I am far too just

Posted on March 27, 2012 by

From Helmut Thielicke.The Waiting Father.  trans. John Doberstein.  1959: Harper & Row. p.112.

“This business of forgiving is by no means a simple thing.  It is not so hard because we are opposed to it on principle.  Oh, no, we’re not all that stubborn.  It is hard because we are so just and because in our mania to be just we proceed to divide the burden of forgiveness among both partners and thus again parcel out forgiveness ‘justly.’  We say, ‘Very well, if the other fellow is sorry and begs my pardon, I will forgiven him, then I will give in.’  We make of forgiveness a law of reciprocity.  And this never works.  For then both of us say to ourselves, ‘The other person has to make the first move.’  And then I watch like a hawk to see whether the other person will flash a signal to me with his eyes or whether I can detect some small hint between the lines of his letter which shows that he is sorry.  I am always on the point of forgiving (for even as a purely secular person I know that life can’t get along without forgiveness; the machine of society would immediately burn out its bearings without this oil); but I never forgive.  I am far too just.”

Posted in Theology | Comments Off

From Outer Space to Inner Space

Posted on March 22, 2012 by

Here are two truly phenomenal videos.  The first asks two basic questions about the universe, and can only say, “we don’t know.”  The best take-away quote from the video for me was this: “We just might be undergoing the biggest paradigm shift in knowledge humanity has ever seen.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=7SWvDHvWXok#!

The next talks about the development of the human being in the womb.  Here’s a great take-away quote:

“The magic of the mechanisms inside each genetic structure saying exactly where that nerve cell should go, the complexity of these, the mathematical models of how these things are indeed done, are beyond human comprehension.  Even though I am a mathematician I look at this with the marvel of how these instruction sets not make these mistakes as they build what is us.  It’s a mystery, it’s magic, it’s divinity.”  Dr. Alexander Tsiaras

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=fKyljukBE70

 

Posted in Science | Tagged , | Comments Off

What Can We Learn From Schleiermacher?

Posted on March 21, 2012 by


It is tautological in many confessional Lutheran circles that Schleiermacher is the source of all that is wrong in modern theology.  Few incur the invective of late 19th and early 20th century confessional Lutheran theologians as Schleiermacher does. His emphasis on the subject’s religious experience as the formal principle of religion would seem completely at odds with Christians who see the Scriptures alone in that role.  Schleiermacher has no real concept of “sin,” or ontic alienation from divinity.  Unlike traditional Calvinistic and Lutheran theology with their dim view of any natural human ability to interact with the divine, Schleiermacher sees within all humans a propensity for religiosity, arguing that the difference between the religious and supposedly “irreligious” is one only of degree, not of kind.  Yet as the famous dictate states, if you can not say something nice about someone, perhaps you should say nothing at all.  Following that advice, is there anything positive that can be said about Schleiermacher’s theology and approach to religion?

Schleiermacher, it seems to me, has this to commend him.  He is genuinely concerned about the continued existence of religion in a world increasingly dominated by sciences and historical approaches that were inimical to it.  He seeks to find a “solid rock” on which to build a house where divinity and humanity might safely meet, safe from the stormy gales, pounding rains and rising waters of Newtonian science and historical criticism.  Furthermore, he wants that house to be one where religion is more than a mere “means to an end,” as in Kant, where it serves the utilitarian purpose of guiding our ethics and morality.  He wants an existential religion, one that is relevant to our lives here and now and not merely thoughts on paper or an idea in the mind.

It is a commonplace these days to hear people reject the content of the Scriptures because of their apparently legendary or at least mythical character.  Seas are parted, time reverses itself, blind men have their sight restored, thousands are fed on one lunch, and a man rises bodily from the dead.  Such things belong more in a Hollywood blockbuster than in a collection of books meant to guide the lives of modern men and women.  The miraculous remains as much of a stumbling block to the cultured people of our age as it did to those in the salons of Berlin which Schleiermacher frequented.

