{"id":1509,"date":"2019-04-04T17:01:13","date_gmt":"2019-04-04T16:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eyrelines.energion.net\/?p=1509"},"modified":"2019-04-04T17:01:13","modified_gmt":"2019-04-04T16:01:13","slug":"physicists-turned-theologians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eyrelines.energion.net\/?p=1509","title":{"rendered":"Physicists turned theologians…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In the Open and Relational Theology reading group I\u2019ve been following, we\u2019ve arrived at John Polkinghorne, who has the distinction of being a brilliant particle physicist, a knight of the realm and a priest in the Anglican communion. I feel considerable fellow-feeling with him, as I did my BSc in Theoretical Physics many years ago and, like Polkinghorne, decided that most physicists had their good ideas in their teens or 20s, and I was probably not going to have any more really good ideas, so I changed direction \u2013 in my case, to law. I was never in Polkinghorne\u2019s class as a thinker, though, and part of my decision was based on the realisation that I probably didn\u2019t have the instinctive flair for mathematics which would have potentially carried those ideas I had <\/em><\/strong>had through to being useful scientific work. After 30 years practising law, again like Polkinghorne I\u2019ve turned to theology (we also share a faith, in both our cases uncomfortably coexisting with a scientific rationalist), and to writing small books on limited topics \u2013 but again, I\u2019m comparing my one published book so far <\/a>to his massive oeuvre…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re looking at\nselected chapters from \u201cThe Polkinghorne Reader\u201d edited by Tom Oord, the first\nof which deals with creation. Polkinghorne gives an account of the first 14\nbillion years or so in scientific terms in a couple of pages, and then comments\n\u201cOf course, the first thing to say about that discourse is that\ntheology is concerned with ontological origin and not with temporal beginning.\nThe idea of creation has no special stake in a datable start to the universe.\nIf Hawking is right, and quantum effects mean that the cosmos as we know it is\nlike a kind of fuzzy spacetime egg, without a singular point at which it all\nbegan, that is scientifically very interesting, but theologically\ninsignificant. When he poses the question, \u201cBut if the universe is really\ncompletely self-contained, having no boundary, or edge, it would have neither\nbeginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?\u201d it\nwould be theologically naive to give any answer other than: \u201cEvery place\u2014as the\nsustainer of the self-contained spacetime egg and as the ordainer of its\nquantum laws.\u201d God is not a God of the edges, with a vested interest in\nboundaries. Creation is not something he did fifteen billion years ago, but it\nis something that he is doing now.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately,\nit isn\u2019t particularly clear to me that the \u201cspacetime egg\u201d needs sustaining or\nthat the laws governing it\u2019s behaviour (to which scientific laws hopefully\napproximate increasingly closely) need ordaining. Tripp and Tom talk in their\ndiscussion about Polkinghorne being a realist, which they say most scientists\nare (i.e. what we discover in science has some correspondence to what is really\nthere, i.e. ontology). I don\u2019t feel able to go quite that far myself. Certainly\nI think that the models of reality we create through science have some\nsimilarity with what is really there; they have to, as they have immense\npredictive power for how reality is going to behave, but the best I can say is\nthat they are approximations to reality, hopefully closer and closer\napproximations. I have a lurking suspicion that like all asymptotic functions,\nthe approximation can never reach exact duplication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He clearly\nthinks, however, that revelation can<\/em><\/strong> tell us about ontology, and goes\non to insist that the Christian doctrine is of a God separate from reality who\ncreates something distinct from Godsself; he wants to avoid panentheism. I\u2019m a\nmystic; I experience God as being radically immanent and therefore not\nreasonably distinct from creation, and the only really amenable god-concept I\ncan find to express that experience is panentheism (though pantheism, which\nwould be an immanent God with no transcendent remainder, is not something my\nexperience can entirely rule out). He really wants to preserve a doctrine of \u201ccreation\nex nihilo\u201d, and possibly a Moltmanian withdrawing of God in order to make a\nspace separate from God in which creation can occur (something which is\nabsolutely not consistent with my experience, though I do find value in the\nconcept of kenosis in relation to creation). I don\u2019t see the need to do that; I\ndon\u2019t read Genesis 1 as involving creation ex nihilo in any event, and\ngenerally reject the arguments of Platonists and Aristoteleans which lead to\nthat, not being a member of either camp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also seems\nwedded to the preservation of God\u2019s power (which is admittedly severely\ncurtailed by, for instance, Process thought); personally I think the concept of\nomnipotence is a \u201ctheological mistake\u201d following Charles Hartshorne\u2019s argument\non the subject. I would point out, however, that in a panentheistic conception\nof God, all the power which exists is God\u2019s power, without the need for that to\nbe infinite (a determination which I argue we are incapable of making as we\ncannot observe infinity, merely intuit it \u2013 and I think intuit wrongly from the\nastonishingly large).