it is often translated), but rather the “universe.”
- Helps explain why God created the world in six days (whatever that means) rather than instantly (Ex. 20:11), why God intended creatures to be creator-delegates by being fruitful and multiplying (Gen. 1:28), and why God (and presumably the angels) experiences time differently than we do (2 Pet. 3:8).
- Helps explain the nature of our eschatological destiny, where we do not merely go to live on a new remade planet, but in fact a new reality altogether where heaven and earth weirdly collide and meld together (Isa. 65:17; Rev. 21:1), in a realm with God but no sun or moon (Rev. 21:22-23).
To be clear, I don’t think the question of heaven’s geography is a salvation issue we should unnecessarily get too dogmatic about. Yet, it is both interesting and fun to consider its possibilities and consequences.
What I do think is worth noting, however, is how we often limit our view of spiritual matters. In discussing mirror universes, we might not appreciate how correct the Apostle Paul was in describing our limited understanding as “only a reflection as in a mirror” (1 Cor. 13:12).
On this I think Adventists are typically more openminded than many other Christians, who sometimes bizarrely think there is no life in the universe outside planet Earth. Even then, I think we Adventists should look for heaven beyond Orion’s Nebula.
Stephen Ferguson is a lawyer from Perth, Western Australia, with expertise in planning, environment, immigration, and administrative-government law. He is married to Amy and has two children, William and Eloise. Stephen is a member of the Livingston Adventist Church.
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