The Laws of Nature and the Uncertainty Principle

Greetings,

      One of the topics which comes up with regularity is the Genesis accounts of creation, and how we are both the object and the subject of creation.

      We have a blessed opportunity and the responsibility to share in the creative work of God.  Our discussions brought to the fore some of the essential nature of life and the amazing wonder of God’s creation.  As a part of creation, God created a series of “laws” which we call the “laws of nature.”  Obviously, we still do not understand most of these laws, but we, by the grace of God, have learned some of them, and are being helped to learn more.  Of course, even when we think we know all about one of the laws, we are sometimes surprised by what we do not know about it.  Yet, this is part of what makes life so exciting. 

      A law:

"The more precisely
the POSITION is determined,
the less precisely
the MOMENTUM is known"

“He realized that the act of measuring an electron's properties by hitting it with gamma rays would alter the electron's behavior. Indeed, you could measure the position of an electron (or other particle) OR you could measure its momentum. But the more precisely you measure one property, the more you throw the other off. He tied this up in an equation using Planck's constant, and called it the uncertainty principle. While many resisted this idea, it eventually became accepted as a fundamental law of nature.

“The theory yields a lot, but it hardly brings us any closer to the secret of the Old One. In any case I am convinced that He does not throw dice.”

--Einstein, writing to Max Born, 4 December 1926.

      The play Copenhagen by Michael Frayn led to an interesting review of a number of ethical and scientific issues for me.  First was the whole Quantum Mechanics Theory of Werner Heisenberg.  While I certainly have only the most limited knowledge of these issues, I have found the theories of modern physics not only fascinating but also very useful in understanding the work of God in creation and the functioning God’s natural and spiritual laws.  Just as God uses Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis in the progression of spiritual truths, so Erwin Schröödinger’s antithesis to Heisenberg, the Wave Mechanics, leads to the Uncertainty Theory and the Copenhagen Doctrine.  And just as God uses three sets of T, A, S in the Beatitudes, with each set also forming a T, A, S, so Einstein and Schröödinger continue the development of the Uncertainty Principle and lead to the final conclusion of Einstein that “In any case I am convinced that He [God, much as it pained Einstein to admit it] does not throw dice.” 

      Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle says that: “The more precisely the POSITION is determined, the less precisely the MOMENTUM is known.”  He realized that the act of measuring an electron's properties by hitting it with gamma rays would alter the electron's behavior.  Indeed, you could measure the position of an electron (or other particle) OR you could measure its momentum.  But the more precisely you measure one property, the more you throw the other off.  He tied this up in an equation using Planck's constant, and called it the Uncertainty Principle. While many resisted this idea, it eventually became accepted as a fundamental law of nature. 

      The Uncertainty Principle is, I believe, also true in spiritual relationships.  The more you identify and determine the position of something, or someone, the less precisely you are able to identify the momentum of that thing or person.  We so often seek to “nail down,” to absolutely describe people or something which God is doing, and in doing so render the thing ineffective, fail to see where it or they are going.  Or the more we focus on, or “nail down” the direction and movement of the thing or person, the more we lose sight of the truths of who or what it is.

      This is at the heart of the conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders of his day.  Every time they tried to “nail down” who or what he was, they lost sight of and/or blocked the momentum of where he was going.  Every time they tried to “nail down” and/or stop his forward movement, they lost sight of who he was and what he represented.  And the more they challenged him, the more they sought to refute him, to even deny him, the more they, like reluctant Einsteins, were forced to reveal his power and truth.  The Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis at work. 

      It is typical of us humans that we want everything nailed down.  We want absolute answers for everything.  We want all of tomorrow’s answers today, even though we do not really know or understand tomorrow’s questions.  We fail to understand the Bard’s truths: 

            Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

            Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

            To the last syllable of recorded time,

            And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

            The way to dusty death.

And:

            And like the baseless fabric of this vision,

      `     The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,

            The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

            Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,

            And , like this insubstantial pageant faded,

            Leave not a rack behind.  We are such stuff

            As dreams are made on, and our little life

            Is rounded with a sleep.

      We need to learn to learn to let God proceed at God’s pace and to trust all our yesterdays, todays and tomorrows to God.

Yours & His,

DED