Schleiermacher tackles the problem of the miraculous semantically.  What is a miracle but an everyday event seen through the eyes of religion?  As Helmut Thielicke writes, “Even the most natural and everyday event can be called a miracle if the religious view of it is dominant.” (1) In contrast to this view, many have defined the miraculous specifically as something which is supernatural, or non-natural: ie, outside the laws of nature. This view is in many ways a holdover from the days of Newtonian physics, where science dealt only with the world at the level of human observation and not with either grand cosmic or subatomic scales. For a short period of time (on the scale of historic human civilization) our race was convinced that we had a lock on exactly how the universe functioned, and were close to unraveling whatever secrets remained in what appeared to be an orderly, clock-work-like cosmos.  Among many people not engaged in scientific enterprise this view of a clock-work-like cosmos that necessarily denies “the miraculous” remains a dominant view.

But the last century of scientific discovery has proved this view to be inaccurate.  A more accurate view would be that contained in the last of Arthur C. Clarke’s ‘three laws:’ “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”  Quantum Mechanics has raised serious philosophical questions about how “clock-work-like” the cosmos is at its foundation.  Concepts such as universes spontaneously generating themselves from quantum fluctuations in the vacuum of deep space are being entertained within cosmology; some have proposed that quantum uncertainty at the interfaces between synapses and neurons may preserve human free will and explain self-awareness; it is now accepted that 95% of the universe is made out of “stuff” we know next to nothing about, except that it seems to exist: dark matter and dark energy.  One interpretation of quantum theory suggests that nothing in the universe is, strictly speaking, impossible, although many things are highly, highly improbably.  One cannot climb Mt. Impossible.  But Mt. Improbable?

If the mechanics can one day be demonstrated that would enable a man to walk on water, how five thousand can be fed with five loaves and two fish, all within the known natural laws of the cosmos, would that bring to faith the cultured despisers of religion?  How could it, when the point of the miraculous is supposedly to reveal the work of the One who himself transcends the natural?  Does Schleiermacher, then, not have a point in suggesting that a miracle is more than simply a “supernatural” or unexplainable event?  Can we appreciate, and perhaps even learn, from the apologetic move that Schleiermacher makes on this particular point?  Might it be more than the unreasonableness of the miraculous within the Scriptures that cause them to be despised?

In the movie “Pulp Fiction” hitmen Vincent and Jules witness a miracle.  A spray of bullets misses both of them while out on a “job.”  Vincent, played by John Travolta, shrugs and in the style of Alan Guth accepts the missed bullets as “just one of those things.”  Jules undergoes a radical religious conversion, leaving his life of crime behind and starting over.  The event and their response to it invoke John Leslie‘s famous “firing squad” thought experiment.  The dialogue between the two gangsters (cleaned up somewhat) goes like this (the original language can be read here):

Jules: I just been sittin’ here thinkin’.
Vincent: About what?
Jules: The miracle we witnessed.
Vincent: The miracle you witnessed. I witnessed a freak occurrence.
Jules: Do you know what a miracle is?
Vincent: An act of God.
Jules: What’s an act of God?
Vincent: I guess it’s when God makes the impossible possible. And I’m sorry Jules, but I don’t think what happened this morning qualifies.
Jules: Don’t you see Vince, it doesn’t matter. You’re judging this the wrong way. It’s not about what. It could be God stopped the bullets, he changed Coke into Pepsi, he found my car keys. You don’t judge this based on merit. Whether or not what we experienced was an according-to Hoyle miracle is insignificant. What is significant is I felt God’s touch. God got involved.

Certainly Schleiermacher’s move away from an objective source for religious transformation, for a trigger for contemplation and feeling, and pointing instead to an internal locus for that trigger is problematic for anyone who wants to take seriously God’s self-revelation extra nos, hence Barth’s critique.  Thielicke identifies this as a “crisis of the Word” for Schleiermacher.  Yet in his attempt to provide an apologetic for religion Schleiermacher may indeed have pointed theology down a very necessary, very Lutheran path.  That path leads away from a reasoned, rational defense of the faith, as if that defense in and of itself could engender an appreciation for the Christian faith.  It leads instead to a recognition that presentation of “proofs” – even miraculous “proofs” – for God’s existence cannot in and of themselves turn a cultured despiser of the faith into a follower of Jesus Christ.

