It is an honor and a pleasure to be able to carry on a discussion in Gamma with eminent theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg.

Let me begin with the final sentence of Pannenberg's reply: Bonting... should be more open and sympathetic towards a contribution like Tipler’s (14-1). In my engagement in the science-theology dialogue I require of others as well as of myself adherence to sound science and sound biblical theology. This means that caution should be taken against reading more into our scientific and biblical insights than is warranted. I find Tipler's ideas to be lacking in this respect. E.g., it is not true that 'the laws of physics require life to survive' to the end of this universe, that quantum theory requires the existence of multiple universes (and conversely, that if these do not exist, this would falsify quantum theory). His understanding of biblical theology is also lacking, e.g., in his interpretation of the word ruach in Gen.1:2, and in his juggling to fit the trinitarian concept into three singularities.

Limitations of science (10-2). I wrote: science is by definition limited to this world, the world in which we live. Pannenberg replies that I seem to believe the new heaven and the new earth to be a completely different world, but that according to 1 Cor.15:51ff, Phil.3:21 and Rom.8:18ff. there is to be a transformation of our bodily existence and of creation. I would rather speak of a continuity as well as a radical change. And Paul also appears to believe this when he says: we will all be changed, in a moment...the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed...this perishable body must put on imperishability (1 Cor.15:52-53), and even where he uses the word 'transform' he says: he will transform the body of our humiliation so that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself (Phil.3:21). The 'body of his glory' refers to the resurrection body of the risen Christ, which does not seem to conform to the present laws of nature in his resurrection appearances (walking through a closed door; appearing and disappearing instantly). This also seems to apply to the creation, about which Paul says: the creation will be set free from its bondage to decay (Rom. 8:21), if we bear in mind that according to physical laws the universe will go to decay. So it seems to me that our present physical laws cannot (or 'not fully' if that were physically possible) apply to the new kingdom. The presence of the kingdom in the person of the pre-resurrection Christ must in my view be taken as a spiritual rather than a full material presence, which must wait to the parousia, the return of Christ on the last Day.

Immortality or resurrection (10-3). The term 'immortality' is only used six times in the bible, all in letters of Paul (Rom.2:7; 1 Cor.15:53,54; 1 Tim.1:17, 6:16; 2 Tim.1:10), and always referring to the life after resurrection, life eternal or eternity life. In the Creeds we express our belief in the resurrection of Christ and in our future resurrection. I prefer to avoid the term 'immortality', because it is by so many wrongly thought to pertain to the present life, the immortal soul in Greek thinking. In this sense, it does seem to be understood by Tipler. The title of his book is: The Physics of Immortality,³ and in it he poses the idea that we shall convert ourselves into computers, which will colonize the universe and survive its decay, and in his essay "The Omega Point and Christianity"⁴ he argues that life will survive the collapse of the universe.

Final anthropic principle (10-4). Put briefly, it says: life is necessary within our universe, will not disappear, is destined to pervade and dominate the entire universe, and will develop to the Omega point, when it will become omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. Pannenberg admits to reservations about this principle, but states that as a form of teleology (belief in a purposeful development of nature) it agrees with the theological language about God’s purpose with humanity and with his creation, though this is a transcendent, not an immanent telos. I find this a surprising statement. After all, the characteristics omnipresence, omniscience and almightiness are in Christian theology commonly attributed to God, but not to his human creatures, even after their resurrection. There remains a distinction between God and his creatures pre- and post-resurrection.

Tipler has removed God from the origin of the universe (11-1). This statement of mine is nonsense, says Pannenberg. But I added in my text: 'by means of the anthropic principles'. After all, Barrow and Tipler ⁵ formulated the anthropic principles in order to explain the 'fine-tuning' of the universe without the need to invoke a divine creator, as was also the case with the multi-universe hypothesis.⁶ Furthermore, in his essay "The Omega Point and Christianity" [note: in the part not printed in Gamma] Tipler assigns God the Father to the 'final singularity', but not to the initial singularity, where he places the Spirit, based on a faulty exegesis of the Hebrew word ruach in Gen.1:2.⁷ I admit that I do notice a conversion in Tipler when I compare his books on anthropic principles (1986) and immortality (1994) with his essay in Gamma, where he attempts to give the triune God a place in his singularities. However, a singularity is a point that may be reached in the development of a mathematical equation, where the physicist must admit that he cannot provide a physical interpretation. E.g., the equation of big bang cosmology leads for t = 0 to a state of infinite energy, temperature and density and zero dimension. To escape from this embarrassment, theoretical physicists have for some 50 years been attempting to develop a theory which combines quantum theory and gravity theory.^8-9-10 I would say that placing God in a singularity is not doing him a great honor, and would displace him again if ever the physicists succeed in their search for a 'Theory of Everything'.For the problems I see in the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo I refer Pannenberg to my book¹¹, so as not to extend this reply unnecessarily.

Cosmological prediction and biblical expectation in flagrant conflict (11-1). The conflict that I mentioned in my article is that cosmologists predict a decaying universe: stars burning out, turning into black holes and neutron stars that degrade to more primitive particles and finally to a photon cloud, regardless whether the universe is collapsing, for ever expanding or everlastingly hanging in between [note: these three possibilities refer to an 'closed', 'open' and 'flat' universe in einsteinian terminology. Tipler sticks with a 'closed' universe, although observations increasingly point to a 'flat' universe]. This picture seems to me in flagrant conflict with the biblical expectatation of a new heaven and a new earth. The explanation is simple: the cosmologists assume a closed universe in the thermodynamic sense, i.e. there is no energy or information coming in from outside. The biblical view, on the other hand, assumes God's powerful intervention in his evolving creation from initiation to completion, which in thermodynamic terms represents an open universe, to which the gloomy prediction of the cosmologists does not apply. This is a much simpler explanation than having to speak about 'forward and backward causation'.

