[Part 10 in a multi-part series on Science & Religion from an LDS perspective.  Previous entries in the series: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9]

As a side note to the general science vs. religion discussion, let’s take another aspect of science and see how it could apply to some religious principles in general, and story in LDS history in particular.

Here’s a simple example to introduce some of the concepts of dimensional theory.

Imagine a place called ‘2D Land’, which is comprised of exactly two dimensions. 2D Land and all its inhabitants are completely flat--imagine them being printed on a piece of paper--and have no knowledge or perception of any other ‘direction’ than the basic four (N,S,E,W) they live with.

Unbeknownst to them, 2D Land resides entirely inside a much larger world called ‘3D Land’ (imagine a piece of paper floating inside a sphere) in which there are other living beings composed of three dimensions.   One inhabitant of 3D Land (whom we’ll call “Bob”) has taken a particular interest in the 2D people, and watches them from a distant vantage point.

Some observations:

(1) Bob can see everything that happens in 2D Land from his vantage point, from corner to corner. Nothing is hidden from his view.

(2) People in 2D Land, on the other hand, cannot see Bob at all. Bob is not technically ‘invisible’ to their eyes, but rather it is physically impossible for their 2D bodies to turn their eyes in the direction it would take to see Bob to begin with. Moreover, the 2D people don’t have a conceptual understanding of the direction in which to even think about turning their eyes in order to see Bob.

The existence of that third dimension makes a tremendous difference in vision and scope between Bob and the 2D people. Bob and the rest of 3D Land are present and close by, but remain an unseen mystery to the 2D people, and there’s nothing they can do about it.

Let’s suppose, Bob decides to visit 2D Land one day and meet with its inhabitants.  To do so, he travels downward until he literally lands on 2D Land. At this point he is now ‘visible’ to the 2D people, because he is now present on the 2D Land plane, from a 2D perspective.

We should note that the 2D people had NO indication that Bob was about to arrive, because they could not see his route of travel from his starting point in 3D Land to their plane.   From their perspective, the space in 2D Land literally was empty one second, and then suddenly Bob was there an instant later.
Let’s imagine the conversation between Bob and the surprised 2D people.

“Where did you come from?” they might ask.

“It’s called ‘3D Land’” Bob replies.

“We don’t know what that is. Can you point it out for us?” they ask, bringing out a map of 2D Land.

“Sorry. It’s not on your map. In fact, it’s not even possible to be mapped from your perspective.”

“Really? What direction is it from here?”

“From here, it’s ‘up’…”

“’Up’? You mean…’north’?”

“No, not ‘north’…’up’. It’s hard to explain…”

“Can you just point to what direction it’s in?”

“No. From your perspective, I can’t point to it, either. Sorry…”

After the conclusion of his visit, Bob departs—which once again appears to the 2Ders as if Bob instantly disappears from the spot where he was standing without appearing to ‘go’ anywhere. Bob returns to his higher vantage point, where he can continue to watch everything that happens in 2D Land.

Now that we’ve introduced a little bit about dimensional theory, keep the above story in mind while we turn to the account of Joseph Smith from the introduction to the Book of Mormon:

““On the evening of the . . . twenty-first of September [1823] . . . I betook myself to prayer and supplication to Almighty God . . . .

While I was thus in the act of calling upon God, I discovered a light appearing in my room, which continued to increase until the room was lighter than at noonday, when immediately a personage appeared at my bedside, standing in the air, for his feet did not touch the floor.”

[He announces himself as Moroni and delivers his message, which we’ll skip for now…]

“After this communication, I saw the light in the room begin to gather immediately around the person of him who had been speaking to me, and it continued to do so, until the room was again left dark, except just around him, when instantly I saw, as it were, a conduit open right up into heaven, and he ascended until he entirely disappeared, and the room was left as it had been before this heavenly light had made its appearance.”

We know from revelation that Moroni is a resurrected being who has a physical, flesh-and-bone body.  Therefore, he could not have walked through the walls or the roof immaterially like a ghost in order to enter Joseph Smith’s bedroom because his physical body wouldn’t have allowed it.

In fact, Joseph Smith’s account doesn’t say that he did—it doesn’t say Moroni came from anywhere, actually…he just seemed to ‘appear’ instantly by Joseph’s bedside (luckily preceded by some light, or else Joseph would likely have been even more startled than he was.)

When Moroni departed, Joseph had the chance to see him leave, but in what direction did he go? “I saw, as it were, a conduit open right up into heaven, and he ascended until he entirely disappeared…”  In other words, Moroni went up to return home, but not 'up' meaning “through the roof”, but up in some new sense that Joseph was allowed to see for an instant, but wouldn’t be able to point to afterwards.

What happens if we apply dimensional theory to gospel principles? Where do God and His angels reside? Can you point to it? How is it they can have a physical body which occupies space in a fixed location, yet can still see everything that happens in all corners of the Earth by all people? How can angels visit the Earth without seeming to arrive from anywhere we can see?

A dimensional model similar to the one introduced above might explain a lot—in this case, where we reside in a 3D universe, which is surrounded by a larger 4D existence beyond our sight, just like that piece of paper enclosed in a sphere. God can have a physical body in a given location of space, and can still see everything that happens on Earth. Angels can be sent to visit, which from our perspective wouldn't be seen to fly in through the sky and land on the Earth, but rather just ‘appear’.

This is significant, because science already accepts the idea of a fourth dimension—general relativity depends on it, as the fundamental theory behind gravity is that it warps the fabric of space in some fourth direction in order to cause movement in matter. Four dimensional theory is inherently hard to visualize, but since so much of current science deals with 4D curvatures of 3D space can we not consider adding some 4D theory to ‘religion’ as well?

Einstein, among others, hypothesized that 4D curvature of space can answer the question of how the universe can be finite, but unbounded.  We live on what can be considered to be a flat 2D plane—the surface of the Earth—but unlike a bounded piece of paper, we’ll never ‘fall off’ the Earth, or hit a ‘border’ of some kind if we move too far in one direction. This is because that 2D plane has been shaped in a 3D way to become an enclosed area of space that connects with itself. A reasonable explanation for the universe is that, likewise, we’ll never ‘fall out’ of the universe or hit a wall if we travel in one direction long enough, but that the universe still has a finite amount of mass and space—it is a 3D volume that has been shaped in a 4D way such that if you travel in one direction long enough, you’ll probably wind up where you started.

(Side note: many people, including H.G.Wells and Madeleine L’Engle, use ‘time’ to describe a fourth dimension.   I consider this a little problematic, since as discussed earlier, time as we perceive the term is defined as movement...3D movement, and doesn’t fit a true ‘fourth dimension’ in the sense that gravity warping the fabric of space in a new direction does. The idea of a fourth dimension presented here involves specifically 4D movement—movement in some new direction, unrelated to any outside concept of time, which inherently can be expressed as 3D movement…)

The point, again, is not to describe how things are, but to describe how things could be in terms of both scientific and religious terms, and show how things might fit together in a conceptual framework that can be more easily comprehended. The idea of a spirit world, where departed spirits reside (as well as God and His angels) seems conceptually close by when reading scriptural references to it, but still cannot be found with the most powerful telescope from Earth.  Dimensional theory suggests an answer: that perhaps we’re just not looking in the right direction.

Next: Conclusion and series wrap-up