Atom to Adam: If God could be known, how would you know? For centuries the human intellect has framed a mysterious cosmic presence in the guise of a supreme being under the construct of religion. But reckoning with attributes of infinity within the finite resources of mortal existence leads us to agree with Thomas Acquinas' opinion that God is "beyond everything that we might think of Him." Should theology fail to validate our human construction of what God ought to be like, what are we to do? Try science! Journalist Gerhard Staghun suggests that finding God could be a mere electron orbit away. Plotting the course of a sub-atomic particle is no sure thing, but the research along the way provides provocative parallels between science and religion and shows how they both influenced cosmology over the ages. Covering topics that range from the cosmic maps of the Babylonians through quarks and black holes, Staghun writes in his book, God's Laughter, (Harper), that modern physics reveals unfathomable mysteries of the natural world, thereby enhancing our spiritual sense of being. Staghun explains that physical science speaks of real facts and supportive empirical evidence that picture a "cosmic religiousness" without theological constructs and esoteric sophistry: "No Father God, no egotistical yearning for a hereafter.. but simply the notion that in nature as well as in the world of thought a mysterious and superior reason prevails itself." Einstein's theory of relativity, coincidentally, supports this idea of noetic manifestation. The theory of relativity has little to do with everyday experiences and it is difficult to relate to in ordinary language. It is best understood in the context of mathematical formulas that support a harmonious world through precise natural laws. The basic premise is that the structure of the world as it is objectively present does not belong to the "real" world presented to our subjective perceptions. We rely on absolute points of references, such as linear time and fixed positions to judge movement, but physics has rendered these references meaningless. It postulates that time and space are not absolute, but instead, are relative to different systems that are mutually dependent upon another. For example, a pencil on a desk is at rest relative to the Earth. But relative to the sun, it dances in circular movements. Essentially, science transcends the limitations of dualistic thinking by proving that mass and energy do not exist as separate quantities. Scientists consider the now coherent mass-energy as a "primary force" in a class more spiritual than material. Phenomena once thought to be predictable are actually the result of a fluid transition between the deterministic cause-and-effect laws of Newtonian mechanics and the noncausal microworld of atomic instability. The resultant "uncertainty principle" approaches so-called ultimate truths in the same vein that religions claim to communicate a universal mystical concept. Where science concerns itself with what is right and what is wrong, and religion with what is good and what is evil, Staghun is optimistic that religion and science complement and even require each other. "The new cosmic religiousness might be compared to gaining an idea of the unfathomable, conveyed by the understanding of the measurable." Accordingly, the divinity in the universe may no longer be considered a supernatural principle, but a new order that will enable us to exist freely and fully on the spiritual level as well as on the material. (Digest by Clayton Montez, Atlantic University.) |