Does God have the power to make identical universes through different means?

Question

The easiest way to explain this question is with a thought experiment:

Consider God, the ultimate of everything, who is wholly omnipotent (all-powerful) and omniscient (all-knowing). Let's just say, hypothetically, that he wanted X group of individuals to save a man from under a burning car (this is a totally random example I just happened to be reading about; I could have just as easily said He wanted Bob to score a free-throw in basketball 3 times in a row tomorrow, or Sally to knit a blue sweater on Sunday, November 4th, 2012).

But anyways, one way He could do this (get X group of people to save a man from a burning car) is: At the beginning of time, God could instantly plan out the future and set in motion a massive chain of events, from the creation of light and stars, the creation of Earth and the creatures, mankind, then civilization with all the conflicts and progress and glory that comes with it, such that one day, a few people would come from out of nowhere—complete strangers to each other—and save this man (also a stranger) from under a burning car. God need not intervene at all this whole time, He merely "ignited" the chain of events from day 1 and watched it unfold exactly as He planned. Let's call this Universe A.

He could also, being all-powerful, just freeze time for a bit and skip a few steps, creating the world and universe instantly, with all the civilizations and animals and things in place, putting all the strangers there together next to a car which is already on fire and the man trapped under it. Then press play, and presto, you have the exact same scenario, without billions of years of buildup. Let's refer to this as Universe B.

God is obviously capable of doing both. My question thus is whether there is an ontological difference (really any difference at all) between Universe A and Universe B. Personally, I don't think this kind of power is outside of God's capability; he should, after all, have no problem with creating identical universes which match up exactly once they reach "biker under the car" moment where He unfroze time in Universe B. At that moment, Universe A and Universe B are exactly the same, right? Or is there somethinge special about Universe A, with all it's buildup, that separates it intrinsically from Universe B? In other words, is it outside of God's ability to make them exactly equivalent?

Answer 1

I do not think that the difference would lie in the universes, in this hypothetical example. Being omnipotent and omniscient must at least mean that you can put the physical (and mental, if you believe that is separate) state of everything in the universe in whatever configuration you want whenever you want, or create as many universes as you want. Thus the ontology of the universe would be identical.

The difference would lie in God: in one case, He'd have created a system where time passed, and in the other, just configured things de novo to look consistent with a long and rich history. One might suspect that this means that God wouldn't be omnipotent after all, but this isn't a new insight: omnipotence isn't a very well-defined concept anyway (e.g. can an omnipotent being create an object he can't destroy?--either answer seems to defy omnipotence). If you restrict omnipotence to logical consistency, it doesn't matter that God-that-does-A isn't identical to God-that-does-B.

Also, we might worry that we're actually in the universe which God created when I was halfway through typing this answer, and we might worry then that God is not being entirely forthright with us with the information in the Bible. Leaving aside all sorts of other questions of adequate forthrightness (e.g. the diverging views of YEC/OEC/theistic evolution raise the question), this also isn't a new insight. It's just Descartes' evil demon idea in a different guise.

Answer 2

It seems that you're just asking "Can God make a rock so big he can't move it?" in different terms. And the answer is: The question is flawed.

The question assumes the false premise that if God is omnipotent, He can do anything. However, omnipotence is not the ability to do anything; it is the possession of infinite power. (See the definition of omnipotent).

Infinite power does not give one the ability to do that which is logically impossible: Make rocks too heavy to lift, construct spherical triangles, nor create two universes that are both different and identical at the same time.

Answer 3

You have defined A and B to have one point in which they are not exactly equivalent (their true histories). Therefore, to say that an omnipotent being could not make B exactly equivalent to A is trivially true, because they must not be exactly equivalent, or else they would be A and A. This would be like asking, "Could an omnipotent being create one white cat and one black cat such that both cats were white?".

However, an omnipotent being could make A and B as defined, with all in common except their true histories.