Thielicke, Helmut. Modern Faith and Thought. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1990. Print. 205. top

Posted in Science, Theology | Comments Off

The Second Palm Sunday

Posted on March 21, 2012 by

Although each of the four gospels record Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey days before his death, only John records the “palm branches” that give this Sunday its distinctive name.  Yet few liturgical churches can imagine a “Palm Sunday” without palms, even if Vatican II formalized the name change to  ”Passion Sunday” in the predominant Western tradition.

Many recognize that the earliest post-ascension Christians celebrated Sunday as their chief festival day, calling it “the Lord’s Day.”  Each Sunday was an “Easter,” each week a “holy week.”  But as the time until the parousia drew longer, the shape of Christian remembrance of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection shifted from weekly to annual.  By the 4th century, practices which have carried down to us were taking shape.  One of those practices was “Palm Sunday.”

One of the best records we have of a Palm Sunday celebration comes to us from a nun named “Egeria,” a Spanish pilgim who wrote of her experiences visiting the holy week in the Holy City in 375 AD.  Cyril would have likely been patriarch of Jerusalem at that time, although he had been deposed three times owing to his support of the Nicene position against various Arian metropolitans and emperors.  Here is what Egeria writes about Palm Sunday:

When the dismissal has been given in the Martyrium, or major church, the bishop is led with the accompaniment of hymns to the Anastasis [the place of resurrection] and there all ceremonies are accomplished which customarily take place every Sunday at the Anastasis following the dismissal from the Martyrium. Then everyone retires to his home to eat hastily, so that at the beginning of the seventh hour [after noon] everyone will be ready to assemble in the church on the Eleona, by which I mean the Mount of Olives, where the grotto in which the Lord taught is located.

[There] the bishop sits down, hymns and antiphons appropriate to the day and place are sung, and there are likewise readings from the Scriptures. As the ninth hour [around 3 pm] approaches, they move up, chanting hymns, to the Imbomon, that is, to the place from which the Lord ascended into heaven and everyone sits down there. When the bishop is present, the people are always commanded to be seated, so that only the deacons remain standing. And there hymns and antiphons proper to the day and place are sung, interspersed with appropriate readings from the Scriptures and prayers.

As the eleventh hour [around 5 pm] draws near, that particular passage from Scripture is read in which the children bearing palms and branches came forth to meet the Lord, saying: Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. The bishop and all the people rise immediately, and then everyone walks down from the top of the Mount of Olives, with the people preceding the bishop and responding continually with Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord to the hymns and antiphons. All the children who are present here, including those who are not yet able to walk because they are too young and therefore are carried on their parents’ shoulders, all of them bear branches, some carrying palms, others, olive branches.

Whether this was a long established tradition in Jerusalem, or perhaps only decades old, Egeria does not say.  But certainly the practice of waving palm branches on Palm Sunday goes back a long time – over 1600 years, and predates Islam by a good two centuries.

Posted in Theology | Tagged | Comments Off

How To Think About God

Posted on March 19, 2012 by

Adler, Mortimer Jerome. How to Think about God: A Guide for the 20th-century Pagan* ; *one Who Does Not Worship the God of Christians, Jews, or Muslims ; Irreligious Persons. New York: Collier, 1991. Print.

