Time&Eternity

Aspects of a Theology of Time 205
entific discipline. 111 The quintessence of his theory of the end of the universe
is that there is no end: Under the condition of validity of the presuppositions
specified by Dyson, life and the communication of information
can continue forever. 112
Tipler claims that the probability of the existence of God, of human free
will, and of eternal life after death can be proven by pure physics alone. The
Omega Point Theory provides him with the proof that God exists. It says
that in the present, in the past, and in the future—and here he really speaks
of the distant future, for it is assumed that the universe, despite its existence
of approximately fifteen billion years, is still in a very early stage of its history—there
must be an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent person
who is immanent and changeable in space and time, as well as transcendent
and unchangeable, and who will “have a ‘pointlike’ structure in the ultimate
future.” 113 The universe exists only when the omega point also exists in this
universe, as the structure of the limiting condition that determines reality.
Even if Tipler does not intend to equate the Omega Point Theory with
Christianity, but rather to show that it harmonizes with the basic ideas of
virtually all religions, he frequently refers to the theology of Pannenberg. 114
A Christology does not result directly from the omega point model, but it
also does not contradict it; however, it “depends on some unlikely possibilities
in quantum cosmology.” 115 Eternal life is not based on the immortality
of the soul; it is instead the result of a resurrection. The preservation of
identity is not achieved by means of physical continuity, but instead by the
most far-reaching correspondence in pattern. Resurrection is “an exact
replica of ourselves .l.l. being simulated in the computer minds of the far
future.” 116 The next stage of intelligent life will be information-processing
machines—the extinction of humankind is “a logically necessary consequence
of eternal progress” 117 —and, in the distant future, a computer capacity will
be available that enables the perfect simulation (emulation) of all possible
variants of the world and, thus, of the entire visible universe of all times. 118
The resurrection of the dead will occur “when the computer capability of
the universe is so large that the amount of capacity required to store all possible
human simulations is an insignificant fraction of the entire capacity.”
119 Thus, the physics of immortality is not really concerned with “immortality”
as such, but rather with the spontaneous reconstruction in the
form of emulations—as if, “in the last moment,” someone would build a
super computer that images all human beings as a holograph program.
In contrast to Tipler, Dyson speaks neither of resurrection nor of eternal
life. By using quantitative arguments, he wishes to demonstrate that life and
intelligence can survive without limitations and that the communication of
information is possible in spite of constantly increasing intergalactic dis-