Now were was that slide ruler… ah here it is. Let’s start with a short expedition into the world of physics. You probably know from your high school science teacher that all things are made up of little particles called molecules. Much to my surprise, molecules are not made of Styrofoam and tinker toys. Instead they are actually made up even smaller particles called atoms, which in turn are made up sub-atomic particles called neutrons, electrons and protons.  There are even smaller particles, but let’s stop there before some of us have an aneurysm.

Of course we don’t ever see things from a “sub-atomic” point of view. We experience the world at a macro level – where all of these  particles are joined into various types of “matter” with properties of mass, density and energy. We sit on a chair, read a book, feel the wind, swing a tennis racquet, eat a sandwich and take a shower without ever thinking about this “micro” or “sub-atomic” world at all. In our macro level of existence the world is a much different place. It is characterized by large objects that can be experienced by our senses. In the “large object” world we don’t see things as having any sort of  inner energy or movement. In fact, we call things that just sit there inanimate objects.

In our “macro” world where things move or stand still everything behaves according to certain rules. We can pick up a rock and throw it, but we would never expect a rock to suddenly travel from one place to another on it’s own. Chairs in the living room don’t ever produce more chairs – even if we put a blue chair next to a pink chair.  You are not likely to hear anything standing next to a block of wood and listening to it intently.  Our macro world is predictable and “solid”. It does not appear to pulsate with any sort of rhythm or motion. It is what we might call “static” in the same sense that superman is static – unchanging, without inner conflict, unyielding and predictable.  Our macro world lulls us into a false sense that what we see is all there is!

Now we do not take that approach with the spiritual world. We know that there is more than what we can sense. We understand that faith is required to walk in the Spirit. We make noise about how much more there is of God than we can know or understand. Yet with creation we seem to think that God has exposed the whole expanse of his cosmic creative ethos to our puny 5 senses and 3 dimensions. But if science can teach us anything it should be that there is always more to discover!

Exploring the macro world out into space, science has yet to reach any sort of conclusion on the size and nature of our universe. The consensus scientists have now are not the same ones they had a mere 5 years ago. The more we think we know, the more we come to understand how much we don’t know. Hundreds of theories about the universe have come and gone in just the last decade. We as Christians have seen these theories variously as either threatening or affirming our view of God and we have dismissed or embraced them accordingly – but in most cases we miss the point. The big picture is that the universe is vast and infinite and will never be completely encapsulated in a philosophy, a theory, or a mathematical equation. Like our God who is infinitely creative, the universe itself is the infinite expression of the very creative impulse that brought us into being in his image.

Indeed, as science advances it does so in a cycle that careens from arrogance to humility and back to arrogance again. When consensus builds around a big idea and science solves one of the thousands of mysteries that has dogged its path, scientists often celebrate by puffing out their chests and extolling the virtues of science as the ultimate human endeavor. A few years later however, those same scientists are back to scratching their heads over new mysteries that have emerged from the same solution they were so proud of a few years before.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the world of quantum physics. In the same way that astronomy is the study of the “macro” universe that we all live in, the study of quantum physics is geared toward examining the micro world that seethes and teams all around us making up everything in the macro world. You may not realize it but the micro world is just as infinite as the macro world. The further scientists delve into the world of the sub-atomic the more  there is to discover.

Infinite? How can the small be infinite?  Consider this illustration. Take a line exactly 1 inch long and divide it in half. Then take one of the resultant lines and divide it in half. Repeat the process until you can no longer do so. Wait… when is that exactly? At what point does the line become no longer divisible by 2? Truthfully there is no limit to the number of times you can make the line smaller by dividing it. There is only a practical limit – notably the point where it becomes impossible to measure.

Does this sound a tad silly to you? You might think that it’s an exercise in futility – like trying to figure out how many angels fit on the head of a pin or how many congressman it takes to screw in a light-bulb.  In reality this is exactly what quantum physicists are trying to do everyday.  They are trying to find ways to measure things that are infinitely small. In fact, one of the major obstacles in the entire world of quantum physics is that the act of measuring has an impact on the item being measured. In other words, just finding a way to look at a sub-atomic interaction causes the results to be skewed. But what scientists are finding out at the sub-atomic level is the same thing they are finding out at the astrophysics (macro) level. There is always still more.

Since this is a devotional blog I know you expect me to bring it back to that original idea – that God created all of the universe as a giant symphony. We are almost there – but you have to hang with me through one more round of physics and then we’ll bring it home. So keep your thinking caps on as we struggle to understand just a tiny bit of the sub-atomic world beneath the surface of all things.

Unlike the macro world, the sub-atomic world is never ever stationary or static. Indeed, nothing stays still. Electrons, protons, neutrons, gamma rays and photons are constantly moving and interacting. In fact, it turns out that these little particles can be examined to understand how much energy they possess (their “energy state”) or they can be examined to determine their location in space, but you cannot know both of these things at the same time. This behavior is so bizarre that it has folks with Einstein level IQ’s fighting over competing explanations at egg-head conferences all over the world.