In this seminal work by Adler, the esteemed philosopher attempts to show a reasonable, rational demonstration (but not proof) of the existence of God.  Aware that the word “God” itself is not unproblematic, Adler spends a great deal of the book establishing what he means by the word.  He demonstrates, first of all, that “God” is a unique, unclassifiable object.  God is unique because it points to one object and one only, as for example a proper name like “Charles St-Onge” or “Apollos.”  It is unclassifiable because there are no other members of a class of which God would be a member, unlike Charles St-Onge (class human) or Apollos (class gods worshipped by the ancient Greeks).  Adler insists also on elucidating a definite description of God, such that the description could refer to no other object.  This definite description must be exchangeable in discussion for the word “God” itself.  This description will of course be a theoretical concept and not an empirical one, but that Adler feels shouldn’t bother us, as much as it might have bothered someone such as Kant:

[Kant]‘s strictures against theological inquiry [using pure reason] lose all their force when we recognize that theology, like nuclear physics and cosmology in the 20th century, uses theoretical constructs, not empirical concepts, to deal with objects that lie beyond the range of ordinary or common experience.  If, for that reason, theological inquiry cannot be legitimately and validly conducted, the same reason would make nuclear physics and contemporary cosmology illegitimate and invalid enterprises. (68)

Adler finds Anselm’s ontological argument to be faulty as a proof for God’s existence, but very useful in providing a first step toward a definite description God.  God is 1) the one and only supreme being, 2) which actually does exist in reality, and 3) cannot not so exist.  God is the being “than which no greater can be thought of” (72).  The second step requires us to consider what the existence of such a God is like.  Adler concludes that God’s existence is both “like and unlike the existence of everything else that really exists” (80).  In the sense that we exist, and that God exists (see 2 above), we are “alike.”  In other words, God is not merely an object of thought.  Yet since God cannot be “shown under a microscope,” so to speak, God’s existence must be be unlike ours – and that of everything else in the observable cosmos.  God is non-physical, immaterial and incorporeal (88).  God is therefore non-natural.  Alder moves on to consider that God must be necessary, and not contingent, and so have aseity (from the Latin “a se,” that which exists in, through and from itself).  That further leads us to conclude that God must be immutable and non-temporal. That which is mutable or temporal is affected by something else, and does not have aseity.

Adler must now demonstrate that the God he has described “exists,” a unique existential proposition.  While we cannot demonstrate or prove the existence of such a God, we can infer God’s existence.  Adler believes we can do so in a way similar to how sub-atomic particles are inferred.  They cannot be directly observed, and yet if they did exist they would explain other observed phenomena.  On the other hand the inference is different, in that the inference of God’s existence cannot be falsified by any known fact.

Adler reminds his readers of the distinction between necessary being (a se), contingent being (ab alio), and something being a causa essendi (reason for existence) and a causa fieri (reason for change).  A causa essendi is that which is necessary for existence, that is an exnihilating cause (out of nothing).  He also reminds his readers of the principle of sufficient reason, that everything that exists or happens has a sufficient reason for existing or happening in itself or in another.  Adler points out that the absurdity of atheistic existentialism by pointing out that

What does not have a raison d’etre or a cause of its existence in itself trembles on the verge of nothingness.  Only if some cause exists and operates to preserve it in existence is it saved from annihilation… (118)

But all natural causes of which we know are contingent.  They are all causa fieri, not causa essendi.  And yet the cosmos, and us in it, continue to exist.  How can this be so?  Thus the inference to the existence of the God described earlier by Adler.  Adler summarizes his argument in this way:

  1. IF the existence of a certain effect implies the coexistence of its cause, and
  2. IF whatever exists either does or does not need a cause of its continuing existence every moment of its existence, and
  3. IF contingent beings are such that they do need a cause of their continuing existence at every moment of their existence, and
  4. IF the cause they need must exist and act on them at every moment of their existence, and
  5. IF not contingent being can be the cause that acts to sustain any other contingent being in existence, and
  6. IF one or more contigent beings are known to exist, continuing in existence during the time that they endure;
  7. THEN it follows that a necessary being exists as the cause which acts to sustain in existence the contingent beings that have a continuing existence while they endure. (119-120)

Adler finds one premise that seems faulty.  That would be premise 3, where inertia can serve as an adequate explanation for the continued existence of a contingent being without a continual cause of existence.  Beings are superficially contingent, but not radically contingent.  Matter and energy are conserved; things transform, but they are neither observed to be exnihilated or annihilated.  But what about the cosmos as a whole?