Tipler has humans make themselves immortal through transformation into information (12-1). If Pannenberg does not believe this, he merely has to read chapters 2 and 4 of Tipler's book. In minute detail, Tipler explains how we will change ourselves into computers and how we will spread those throughout the universe by advanced spacecraft. God is barely mentioned, and if he is, then it is as if this is a primitive thought alien to and supplanted by Tipler's secular scientific approach. So the computer story is not a metaphor, as Pannenberg thinks (12-2), but plain reality for Tipler. And Tipler's Omega point is not God pulling his creation to fulfilment, but life pushing the universe to survival.

When Pannenberg says (12-3,4) that Tipler has revised his position, he refers to the later part of Tipler's essay [not published in Gamma]. These 44 pages deal with a variety of topics like the resurrection of Christ, miracles, Virgin Birth, Shroud of Turin, and Immaculate Conception. Tipler starts with the statement: The Son Singularity (hereafter 'Son') currently acts in the multiverse (via the Holy Spirit) to enforce the laws of physics, particularly unitarity (see [1], p.500, the discussion between equations L.14 and L.15 for a description of how this works). Equations L14 and L15 apply to the Hamilton operator for a harmonic oscillator. How can this explain 'enforcing the laws of physics' by the Son? And why would this be a task for the Son?

Tipler wants to see resurrection as dematerialisation plus rematerialisation. Since the former would generate the energy of a nuclear bomb, Tipler tries it via 'tunneling' (boring through the energy mountain rather than going over it). But that is an extremely infrequent type of event, and thus would take eons to do the job (remember the 'cold fusion' claim). I think we simply have to admit that neither classical nor quantum physics can deal with a transcendental proces like resurrection.

Pannenberg expresses some skepticism about the Virgin Birth story on the basis of textual criticism. I would add that a virgin birth would make Jesus not fully human, and thus irrelevant for our salvation.^12-13

Multiworld hypothesis and inflation theory (13-4). Pannenberg admits that he has some difficulty with Tipler's claim that quantum theory requires the acceptance of multiple universes, but then counters with the remark to me that not all scientists 'accept the inflation theory of Alan Guth, which Bonting favors'. I accept this theory (a very brief and very rapid expansion during which the universe grows in 10^-30 sec from 10^-30 m to 0.1 m), because observations of the fine structure of the cosmic background radiation have firmly confirmed it.^14-15 The alternative, a variable speed of light proposed by João Maguaijo,¹⁶ lacks any credible evidence.¹⁷ On the other hand, the multiworld hypothesis (which is not an alternative to the inflation theory, as Pannenberg seems to think) will always remain a hypothesis, because we cannot observe any worlds outside our own universe and so it can neither be proved nor disproved.

Theologians should be grateful for Tipler's work (13-5). To this reproach by Pannenberg I have already responded in my opening paragraph. I hope to have shown in these comments and in my comments on Tipler's essay that Tipler does not meet the requirements for a fruitful dialogue between science and theology, namely adherence to sound science and sound biblical theology. Besides rejecting his bizarre use of scientific theories, I vigorously object to the fact that he completely secularizes the triune God to a set of singularities and divinizes life instead.

1. Wolfhart Pannenberg, God en de opstanding, Gamma jrg.10, nr.2, 2003, pp.10-14.
2. Sjoerd L. Bonting, Opstanding en hiernamaals, reactie op Tipler en Pannenberg, Gamma jrg.10, nr.1, 2003, pp.20-28.
3. Frank J. Tipler, The Physics of Immortality, Doubleday, New York, 1994.
4. Frank J. Tipler, Het Punt Omega en het christendom, Gamma jrg.10, nr.2, 2003, pp.14-23.
5. John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle and the Structure of the Physical World. Oxford University Press, New York, 1986.
6. J. Richard Gott, Creation of Open Universes from de Sitter Space, Nature, 295:306, 1982.
7. Sjoerd L. Bonting, Who or What is God’s Creative Agent? Bulletin of Ordained Scientists no. 31, 6-15, 2002.
8. Chet Raymo, A Spin on Spin Foam, Scientific American, 285 (no.2):80-81, 2001 Aug.
9. Graham P. Collins, Fractional Success; a new theory of everything?, Scientific American 286 (no.1):19, 2002 Jan.
10. Peter Woit, Is String Theory Even Wrong?, American Scientist 90, 110-112, 2002 Mar/Apr.
11. Sjoerd L. Bonting, Chaos Theology, A Revised Creation Theology, Novalis, Ottawa, 2002, pp.15-26.
12. Arthur Peacocke, Creation and the World of Science. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1979, pp.275-279.
13. John Macquarrie, Jesus Christ in Modern Thought, SCM, London, 1990, p.393.
14. Craig J. Hogan, Observing the Beginning of Time Amer. Scientist 90 (no.5), 420-427, 2002 Sept./Oct.
15. Eric Hivon and Marc Kamionkowski, A New Window to the Early Universe Science 298, 1349-1350, 2002, 15 Nov.
16. João Magueijo, Faster Than the Speed of Light: The Story of a Scientific Speculation, Heinemann, New York, 2003.
17. George Ellis, Einstein not yet displaced, Nature 422, 563-564, 2003 Apr.10.