In the current cosmological milieu, when we think of quantum, the presence of God will often pop up like a virtual particle in a Cimmerian vacuum. Major quantum scientists like Max Planck and Werner Heisenberg were convinced that God existed. Max Planck, the originator of quantum theory, had no doubt that “religion and science require a belief in God. To the former He is the foundation, to the latter, the crown of the edifice of every generalized world view.” Heisenberg is credited with saying that shallow science can lead people away from God, but deep study brings humility: a sip from the glass of natural sciences “will make you an atheist…but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting.”
Freeman Dyson, who worked in quantum electrodynamics, held a broad vision of a spiritual or creative order in the cosmos. The quantum field theory expert, the late John Polkinghorne, was an Anglican priest and theologian. Nobel laureate Charles Townes, who laid the foundation for the laser, believed in a spiritual or divine dimension behind physical laws. Mathematician John Lennox is a firm believer in intelligent design and a passionate Christian apologist. Director of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture Stephen Meyer is a theistic philosopher, a working scientist, and a practicing Christian. All quantum virtuosos. These are not the aberrant views of scientific outcasts but comprise almost a consensus among cosmologists.
Quantum mechanics has been called the great new scientific theory of the universe, transforming our understanding of the physical world to such an extent that it has also led to our inability to believe what we have ostensibly understood. As Richard Feynman said, “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.” A brief scan of the subject will show its mystifying complexity.
What is a “quantum”? The term was coined by Max Planck and adopted by top physicists Max Born, Werner Heisenberg, and Wolfgang Pauli, among the most brilliant and distinguished scientists of our era. According to the standard definition, quantum refers to the smallest possible, indivisible unit of any physical property, such as energy, light, or matter. Planck described energy as coming in discrete packets rather than in a smooth, continuous stream, which is how Einstein first considered light, as particles later called “photons.” Quantum mechanics studies how basic particles like electrons, protons, quarks and leptons behave. Yet, particles also possess a wave equivalent function. This is part of its mind-bending enigma.
Key principles include such properties as, succinctly:
Wave function, or wave-function duality. Depending on how one measures these entities, they can spread out like ripples in a pond rather than particles stippling a field—which is also the case. These infinitesimals are peanuts in one respect, peanut butter in another.
Collapse. Once observed, the wave will collapse into a single, localized point, i.e., a particle or a mathematical solution.
Superposition. Particles exist in different states simultaneously until they are measured, when they agree to conduct themselves like ordinary motes.
Entanglement. Particles can become so deeply connected that they are mutually linked no matter the distance and at speeds greater than light—what Einstein called “spooky action at a distance.”
Decoherence. There are two discrete and discrepant realities at the sub-microscopic and macroscopic planes that run mysteriously beside one another. The transition between the strange, probabilistic comportment of the quantum world and the stable, predictable, “classical” reality we experience every day remains a perpetual puzzle.
Despite their weirdness, principles of quantum physics make everyday tools possible, including semiconductors, computer chips, lasers, MRI scanners, bar codes, and GPS systems, etc. Quantum can be harnessed but it remains a conundrum.
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It is almost impossible to delve into the quantum world without one’s thoughts turning to the Creator, a Supreme Intelligence who can be in several places at once, whose logos springs from a vacuum or sheer Nothing, whose will is entangled with ours at a distance or no distance at all, however spookily, who binds all the paradoxes of existence and coheres decoherence, who may for a moment appear as a burning bush or whispering wind or pillar of cloud or under the oaks of Mamre (as a subatomic particle like an electron can appear anywhere in its field instead of at a specific place), who can act both randomly or deliberately, and who manifests to a person in vision or dream only when the Source of all things is honestly and modestly approached in study and prayer. There is obviously a quantum aspect to the Lord.
Regrettably, every theory, physical or occult, of the origin and purpose of the universe is unprovable and cannot be verified either in analysis or experiment. And indeed, every such theory or hypothesis is inherently absurd, no matter how sophisticated or fiercely held or passionately argued. The spiritual domain is intrinsically no different, a kind of cryptic phenomenon that at least bears a curious anaphoric relation to quantum principles.
One believes in quantum because it works, however incomprehensibly. Its power and efficiency, that is, its effects, are unquestionable. At the same time, the universe also works, however incomprehensibly, even if we cannot probe the mind of its originator, assuming He or It exists. As the commonplace has it, one cannot postulate an effect without accepting an anterior cause. The fact that something works means that it must have an origin, a structure and an intelligence behind it, but it does not mean that we can understand its essence or its ontic interiority.
Of course, the symmetry between the Divine and the Quantum is not perfect. If the observer is responsible for the result of a calculation or a measurement as many cosmologists declare—the orphic but influential Copenhagen “create reality with observation” interpretation—that would by analogy render the Spirit arbitrary, a function of the observer’s point of view. An entity dependent on an observer’s state of mind has no authority and no reason to be credited with objective existence as the thing which it presumably is. Whatever or Whoever God is, that is not Him.
Nevertheless, if one is looking for a metaphoric semblance of the Divine, quantum is it. The Spirit, the Divinity, the Intelligence, the Pantokrator—God—is in some obscure way existentially and infinitely more than a concept. Indeed, the Universal Artificer would be an absolute necessity, or so I find myself believing—on my good days. The Creation is there, which is to say here, as inscrutable as it is real. Even the proposal that matter can be created out of light is now a possibility. If that is so, light can be created out of darkness. We push at the boundaries of what is considered difficult, improbable, and intrinsically extraordinary, and our recognition that what appears unlikely may also be inevitable. That is the secret of Quantum as it is of the Sacrosanct. This is reality at its deepest level, at scales of mystery we can only partially fathom. The spiritual realm clearly implies many tropes and comparisons, but the quantum framework is one of the most compelling. In any event, without the quality of intellect and faith that stands before the numinous, we will have become derelict and flighty.
I conclude with a few lines from a poem entitled “When It Dies” from the recently published New Wine, Old Bottles by the Israeli poet Dov Ben Zamir.
When the resins in the candle
pack up for parts unknown
and all the videocassettes and diagrams and theories
melt and collapse
When it dies
the light goes out of the world
like the Lord