By Robert J. Kurland
It has been thirty years since I entered the Church, but I continue to learn more about what the birth of Christ (Christmas) really means, including the reality that the Christmas season officially ended yesterday. Reading the Gospel of St. John, I discover that before Christ became man, He was the Word (λόγος – logos). So I wonder: can I translate that Greek word into the language of physics, relating it to logical concepts that are familiar to me as a scientist? This is what I have found.
First, let’s talk about light, since Scripture offers many references to Christ as light: «This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.» (1 John 1:5) Can we relate the physics of light to its theological meaning?
In the early 20th century, Einstein’s explanation of the photoelectric effect gave light a new character: that of a particle (photon), instead of its classical formulation as an electromagnetic wave. Since a photon travels at the speed of light, special relativity requires that time does not exist for it. Why? A fundamental assumption of special relativity is that a light signal (the measuring agent) cannot measure itself.
What are the theological implications of time not existing for photons? Here’s an idea: if we say that God is light, that implies that time does not exist for God either. As St. Augustine pointed out, God does not exist IN time; the Word of God is always there, timeless, without beginning or end. And as we see below, the Word of God, Our Lord, is light: «When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.'» (John 8:12)
There is more in the Gospel of St. John, right in the opening words: «In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.» What is the connection between the Word and light?
The Greek word in the New Testament translated as «Word» is λόγος (logos). In addition to the meaning «word,» other general senses are «principle,» «reason,» «logic,» etc. What do we mean when we say: «Now I see the light!»? We see the reason, the truth, the foundation and the principle of what is said. Thus, «Word» implies both light and reason.
For St. Augustine, this means: «The eternal light which is the immutable Wisdom of God, by whom all things were made, and whom we call the only begotten Son of God.» (The City of God, XI, 9) But light is only one aspect of how things work. What about λόγος in the sense of the general scheme of the universe? Do contemporary physics proposals admit a governing entity of how things work, an agency that we can identify as God, Creator and Sustainer?
There are two major scientific visions: 1) the Participatory Universe proposed by physicist John Wheeler («It from Bit«); 2) the Holographic Universe. Wheeler poses three questions:
- How does existence emerge?
- How does the quantum emerge?
- How does «a single world» emerge from many observer-participants?
Wheeler’s answer to the first question, and implicitly to the others, was: «it from bit symbolizes the idea… that what we call reality arises, in the last analysis, from the posing of yes/no questions and the registration of equipment-evoked responses.»
The notion that an observer has to measure, that something must be perceived to be real, is not new. Three centuries ago, Bishop Berkeley proposed essentially the same thing: that for something to be real it has to be perceived. And thus, for the universe to have existed before man, the agency of God, the Logos, is required.
Or, as Monsignor Ronald Knox expresses it in the Berkeleyan limerick, «God in the Quad»:
There was a young man who said: «God
Must find it exceedingly odd
If he finds that this tree
Continues to be
When there’s no one about in the Quad.»
REPLY
Dear Sir:
Your astonishment’s odd:
I am always about in the Quad.
And that’s why the tree
Will continue to be,
Since observed by
Yours affectionately,
GOD.
And as for the second scientific vision, one might ask: «What is a hologram?» It is a kind of three-dimensional projection. It results from information coming from both a laser beam reflected off three-dimensional objects and a reference beam. When illuminated by a technical process, a seemingly solid image appears. (If you want to delve deeper into this, click here).
How does the «holographic universe» relate to this? Some scientists speculate that our universe could be represented as a hologram. The information stored on the boundary of the universe would give rise to the universe. However, there is a drawback. If the theory applies to a finite universe, it requires an agency that interacts with the universe for more than one thing to exist in it, i.e., for the universe not to be trivial.
In summary, an observer is required. And who could that observer be? The question answers itself: the Logos, the Word through whom all things were made, the One who holds all things in being.
Once again, we can turn to revelation to understand how the universe works. The conjectures of physics are consistent with the notion that an agent allows the universe to exist. We do not incur cognitive dissonance if we believe both in the New Testament and appreciate cosmological speculations.
One last word. Everything said above deals with mathematical constructions. But reality is more than mathematics; we cannot reduce all reality to them. They can offer a clouded mirror of a part of reality, but they cannot encompass the whole. As St. Augustine said: Si comprehendis, non est Deus («If you understand it, it is not God»). We must glory in the ultimate mystery: Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who created and now sustains the universe.
He became man, as we have celebrated during these weeks of Christmas, for our salvation.
About the author
Bob Kurland is a retired former physicist (BS Caltech —with honors—, 1951; MA, PhD Harvard, 1953, 1956). In 1995 he became Catholic. He writes «not so much to discourse with authority on things I know, as to know them better by discoursing devoutly on them» (St. Augustine, The Trinity 1:8).