The story goes a little something like this: the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that the momentum and position of a particle cannot both be known at the same time with infinite levels of precision. There is a little fuzziness- electrons are better described as waves than as balls. We can draw a cloud where we are sure the electron spends 95 or 99 or 99.9 percent of its time, but you can never draw a cloud big enough to capture 100 percent of the electron. Therefore, there is a chance no matter how remote that every electron and particle in your body will jump three feet to the right. Or you could punch a wall and your hand would go straight through it as the gypsum board particles hit the cosmic lottery and jump out of the way.
This is where miracles come in.
Some people posit that miracles operate under the guidance of quantum mechanics- God plays slots with the Universe and uses his omnipotence to make sure he gets three cherries whenever he wants. I do not think this is a very good understanding of God or quantum mechanics. God does not play dice with the Universe!
For evidence of this, I suppose I could just cite a few miracles from the Bible. Pay attention to how and why Jesus performs the miracles, and what they say about him.
Then [Jesus] got into the boat and his disciples followed him. Without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, "Lord, save us! We're going to drown!"
He replied, "You of little faith, why are you so afraid?" Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.
The men were amazed and asked, "What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!"
How does Jesus accomplish this miracle? He 'rebukes the winds and the waves' and they 'obey him'. He could just as easily have told his disciples to turn around and close their eyes, said nothing, and when they turned back have everything be calm.
The image that we are given instead is the relationship between a Creator and his Creation: because Jesus is the Son of God and was the Word at the time the Universe was made, he can therefore have mastery over his creation and suspend any rule that he created in the first place. This is kind of like how an author who writes himself into a book has mastery over what happens to his character in that book.
Here's a second example from earlier in the same chapter of Matthew:
When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. "Lord," he said, "my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering."
Jesus said to him, "I will go and heal him."
The centurion replied, "Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and that one, 'Come,' and he comes. I say to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it."
When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, "I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
Then Jesus said to the centurion, "Go! It will be done just as you believed it would." And his servant was healed at that very hour.
Again, Jesus is able to perform this miracle because he has divine authority, like how the centurion has authority over his troops.
Why is this an issue at all?
I think it is important to think about whether Jesus performed these miracles by playing by the rules of physics and rigging the deck or if he got rid of the rules completely.
First of all, the idea that even Jesus and God have to play by the rules of physics sounds somewhat like Deism to me. Deism says that God is a Divine Watchmaker who planned the course of world history by setting the speed of light, Planck's Constant, and Boltzmann's Constant at the beginning of time and hasn't intervened since. Since it is precisely this intervention that is told in the Old and New Testaments, I don't like Deism.
Second, it puts the Creator at the mercy of his own Creation, which is a Very Bad Thing. Some people (WHO SHALL REMAIN NAMELESS) do not believe in God because they think that events described in the Bible are physically impossible. Even though the events ARE, in fact, physically impossible, that does not mean that God cannot do them if God transcends physics.
Lastly, having this understanding of miracles develops our faith in the same way that exercise develops muscles. Believing that God is able to do things that physics says cannot be done takes a lot of faith. Believing that God is able to do things that physics says are astronomically unlikely takes less faith. And the entire point is that we are supposed to have faith in that greatest of miracles: the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Will there be Quantum Mechanics in Heaven?
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."
He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!"
5 comments:
What about the miracle of child birth?
Ah, the banality of David C. Miller.
Good job on understand the concept of omnipotence as it relates to the Christian God. And good job on relaying that this is inconsistent with Deism.
Of course, you've followed down the quintessential DCM of assuming that your adversary(ies) are coming from the same foundational assumption as you. I think it would be worthwhile to tell the readers of your blog exactly who the hell you are talking about and presenting their argument or analysis in full (perhaps by quoting or paraphrasing) as strongly as possible before your standard admonishing diatribe.
It seems to me that the person or persons whose position you are attacking is most likely engaged in what I deem to be a worthwhile project for someone who is confused about their beliefs, namely, how do I reconcile the stuff the Bible says with the way the world is as I experience it?
I think this is definitely a worthwhile question. There is no way to be certain about whether the stuff the Bible says is true, which is why faith is required to be a Christian. Furthermore, we ordinarily use experience to justify epistemological claims, particularly sensory experience, and, in fact, I think we place greater weight on our own experiences than any book including the bible. Imagine, for example, that the Bible told you that the sun didn't exist. I assume that most people would probably do 1 of 3 things: (1) reject the Bible altogether as phooey; (2) reject that particular part of the Bible; (3) interpret that part of the Bible in some metaphorical, i.e., non-literal way. After all, there is overwhelming evidence that the sun does, in fact, exist, and one would have to be in a constant hallucinatory state to think otherwise.