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like\nPolkinghorne, I consider speculation about the universe emerging from a quantum\nvacuum (which would not, as he comments, be \u201cnihilo\u201d but might well be \u201ctohu\nwabohu\u201d – without form and void) to be pointless. However, I can\u2019t muster the\nconfidence he shows in revelation (even if \u201cex nihilo\u201d were <\/em><\/strong>what was revealed,\nwhich I don\u2019t think is the case). If the mathematics of cosmology is right,\nthere is no \u201coutside\u201d to the universe in which there might be a quantum vacuum,\nbut there is also no \u201cbefore\u201d to found an act of creation either. T=0 is an\nabsolute limit, and the very concept of \u201ccreation\u201d demands that first there not\nbe something and then that there be something \u2013 and without a \u201cbefore\u201d, the\nterm has no meaning. Though my own (pointless) speculation might be that there\ncould be a timelike dimension in which a \u201cbefore-like\u201d state might be thought\nto have existed \u2013 but such a dimension is one which we cannot observe and have,\nit seems, no need of in order to explain anything else in the universe, so\nprobably doesn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second\nchapter being discussed is \u201cProvidence\u201d. Polkinghorne rejects Cartesian\nmind-body dualism in favour of what he describes as \u201cdual aspect monism\u201d,\narguing that what is has physical and mental poles, while being one thing at\nroot. This is, I suppose, a form of panpsychism. I have major problems thinking\nabout what it might be to be a bat, without trying to think what it might be to\nbe, say, a single cell (whether an organism in its own right or part of a\nlarger whole) a rock or, ultimately, an electron. Is that a possibility, I\nwonder? Can an energy probability density have a mindlike quality? I can\u2019t see\nthat, myself \u2013 it would be slightly easier to conceive of it having \u201cexperience\u201d.\nHe does, on the back of that, seem to at least toy with the idea of emergence \u2013\nthat properties can be seen at higher levels of organisation which could not be\npredicted from a completely reductionist examination of the individual elements\ninvolved (i.e. the idea that physics is not actually all there is, with\nchemistry, biology and psychology being progressively less exact and more wooly\nrepresentations of phenomena which can all be explained by physics). I agree\nwith that, which produces the odd phenomenon of two physicists agreeing that\nphysics is not the be-all and end-all…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have huge\nsympathy for his argument that there could, just possibly, still be direct\ndivine agency at work in the world via a \u201ctweak\u201d of quantum states which,\nconceivably, could then via chaos theory have macroscopic effects. Rather than\na butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon and causing a storm in Europe, it\u2019s\nmore a matter of a single particle popping into existence out of the Dirac sea<\/a> and having the\nsame effect \u2013 OK, maybe via a butterfly. It\u2019s one which I\u2019ve entertained myself,\nas while I fall within the category mentioned by Tom who have no experience of\nanything which could be regarded as a miracle (or as supernatural intervention)\nas\nsuch<\/em><\/strong>, I do have that first mystical experience, which felt<\/em><\/strong>\nas if it was given to or imposed on me. I would really<\/em><\/strong> like to think that\nthere were circumstances in which God qua God (and not as that which underlies\neverything) could act. Indeed, frankly from my perspective, that\u2019s pretty much the\nonly way I can see Tripp\u2019s line that God creates novel possibilities all the\ntime happening. But around 99% of my brain says that that is wishful thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trouble is,\nanything of this kind seems to me to contravene Tom Oord\u2019s \u201cnot even once\u201d\nprinciple, in that even one<\/em><\/strong> intervention by God would negate openness. I\u2019m\nentirely unconvinced that Polkinghorne\u2019s \u201ctop down\u201d provision of information\ncan get round this problem \u2013 why, for example, does God not provide people on\nthe brink of committing some dastardly act with the full knowledge (including\nempathetic knowledge) of the consequences of that act?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said,\nPolkinghorne talks of \u201cstrange attractors\u201d, and it seems to me that memes might\nprovide some such strange attractor as a \u201ctop down\u201d causation. Memes are, of\ncourse, human creations, but we have to assent to following as well as creating\nmemes. \u201cJesus is Lord\u201d, for instance, is a statement which in part effects and\ninstantiates the lordship of which it talks, given that rule is always ultimately\nby consent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he talks of\nprayer, I can follow on from the previous paragraph and regard prayer as\naligning ourselves with the God-meme. I have also in the past speculated that\nprayer might release in us capabilities which were not otherwise accessible.