Romans 1:20: The Quantum Connection...

 

Romans 1:20

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made,  so that people are without excuse. (NIV)

What can we expect from a being that knows everything and can do anything? This is a question people often ponder when thinking about God, who is traditionally understood as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The answer I'd like to suggest involves a very special quality, something only a God with all knowledge and all power could pull off.

Not so long ago, many people saw our universe differently than we do today. Before we knew about things like Quantum Mechanics and the Big Bang theory, it was thought that everything just existed eternally on its own. It was understood to be like an infinite machine, running forever without needing anyone to make or manage it. But today, we have new information that completely changed this fundamental understanding.

It's important to remember that our human understanding of how the world works is limited. We may not see the whole picture, even now, but we use what we know to make sense of the world and decide what to do. I think God always come to our aid and assists us in our understanding, regardless if we believe in God or not.

So, back to the question, what can we expect from God, who knows everything and can do anything? My answer involves what we've learned from science, specifically from quantum mechanics.

Quantum mechanics tells us that reality is made of tiny, separate parts - both the parts and moments those parts are in a specific state or relationship to each other.  However, these parts can behave in ways that seem random. In other words, things don't just happen one after the other in a predictable chain, but we can observe that they can change suddenly in ways that aren't entirely predictable. These changes happen incredibly fast, billions of times in a split second - we call it a Planck moment, which is 10^-43 of a second. There is no scientific support left for "an infinite machine, running forever without needing anyone to make or manage it."

Try to imagine this: our entire physical reality, everything we can see and touch, is constantly changing in unpredictable ways, billions of times every second and everywhere in the entire universe! This is a bit like a vast, intricate dance, where every step is crucial. If any step is out of place or if anything is not perfectly aligned from one state to the next, the dance would stumble, and we wouldn't be able to make sense of our world. Yet, amazingly, everything moves in such a harmonious and precise way that we experience a coherent, rational reality. Our experiences of the world, despite this constant, rapid change, somehow make sense.

This brings us to an answer to the question about what to expect to see in nature that shows us God's handy work. I suggest that God, who we know through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, has an amazing ability. He can manage all these random, fast changes so that they form a world that makes sense to us all. We, with our limited understanding, are even able to come up with laws of nature to describe this world. These laws are like a window into the real heaven, showing us a glimpse of God's incredible power and love.