Here Adler makes the bold move of assuming that the steady-state theory of the universe continues to hold.  The cosmos had always existed, and always will exist.  Is the cosmos superficially or radically contingent?  If the cosmos ceased to exist, would there still be something or nothing in its place?  Can the cosmos be truly annihilated and not simply transformed from one state of being into another?  Adler asks a basic question: is this cosmos the only possible cosmos?  Physicists insist the answer is no.  It is simply one of many possible cosmoses.  If it is only one of many possible cosmoses, then is it not possible that the cosmos might not exist at all?  Adler puts it this way:

A merely possible cosmos cannot be an uncaused cosmos.  A cosmos that is radically contingent in its existence, and needs a cause of that existence, needs a supernatural cause – one that exists and acts to exnihilate this merely possible cosmos, thus preventing the realization of what is always possible for a mrerely possible cosmos; namely, its absolute non-existence or reduction to nothingness. (144)

Adler can now return to the real world, where the cosmos as we observe it is held to have had a beginning, and not be in a steady state.  God now appears not only as the preservative cause for the universe, but also as its creator.

The crux of the argument hinges on where one wishes to hang the hat of inexplicability: at the doorstep of the universe’s existence, or at the doorstep of a deity.  One could, for example, still argue that the cosmos is simply uncaused.  Physicist Alan Guth has famously written “the universe is just one of those things which happen from time to time,” the ultimate (in his words) “free lunch” caused (caused?) by quantum fluctuations in nothingness.  But quantum mechanics, it could be argued, is a fundamental feature of the universe itself and not something apart from it.  If our cosmos was spawned by another cosmos, then the entire set of cosmoses must be considered the subject of Adler’s inference.  In case of infinite regression, take the entire regression as the set in question.

In any case, there is certainly some interesting work to be done evaluating Adler’s argument against advances in modern cosmology.  And while it does not “prove” the existence of a God with Adler’s definite description, it points tantalizingly in that direction.

 

Posted in Apologetics, Science | Tagged , | Comments Off

Eberhard Jungel on Natural Revelation

Posted on February 21, 2012 by

Eberhard Jungel once quipped that natural theology cannot distinguish between God and the Devil, since it places God in partnership with the world, where the Devil is, also.  The trouble with natural theology is that “it is always trying to take a look at God while God’s back is turned.” (Roland Zimany, Vehicle for God)  Jungel, like Barth, argued that God is not self-evident to humans.  Knowledge of God comes only by the work of the Holy Spirit.  ”Natural theology implies that atheism is impossible for anyone who is reasonable.” (Zimany)  At the same time, Jungel insists that theology cannot be absolute, that it occurs only with reference to the here and now.  Jungel critiques Pannenberg’s approach to revelation and faith by calling is a “grotesque paradox,” which insists we must “believe that the Resurrection is a historical fact that grounds faith.”

Posted in Theology, Uncategorized | Comments Off

Some Prominent Figures in Design History

Posted on February 7, 2012 by

Murray Eden (MIT) and Marcel P. Schutzenberger (F.A.S.)

Both were mathematicians who, at the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology in Philadelphia in 1966 argued that mathematical difficulties with neodarwinism.  They were not convinced that a random shuffling of a one-dimensional genetic code could produce a “highly coordinated multidimensional organism.”

Pierre Grasse (Evolution of Life)

Argued in the 1970s that neodarwinism had, as yet, explained nothing and that “it is possible that in this domain biology, impotent, yields the floor to metaphysics.”  He served for a time as head of the French Academy of Sciences. He supported the idea of directed evolution, or “vitalism.”

Michael Polanyi (Personal Knowledge: Toward a Post-Critical Philosophy)

Converted to Christianity after reading Dostoevski’s The Brothers Karamazov.  He argued that personal, subjective insight was what guided the most successful scientists, and not dispassionate objectivism.  Was one of the first to point out that DNA had both complex order, which like a fractal could occur naturally, and information content, which is produced by no known natural mechanism.

