Multiverse Deism. Leland Royce Harper
Multiverse Deism
Multiverse Deism
Shifting Perspectives of God and the World
Leland Royce Harper
LEXINGTON BOOKS
Lanham • Boulder • New York • London
Published by Lexington Books
An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
6 Tinworth Street, London SE11 5AL, United Kingdom
Copyright © 2020 The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Is Available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020935396ISBN 978-1-7936-1475-9 (cloth: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-7936-1475-9 (cloth: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-7936-1476-6 (electronic)
Contents
3 The Theist and the Multiverse
4 Attributes of a Deistic God
5 Why Being a Deist May Not Be So Bad
6 Possible Alternative Version of Deism
7 Potential Difficulties and Further Lines of Inquiry for the Multiverse Deist
8 Practical Considerations and Concluding Thoughts
References
Index
About the Author
The ideas presented in this project are refined versions of rough thoughts that I had put on the backburner for several years. So, when I had the opportunity to branch out from my previous research interests and begin work in the world of the multiverse and deism I was, admittedly, both excited and scared at the task ahead of me. Being able to step outside of my philosophical comfort zone and to undertake this kind of research is definitely not something that I would have been able to do without the great support system and opportunities that surrounded me.
I credit Dale Martelli for first introducing a fifteen-year-old me to philosophy at Vancouver Technical Secondary School, and in lighting that initial spark of inquiry that I will forever carry with me. Many thanks to my previous philosophy professors who all, collectively, helped to broaden my philosophical interests as a young student. I would also like to specifically thank Dr. Yujin Nagasawa and Dr. Klaas Kraay, as there is no doubt that I would not have been able to complete this project were it not for the mentorship that you were both able to provide. I could always count on you to provide me with the guidance that I needed and to point me in the right direction.
Many of the ideas contained in this project were presented or discussed at various conferences or workshops around the world. I would like to thank those conference and workshop organizers for allowing me to participate, as well as those who commented on and criticized my work, allowing me to make the necessary adjustments to my initial arguments. I would also like to thank the editorial board at Forum Philosophicum, as well as the reviewers, for their comments on and publication of essays that would go on to become chapter 6 in this project. The ideas expressed in this chapter are derived from two papers, entitled “A Deistic Discussion of Murphy and Tracy’s Accounts of God’s Limited Activity in the World” and “Epistemic Deism Revisited,” that I previously authored and that were first published in Forum Philosophicum volumes 18 and 20; Harper (2013) and Harper (2015). They are used with permission from Forum Philosophicum.
Finally, I would like to thank my friends and family for providing me with all of the support, whatever kind I needed, in the pursuit of completing this research project. Most importantly, my wife Marina, my daughter Emmeline, and my son Beau. Thank you all for your love, your encouragement, and for providing me with the space and time necessary to complete this project. I know it has not been easy but you have been there at all hours of the day or night to help me with whatever I needed, and my ability complete this was largely due to your continued strength and support. This is for you.
The Project and Its Origins
In this project, I argue for the plausibility of a deistic God, rather than the God of classical theism, given the existence of a particular kind of multiverse. Furthermore, I argue that the alternative of a deistic God has some aspects that make it preferential to the God of classical theism, specifically in standing up to certain arguments for atheism. The ideas discussed in this research project did not grow out of some long-held burning question that was within me; instead, they evolved out of several different lines of thought and interests that I explored over the past several years. The initial ideas for this research project were to examine and ultimately argue for the plausibility of deism as an alternative to classical theism and to demonstrate how a deistic conception of God could fare better against particular arguments for atheism than the traditional conception of God could. As will be seen, those ideas and discussions are maintained in this project, but they serve as a starting point for a more expanded discussion. In researching the feasibility of deism over classical theism, I still felt that there was an aspect missing, that is, there still needed to be a reason to accept deism in favor of classical theism other than merely because it may provide a better response to specific arguments for atheism. There needed to be some prior reason that called for a deistic God rather than the God of classical theism, allowing for an ontological view that would not be adopted merely as a means to reply to specific objections, but for an ontological view that would be adopted on independent grounds and would subsequently be able to satisfactorily address many objections in ways better than classical theism.
The route of providing independent justification for deism came via the multiverse, and the impact of the multiverse aspect of this project is twofold. Firstly, the discussion of the multiverse serves as an independent method of conferring plausibility and entailment on the idea of deism. This adds a certain level of credibility to the adoption of deism as a whole and provides us with more reasons to accept deism than simply because deism may reply to certain arguments for atheism in a more effective way than does classical theism. Secondly, through the addition of the multiverse aspect, the overall theory that I propose covers far more ground than it otherwise would have were it restricted solely to a discussion