In a previous post, we discussed the non-omnipotent God of process theology as a possible explanation for the twin facts that the universe appears to be fine-tuned for life and yet evolution is extremely slow and life precarious.  The problem with process theology, however, is that God appears to be extremely weak.  Is the concept of a non-omnipotent God worthwhile?

One response to this criticism is that portraying God as weak simply because the universe was not instantaneously and perfectly constructed for life is to misconstrue what the meaning of “weak” is.  The mere fact that the universe, consisting of a least 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars, was created out of nothingness and has lasted over 13 billion years does not seem to indicate weakness.

Another response would be that the very gradual incrementalism of evolution may be a necessary component of a fantastically complex system that cannot tolerate errors that would threaten to destroy the system.  That is, the various physical laws and numerical constants that underlie the order of the universe exist in such an intricate relationship that a violation of a law in one particular case or sudden change in one of the constants would cause the universe to self-destruct, in the same way that a computer program may crash if a single line of code is incorrect or is incompatible with the other lines of code.

In fact, a number of physicists have explicitly described the universe as a type of computer, in the sense that the order of the universe is based on the processing of information in the form of the physical laws and constants.  Of course, the chief difference between the universe and a computer is that we can live with a computer crashing occasionally — we cannot live with the universe crashing even once.  Thus the fact that the universe, while not immortal, never seems to crash, indicates that gradual evolution may be necessary.  Perhaps instability on the micro level of the universe (an asteroid occasionally crashing into a planet with life) is the price to be paid for stability on the macro level.

Alternatively, we can conceptualize the order behind the universe as a type of mind, “mind” being defined broadly as any system for processing information.  We can posit three types of mind in the historical development of the universe: cosmic mind (God), biological mind (human/animal mind), and electronic mind (computer).

Cosmic mind can be thought of as pure spirit, or pure information, if you will.  Cosmic mind can create matter and a stable foundation for the universe, but once matter is created, the influence of spirit on matter is relatively weak.  That is, there is a division between the world of spirit and the world of matter that is difficult to bridge.  Biological mind does not know everything cosmic mind does and it is limited in time and space, but biological mind can more efficiently act on matter, since it is part of the world of matter.  Electronic mind (computer) is a creation of biological mind but processes larger amounts of information more quickly, assisting biological mind in the manipulation of matter.

As a result, the evolution of the universe began very slowly, but has recently accelerated as a result of incremental improvements to mind.  According to Stephen Hawking,

The process of biological evolution was very slow at first. It took two and a half billion years, to evolve from the earliest cells to multi-cell animals, and another billion years to evolve through fish and reptiles, to mammals. But then evolution seemed to have speeded up. It only took about a hundred million years, to develop from the early mammals to us. . . . [W]ith the human race, evolution reached a critical stage, comparable in importance with the development of DNA. This was the development of language, and particularly written language. It meant that information can be passed on, from generation to generation, other than genetically, through DNA. . . .  [W]e are now entering a new phase, of what might be called, self designed evolution, in which we will be able to change and improve our DNA. . . . If this race manages to redesign itself, to reduce or eliminate the risk of self-destruction, it will probably spread out, and colonise other planets and stars.  (“Life in the Universe“)

According to physicist Freeman Dyson (Disturbing the Universe), even if interstellar spacecraft achieve only one percent of the speed of light, a speed within the possibility of present-day technology, the Milky Way galaxy could be colonized end-to-end in ten million years –  a very long time from an individual human’s perspective, but a remarkably short time in the history of evolution, considering it took 2.5 billion years simply to make the transition from single-celled life forms to multi-celled creatures.

So cosmic mind can be very powerful in the long run, but patience is required!