Thomas Kuhn (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions)

Developed the idea of the “paradigm shift” in 1962, that scientific revolutions do not occur gradually as information develops, but rather in step-wise fashion.  Science is “conditioned by history, society and the prejudices of scientists.”

Brandon Carter (Large Number Coincidences and the Anthropic Principle in Cosmology)

Was one of the first to argue against the Copernican principle of human mediocrity, and in favor of the privileged human position as observers.  Once said “what we can expect to observe must be restricted by the conditions necessary for our presence as observers.”  Was not a theist, and not happy with the way his views were used by those arguing for design.

John Leslie (The Sharpshooter Argument)

Although a Platonist, believes that design is one valid interpretation of present data.  Argued that whether we accept design or a multiverse solution, the question of anthropic privilege cannot simply elicit a “so what?”  Used the “sharpshooter” illustration of a man saved from a firing squad when all fifty shots miss.  Who would walk away from such an experience unmoved or unchanged?

From By Design: Science and the Search for God by Larry Witham, 2003: Encounter Books, San Francisco.

 

 

Posted in Apologetics | Tagged , , | Comments Off

Texts for 3rd Week of Epiphany

Posted on January 17, 2012 by

Jonah 3:1-5

God is not dependent on our persistence.  Rather we are dependent on God’s.  Jonah is called to Nineveh, determines not to go, and is “rerouted” by God.  Now He calls the prophet “the second time.”  The only message he proclaims is law.  This does suggest that the law can, indeed, create repentance.  Although at this point there is now “salvation,” per se, for the people of Nineveh have nothing in which to place their hope.

1 Corinthians 7:29-31

An exceedingly short reading dealing with the end times.  In other words, now.  A lot of ridiculous paradoxes: married people living as though unmarried, those dealing in the world as if they weren’t.  All because the present “form” of this world is passing away.  A suggested translation of 7:31 is “those using the world as not abusing it.”  This life is only a dress rehearsal, a small shadow of a greater life being prepared for us.  What kind of lives should we live, knowing that our current life is a fleeting and temporary thing?

Mark 1:14-20

This pregnant time has now come to its fulfillment.  Repent, and believe the Gospel.  This is the driving force behind our lives in this present age.  Jesus takes those involved in the mundane tasks of this world, relieves them of that work, and gives it a new meaning.  Andrew and Simon, John and James become “fishers of men.”  Simon and Andrew are called immediately, John and James respond immediately.  There is urgency to this work.  Have we lost our sense of urgency today?  John and James are in the process of preparing their nets, but even so they abandon their work to follow Jesus.

Posted in Lectionary | Tagged , | Comments Off

You Can’t ‘Prove’ God

Posted on December 20, 2011 by

An interesting quote from Dean L. Overman’s Evidence for the Existence of God (Rowman and Littlefield: 2009):

There are real limits to any formal reasoning system attempting something in the nature of a mathematical proof.  Science and faith share a common belief that what we see as normal reality is not actual reality; the observable has something more fundamental hidden behind it.  This may be part of the reason a compelling proof of God’s existence or non-existence may not be possible.  Certainty in this world may not only be unknowable (to use Chaitin’s term) but is also unavailable.  This does not mean that an argument cannot be rational and plausible, but perhaps it cannot compel one to choose in a certain direction.

The result of these deeply embedded undecidable fundamentals in mathematics and all formal reasoning systems is that everyone has to make Pascal’s Wager or Kierkegaard’s leap of faith.  There are no exemptions.  Because abstention is a vote, agnosticism is not a real option.  Everyone lives and dies with a faith, whether the faith is theistic or naturalistic.  This is the way our reality appears to be structured, and everyone ultimately makes a choice, whether that choice is passive or active. (p.183)

Overman bases a good chunk of his argument on concepts of mind and consciousness related to quantum mechanics, and to the ideas derived from Godel’s incompleteness theorem in mathematics.

