As anyone with a scientific background will recognise quickly, I am no physicist. I do, however, like to observe and generalize about the way scientists think and the way science works, so having just read a little book about quantum physics (1) – admittedly not exactly a monumental scientific paper – I thought I’d share a few observations.
MIND THE GAPS. As I’ve written before, scientists who are solidly philosophical materialists like to tell themselves that they’ve chased God out of science and back into “religion” and other insignificant corners of the universe. Richard Dawkins has berated creationists for espousing a “god of the gaps”, meaning that when Christians recognize something scientists haven’t yet understood or categorized, they latch onto it, claiming that God must be in that phenomenon simply because it isn’t yet understood. If Dawkins spent any time at all considering what good creationist scientists are saying today he couldn’t use that argument in any honesty, because believers see God’s handiwork in the very things which secular scientists do observe. It’s about perspective.
It’s a known and easily provable fact that the great pioneers of science such as Newton, Kepler, Boyle, Faraday, Galileo and others believed firmly in God and that they were thinking God’s thoughts after him. They believed that nature is a testimony of God’s power and inventiveness, and there are scientists today who quietly or even loudly profess faith in a creator, though they are shouted down and locked out of the “club”.
One of those little “gaps” from which materialists insist they’ve chased away the notion of God – at least, the Biblical God – is quantum physics. Oddly, some secular scientists, though not all by any means, having dispensed with God are replacing him with their own faith or metaphysical reasoning, so that we’re really no better off in terms of seeing the universe in a purely secular way. Quantum physics, or a misunderstanding of it, lends itself to this kind of thing, and you can find all kinds of far-fetched, weird and wonderful theories, interpretations and extrapolations of the findings and ideas of quantum theory, which apply some sort of metaphysical ideas to what may or may not be factual.
THE ACT OF MEASUREMENT. One of the most profoundly disturbing findings in the world of quantum physics is in “the act of measurement”. Quantum physics involves the study of waves, forces and tiny particles, and it’s been documented that when a wave is observed it suddenly becomes self-conscious and acts as a particle. Other mystifying things do indeed occur in the world of tiny things, and some of the ideas quantum theory entertains would make your hair curl were you able to grasp them. The old picture some of us were given at school of the atom existing as a miniscule solar system with electrons orbiting the nucleus has long been debunked, though it’s still used as an illustration. Tiny particles are difficult to understand even by the most intelligent scientists. The God they’re trying to chase away from the gaps is giving them a hard time of it. When they think they’ve got to the bottom of something they find there’s more.
HIJACKING TREES. The Biblical God created a physical universe of time, space and matter. This is seen in the very first verse of Genesis. The knowledge that it all had a beginning was resisted firmly for decades, because it sounded too Biblical. The resistance continues with a multitude of alternatives such as the multiverse – a totally unobservable entity and therefore not really scientific besides the fact that scientists talk about it. When they study nature and its laws and ignore God they’re refusing to see the wood for the trees. What they are observing and patting themselves on the back for is what the pioneers concluded was the creative work of God. Evolutionists hijack it all and insist it’s conclusive evidence that there is no God at all. Nothing to see here!
Biologists insist that life created itself from non-life but are unable to repeat the process or to answer a multitude of profound questions about how it might have happened (note 2). Life forming from non-life is an event which is not observed today, no matter what you hear, and is therefore not science. It’s hypothesis from a godless bias or at best it’s theory from the wishful thinking that there is no God to answer to.
THE REPLACEMENTS. When my oldest son was at high school he was told by his science teacher that there is no God and that we all evolved from nothing. Months later the same science teacher was telling his class of impressionable students that science proves Buddhist principles and that they should look into Buddhism. The writer of the book I just read on quantum physics seems to take a similar line that there isn’t a God but there’s so much weird stuff going on that some sort of spiritual reality must exist somewhere in it all. He also offers numerous hopeful futures claiming that quantum physics is going to answer all of humanity’s problems and all of our questions about the meaning of life. In other words, this particular scientist has kicked God out – or at least there’s no mention of God – in order to replace Him with his own ideas of the spiritual side of life – unproven and unobservable.
“Quantum physics is about advancement like never before” he assures us, which is a fair and inspirational statement, and it seems the science has already provided great benefits such as quantum computing, a contributing force in A.I. However, the author peers beyond such things and insists that quantum physics might actually be the science to “finally explain everything in the universe...”Everything we’ve ever known. All the questions we always sought an answer to – the very essence of life”. Grand claims indeed: in fact, almost Biblical in proportion. Among the promises quantum physics gives us, according to this enlightened scientist, is “time travelling, the secrets of the universe….”and even the final reconciliation between religion and science”. The pioneers had already reconciled religion and science.
WHEN MIGHT MAKES RIGHT. I noticed how many times the author used such words as “might” in his text. Presumably he’s admitting tacitly in statements such as those above that there really is transcendent meaning in life but doesn’t want to suggest that God has anything to do with it. Instead, it seems we can become gods because we will know all there is to know and will be able to solve all problems. This is humanism at its finest. Ironically secular scientists like to tell us that the impossible will become possible. Oh, do you mean like miracles?
The God of Scripture has already declared that He made all things big and small, and that He has the answer to every question you could ever imagine. In fact, there is no limit to what God can do, and the physical universe which we are a part of and which we are trying to understand is just a small sample of His creative and aesthetic power and knowledge. He alone has power over life and death. However, that isn’t good enough for many who have rejected God – the wood – because all they see is trees.
THE SUB-QUANTUM GOD. God is Spirit, says Jesus Christ. The secularist told us that there is no such thing as spirit then led us to believe in things so small that they may as well be spirit. Jesus, having been resurrected, appeared to his disciples in a locked room. Angels, according to Scripture, move among us unseen yet can appear to us as ordinary people if they choose, moving between the spiritual and the physical with ease. Quantum particles also pass through walls with no trouble at all, and I’m told by secular scientists that were it not for electro-magnetic force we would all fall through the ground or the chairs we think we’re sitting on. In other words, we aren’t nearly as “solid” as we think we are. Even the old solar-system understanding of the atom demonstrates that the atom is virtually all space.
God is not physical, and HIs essence is far superior to the physical realm, but He created and sustains it. It seems to me, then, that quantum physicists are thinking God’s thoughts long, long after him and without considering him for a moment. He’s so far ahead of them that all they can do is play with creation like a child plays with a toy car, instead of driving or making a real one.
Quantum particles and wave-particle duality is peanuts and child’s play to God, as are the ten or more dimensions within string theory, which attempts to unify what we do know and to provide for us “the theory of everything”. The theory of everything has already been solved and in fact written by the One who made everything – but they aren’t interested. He is the one whose “particles”, “waves” and dimensions are as far beyond them as the living cell is beyond the concept of life evolving from nothing in a warm muddy pond. Evolutionists are the ones chasing around in the gaps of knowledge – not we Christians. We’ve already accepted the truth that God and HIs creation is all there is or ever will be.
NOTES
1: “QUANTUM PHYSICS MADE SIMPLE” by Donald B. Grey,
2: Origin of Life Crisis: Rice’s Dr. James Tour Calls Out Bad Science at Harvard #sciencedebate
Fuel for Faith, Food for Thought 