Here, commenter bornagain77 notes, in response to a discussion of a one- or two-dimensional universe (the latter recently proposed by a physicist for our own early universe),
Though I have severe reservations about this ‘theory’, I think the ‘flatlander’ example you alluded to is excellent for illustrating the ‘higher dimensional’ nature of the spiritual realm …
Indeed. Consider Giberson and Collins’ comment on Dembski’s work:
It is abundantly clear that death and suffering had been present for literally billions of years before the appearance of humans. So how could human sin be responsible for this? This claim collapses and can only be rescued by desperate moves, like the claim that later events can cause earlier ones. Surprisingly, there are those so eager to make human sin the explanation for all the evils of natural history that they make this paradoxical claim. William Dembski, for example, make this argument, in The End of Christianity. – Karl W. Giberson and Francis S. Collins, The Language of Science and Faith: Straight Answers to Genuine Questions (InterVarsity Press, 2011), pp. 131-32.
A lot comes down to how one thinks about God. I was taught to think of earthly human life as a line proceeding from conception to death, and God as entirely surrounding the line in four dimensions. He can influence the line wherever he thinks good, forward or back. Of course, it all balances in the end.
C.S. Lewis had some similar intuition in The Great Divorce.
Until I encountered Christian Darwinism, quite late in life, I was completely unfamiliar with notions like “God would not interfere” in the affairs of this planet, for some reason or other. It sounded – and still does sound – like “God is so great that he has dispensed with existing.”
Everyone I grew up with always wanted God to interfere or – if a few had lost their faith – it was because they thought he hadn’t interfered when he should have. Generally, people thought God had invented time; otherwise, time would be God, which wasn’t true.
Whatever the defects of a mid-century Canadian upbringing, it did not feature either a silent God or a loud Darwin.