Posted in Apologetics, Philosophy, Science | Tagged , | Comments Off

Quantum Physics: Illusion or Reality?

Posted on December 14, 2011 by

What is it about quantum mechanics that has drawn the attention of so many normally not interested in hard science?  Physics professor Alastair Rae explains in this short book.  Rae describes, first, the experiments which have verified the essentials of quantum theory.  These basic principles with their associated experimental demonstration include:

Heisenberg’s “Uncertainty Principle,” that the product of the change in position and the change in momentum of a subatomic particle will always be greater than Planck’s constant divided by 4 times pi.  In English, one can know the position of a particle but only by sacrificing any knowledge of its momentum, or speed,

Wave-particle duality, or the notion shown through experimentation that “photons” of light can behave either like a particle or like a wave depending on whether an attempt is made to observe the individual particle,

Schrodinger’s wave equation, describing the specific quantized “wavelengths” available to the electrons of an atom in order for it to be stable,

The Einstein-Podolski-Rosen (EPR) effect, sometimes referred to by Einstein’s colloquial phrase “spooky action at a distance,” which implies either nonlocality (a fancy way of saying the particles are behaving in a way well outside of classical interactions), or the existence of some as-yet-undiscovered hidden variable, which led to

Bell’s Theorem, an attempt to determine whether the heretofore unexplainable behavior of subatomic particles could be governed by some as-yet-undiscovered “hidden variables.”  Experiments testing what are now known as “Bell-type inequalities” have born out conventional quantum mechanical theory and ruled out hidden variables, and

The Copenhagen Interpretation, which is the view that the quantum world does not have any true physical reality; physical reality is established by macroscopic measuring apparatus interacting with the microscopic world.

All of these, summed together, suggest that the behavior of particles on the subatomic level changes under observation.  Now one can see where the ears of theologians and philosophers might perk up.  So after establishing the basic physics, Rae explores how some have chosen to deal with this current state of physics. There are some, such as Sir Karl Popper (a philosopher) and Sir John Eccles (a Nobel-prize winning neurologist) who see in these ideas some evidence for a soul, or at least a distinction between the mind that observes the world and the brain by which it is observed.  Call this the “Consciousness Interpretation” of quantum mechanical theory.  The universe exists because conscious entities observe it.  Rae has difficulties with this interpretation, but does present it fairly well.

There are, obviously, those who would rather keep theology out of physics altogether.  Many in this group hold to the “Many Worlds Interpretation” of quantum observation, the idea that each observation spawns a universe in which every possible experimental outcome occurs simultaneously.  While this has the benefit of getting around talk of God, souls, and consciousness, it is (in Rae’s oft-quoted phrase) “cheap on assumptions but expensive on universes.”

The view which Rae prefers is that proposed by Ilya Prigogine, and flows from the concept of time’s arrow, or the notion that certain types of occurrences are  observed to happen in one direction only.  Watching Humpty Dumpty fall from the wall into a state beyond repair is easy to visualize.  We do not, however, observe broken eggs reassemble themselves to be re-situated in a state of high potential energy.  French scientist Henri Poincare suggested that this “arrow” of time was in fact an illusion, since subatomic processes do not see to be bound by this same restriction.  He suggested what is now known as a Poincare recurrence, the concept that given sufficient time the Second Law of Thermodynamics will be observed in certain cases to have been merely a suggestion.  We might call this the “Hebraic Model,” where the universe asks us to accept it as fundamentally dynamic and not static.

Prigogine proposed that in fact is it the seeming reversibility of subatomic processes that are the illusion.  The universe is less something that “is” and more something that “is becoming.”  In fact Prigogine’s book on the subject is called “Being and Becoming.”  Certainly this idea has its own philosophical and theological implications which are worth exploring.

Rae, Alastair.  Quantum Physics: Illusion or Reality?  Cambridge University Press: 1986

Posted in Science | Tagged , | Comments Off