It seems that particles have 2 contradictory properties. In some sense a particle is not a particle at all but a wave. It acts more like a wave of possibilities than it does like an individual little speck of something or other. These possibilities are always dividing and coming together, dividing and coming together like waves splitting  against an obstacle. Yet in a very real sense these particles do exhibit the behavior of a “speck of something”. A particle can be seen or detected at a particular space and time for example. At that particular space and time it is very much a particle and not some kind of wave. But when you isolate the space and time of a particle (it’s “particleness”) you lose the ability to know anything about how it moves or functions (it’s “waveness”). In fact, the very act of observing it causes it to lose it’s wave like properties.

This disconnected view of particles and how they behave is typically referred to as wave particle duality and it is a science fiction staple.  Physicists explain it by saying that a particle exists in space and time but not in the same way that a large object exists in space and time. Instead of moving smoothly from one location to the next a particle appears to “pop in and out” of existence at particular locations in time and space.  Predicting the location of a particular particle along a time continuum is a matter of understanding the “wave of  possibilities” for a particle. This is actually an observable phenomenon.  For the better part of the last 40 years physicists have been illustrating sub-atomic particles not as solid mass but as a cloud of probabilities because sub atomic particles seem to go popping and crackling through space disappearing and reappearing willy nilly like dancers under a strobe light at an 80’s disco party. And where a particle will appear next is uncertain. It can only be expressed as a probability and not a certainty.

Wait a minute! Am I actually saying that at a micro sub atomic level tiny particles appear to pop up here and there at given points of time and space? …and this popping in out of existence is actually what makes up the whole universe?  Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying – and that’s the current state of quantum physics theory. Of course anyone whose ever had their 3-year old “pop into existence” next to the bed at 3:00 am asking for a drink of water knows exactly what this sort of popping behavior is like.

Indeed, the scientific world is in the dark as to why a particle that is at one time here is suddenly not here and is instead over there. Somehow particles, like Prince Hamlet,  “decide” to be or not to be. They follow a path of possibilities laid out for them by… by some rules or plan yet un-deciphered. So the universe that we know and we live in is held together by rules governed by tiny particles that somehow decide where to be at a given moment. Or at least that’s what science is going to hold onto until they find an explanation that does not require faith.

We on the other hand, have this magnificent description from Hebrews 1:1-3.

God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power.

What holds the universe together? What helps the infinite number of particles “decide” where to be in time and space to make up this sensate universe in which we live?  It is the Word of God – that same word that called the universe into being to begin with. That same Word who saw shapeless matter and fashioned a beautiful blue marbled planet held suspended in space (and time!) and populated with amazing carbon based life forms. That same word who brought man from the dust and fashioned him in the Imago Dei – the very image of God, holding within him the very breath of God from which his life emerged.

What would it “look like” if we could translate the way God experiences the universe into our own poor senses? What would we “see”?  Our God, outside of creation – outside of time and space – encompassing all things that are, that have been or that will be, within His will… holding them together with His Word. Does the world shimmer and pulsate for God?  Does He see the movement and life and constant motion at the sub-atomic level like He sees the motion of stars and galaxies? What would it be like to be aware of the constant behavior of  every molecule and atom?

And let’s not forget. God, being outside of His creation, wholly “other” than His creation, chose willingly to become a part of his creation to rescue fallen us! He chose to subject himself to the limitations of a body – made up of the molecules and atoms that He Himself held together with his Word. And still today he chooses to befriend us, rescue us, redeem us and love us. What an unimaginable God we serve!

In Luke 19 the people were crying out “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in Heave and Glory in the Highest!” The Pharisees wanted Jesus to rebuke them for offering such high praise. Do you remember his response?  He said, “…if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out (vs. 40).”  For Jesus this must have meant something very different. Hyperbole and metaphor aside, Jesus the creator could sense the movement and rhythm of the universe both macro and micro. Holding the very universe together and understanding fully the nature of matter and the laws of physics, Jesus knew that the “rocks could cry out” and proclaim his Glory in a way that surely would have silenced the Pharisees and all of history. Wow… that has to be the best inside joke of all time.

There’s more to this story that I want to share. There is the nature of time and space, the idea of harmonics and parallel universes. But first I want to see how this particular post is received. This line of thought is important to me. It broadens my view of God and of his plan for my life. It brings new power to his willingness to be born in human form and die on the cross. Still, the discussion might be uncomfortable for some and unimaginably boring for others :)  So if you like this post and you would like a couple more along the lines of quantum physics (a topic I’m currently interested in) let me know and I’ll be glad to share whatever God puts on my heart.