The point is that when parts of a book, even a book with great social significance, seem inconsistent with our own experience, it is natural (I think) to look for alternative interpretations that make the two consistent. After all, God also wrote the book of Nature and, as Descartes wrote, a God that is an evil deceiver, i.e., one who purposefully and consistently shows us things that do not exist is inconsistent with the triple O (i.e., Christian God).
I personally have never had any perception of the world that is inconsistent with the laws of physics. Some people try to say that medical breakthroughs are miracles, but, as I'm sure you would agree, this is not consistent with the Biblical and literal interpretation of the word.
Here's how I see your argument:
(1) If the miracles in the bible could be explained by quantum mechanics, they would not (BY DEFINITION) be miracles.
(2) It says in the Bible that they were miracles.
(3) Everything the bible says is true [hidden assumption]
Therefore, (4) Quantum mechanics cannot account for the miracles in the bible.
I assume that the person(s) who you are having the beef with would probably accept (1) and (2), but reject (3).
On a final note, you seem to, as usual, be towing the line between what is physically possible and what is logically possible. I accept that the triple O god, if he exists, can do anything physically possible by definition. This suffices for the power of omnipotence. A good definition of God's omnipotence says that for any power that any logically possible being could possibly have, God has that power. A bad definition of God's omnipotence says that God has any power he wants, including the power to invent new rules of logic. As I've argued many times, God cannot break the principle of non-contradiction. He cannot create a tree or a rock that both does and does not exist; he cannot himself both exist and not exist. I think Christians like you get defensive when you hear this argument because you see it as a limit to God's power. I don't really think it is; God can still create shit, part the seas, turn water into wine, do everything the Bible says, blablablah
In general, I think your argument is quite banal. You are merely saying that, if you accept my concept of God, and you believe that God exists, then you must believe that God can perform miracles (in the literal sense). True, but not very novel.
Andrew,
Though the words I speak are banal, not one of them is a lie.
I see your point about my debating style. I will tend to make many religiously conservative people nod their heads in solemn agreement and make opponents angry with my irrational rejection of human reason.
You also make a good point showing how people react to things in the Bible that contradict their own experiences. Creation is a good example of this. Some people say the entire Bible is invalidated because of its assertions of Creation. Others say that some parts of Genesis are wrong (as are parts of Paul, Luke, John, 2 Samuel) but that others are still correct. Other people try to interpret the matter in some other way to make the two sides become reconciled. You understand my view of Holy-Spirit-inspired Scripture as through a glass darkly, but you at least could guess that I put more trust in the Word of God than I do this world.
I also disagree with Descartes. God only partly reveals himself through Nature (remember Romans 1), but there are some things in the natural world that God never intended. They have been corrupted as a result of our sin. Animals were not supposed to die. People were not supposed to die. But the natural laws of this world state that they must. It is doubly wicked to blame the confusion that we brought on ourselves through our sin on an Evil Deceiver.
Finally, you seem to be saying that you find my reasoning sound but my premises faulty. Why should one accept my premises in the first place?
Mostly it boils down to the fact that you're on my turf. Let's say that we were having an argument about whether James Bond is right-handed or left-handed and I said that I thought he was right-handed because in the last movie he very clearly uses his Glock in only his right hand.
Would it be fair to argue that you accept my reasoning but reject my argument because in real life Daniel Craig is left-handed? If you're going to argue about James Bond at all, you've got to argue within the framework of the canonical films.
In the same way, if you're going so far as to posit how miracles happen, you're going to have to play in that same territory. I'm not arguing with people to get them to accept my premises; no one ever argued or reasoned his way to God. Rather, we are called to these premises by the Holy Spirit through Word and Sacrament.
I know you did a spit-take there because you think this to be one of the worst parts of Lutheran theology. But God will be waiting when you remember your baptism, Andrew.
Not sure how I stumbled across this, but I did. Interesting stuff. I've never heard about the theory of God doing stuff with quantum mechanics. It sounds kind of silly and like it totally misses the point of what the passage is trying to say. It would seem that asking questions about the God of Scripture that the Scripture itself really isn't interested in is a waste of time and energy. If you're not interested in Scripture, ignore it. If you are, then read it on it's own narratival terms. Don't try to change it or coerce into it your own silly ideas.
-jeremiah
Post a Comment