\nCertainly, prayer does release in us a reflective knowledge of our own desires,\nand possibly even those desires which are normally hidden from us. Mainly,\nthough, for me, the point of prayer is in the last line of anything I pray \u201cnevertheless,\nLord, not my will but yours be done\u201d (or, more briefly \u201cwhatever, boss\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cnot even\nonce\u201d principle, however, seems to me to negate any possibility of the gross\nphysical miracles he discusses, even with Lewis\u2019 caveat that they only occur at\npivotal moments. To that, I enquire \u201cAnd the holocaust?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The final essay\nwhich the group is considering is about time. \nPolkinghorne seems to have something of the problem with time which\nbedevils me, though he doesn\u2019t ascribe it to the same source \u2013 in my case, it\nstems from the fact that time appears in all cases except in mystical\nexperience to flow ineluctably (albeit, as Polkinghorne notes, not necessarily\nregularly in the case of special relativity, where time passes differently\ndepending on the speed of ones motion), while the mystical experience tends to\nyield a strong sense of atemporality. I would have been happy with his final\nconclusion that everything is subject to time were it not for that mystical\nintuition. Having read Hartsthorne, the attribution of any infinite aspect to\nGod seems to me to be unwarranted, quite apart from my own thought that it is\ninevitably unobservable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not\nparticularly encouraged by his note that simultaneity or the lack of it is a\njudgment performed in all cases after the event as negating the idea that, at\nroot, all exists simultaneously anyhow, nor by his use of the concept of a \u201clight cone\u201d<\/a> (which is a\nthree-dimensional diagram representing a four-dimensional space, indicating all\nthose places from which light could by now have reached us).  Actually, the light-cone diagram illustrates\none of the huge problems of talking about time, possibly whether as a physicist\nor not \u2013 it represents a time dimension by a space dimension, and space\ndimensions lack any \u201carrow of time\u201d; the mathematics used does not yield any\ndirectionality, and that has to be imposed, commonly by adding the principle of\nentropy. In the mathematics of space-time, everything is reversible, and \u201cthings\nfall apart\u201d is just not true \u2013 they might just as well spontaneously come\ntogether. All the representations we come up with fall into that trap,\nincluding Feynman\ndiagrams<\/a>. We think we are explaining something by saying that particles \u201cmove\nalong\u201d the lines of the diagram, but the very concept of \u201cmove along\u201d already\nhas time embedded in it. Polkinghorne, indeed, suggests that Physics lacks a\nconcept of \u201cnow\u201d \u2013 I would suggest that what it really lacks is a concept of anything\nelse<\/em><\/strong> but \u201cnow\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also suggests\nthat the concept of causality is not the same as that of time. While I would\nagree that far, the concept of causality likewise has time implicit in it \u2013 a cause\nnow produces an effect at a later stage (or, if we were talking about teleology\nor \u201cfinal cause\u201d, a cause now is explained by an intention at an earlier\nstage). I don\u2019t think he has managed to bypass the problem of time…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is always\ninteresting to see another physicist grappling with these concepts, but at the\nend I arrive at a quotation I once saw ascribed to Augustine but cannot now\nfind an origin for, along the lines of \u201cI know what time is, but when you\nask me, I don\u2019t\u201d<\/em>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the Open and Relational Theology reading group I\u2019ve been following, we\u2019ve arrived at John Polkinghorne, who has the distinction of being a brilliant particle physicist, a knight of the realm and a priest in the Anglican communion. I feel considerable fellow-feeling with him, as I did my BSc in Theoretical Physics many years ago […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eyrelines.energion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eyrelines.energion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eyrelines.energion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eyrelines.energion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eyrelines.energion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1509"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eyrelines.energion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1510,"href":"https:\/\/eyrelines.energion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1509\/revisions\/1510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eyrelines.energion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eyrelines.energion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eyrelines.energion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}