The Omega Point as Eschaton: Answers to Pannenberg’sQuestions for Scientists

Frank J. Tipler

Zygon: Journal of Religion & Science, Vol. 24, Issue 2 (June 1989), pp. 217–253

Originally published as Frank J. Tipler, “The Omega Point as Eschaton: Answers to Pannenberg’sQuestions for Scientists,” Zygon: Journal of Religion & Science, Vol. 24, Issue 2 (June 1989), pp.217–253; doi:10.1111/j.1467-9744.1989.tb01112.x. Republished as Chapter 7: “The OmegaPoint as Eschaton: Answers to Pannenberg’s Questions to Scientists” in Carol Rausch Albright and JoelHaugen (editors), Beginning with the End: God, Science, and Wolfhart Pannenberg (Chicago, Ill.: OpenCourt Publishing Company, 1997), ISBN: 0812693256, pp. 156–194, from which the subsequent pagesare taken.

The immediate text below is from the Zygon journal’s abstract of the article at <http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119442501/abstract>:

Frank J. Tipler is professor of mathematical physics at Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana70118.

This paper was presented at the Second Pannenberg Symposium, held at the Chicago Cen-ter for Religion and Science, Lutheran School of Theology, 15–17 November 1988. The authorthanks Frank Birtel, Wim Drees, Wolfhart Pannenberg, John Polkinghorne, Robert John Russell,and Michael Zimmerman for their comments on an earlier version of this paper. This work wassupported in part by the National Science Foundation under grant number PHY-86-03130.

KEYWORDScomputer models of the mind and reality • eschatology • grace and the beatific vision • personalGod • physical cosmology • resurrection of the flesh

ABSTRACTI present an outline of the Omega Point theory, which is a model for an omnipresent, omniscient,omnipotent, evolving, personal God who is both transcendent to spacetime and immanent in it, andwho exists necessarily. The model is a falsifiable physical theory, deriving its key concepts not fromany religious tradition but from modern physical cosmology and computer science; from scientificmaterialism rather than revelation. Four testable predictions of the model are given. The theoryassumes that thinking is a purely physical process of the brain, and that personality dies with thebrain. Nevertheless, I show that the Omega Point theory suggests a future universal resurrection ofthe dead very similar to the one predicted in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition. The notions of“grace” and the “beatific vision” appear naturally in the model.

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