Introducing the divinity of the Universe
to pave the way for scientifically credible theology
Chapter 25: Insight and belief—intelligence and affirmation
Synopsis
I was born into a Catholic community, went to Catholic schools and entered a Catholic religious order. I was enthralled by the medieval Dominican theologian, Thomas Aquinas, who introduced Aristotelian science into Catholic theology. After a few years in the Order, I aspired to imitate my hero by rebuilding theology in the light of modern evidence based science. This project required the hypothesis that the Universe is divine so that God is observable. For the Church that is heresy. They expelled me (burning at the stake was off by then). I have remained convinced that I am on the right track but realize that scientific theology may still be a century away so the pain and violence of antiquated ideas will continue.
Contents
25.1: Apologia pro vita mea25.2: Bernard Lonergan: Insight—understanding and affirmation
25.3: Theology, physics and intelligent evolution
25.4: Perhaps quantum field theory not possible?
25.5: Physical data: SLAC and deep inelastic scattering
25.1: Apologia pro vita mea
Why do I reject the Roman Catholic Church? Here is the prologue to my essay on scientific theology written at the end of my Honours year in 2019:
This essay is dedicated to all people, past and present, who have been harmed spiritually, mentally or physically by the Catholic Church or its agents: invaded, murdered, burnt, tortured, raped, abused, molested, beaten, deceived, deprived, disrespected, denied or abandoned. Personally, I sadly regret having been systematically indoctrinated as a small child with a heavy load of false and politically motivated fiction. Jeffrey Nicholls (2020a): Scientific Theology
I do not apologize to the Church. I believe it is in serious need of radical reformation. The Papacy is modelled on imperial Rome, a bygone world of imperialist murderers, thieves and slaveholders. The three solemn vows I was required to make, poverty, renouncing my right to property, chastity, renouncing my right to reproduce and obedience, renouncing my right to self determination, dehumanized me, reducing me to a puppet. For them my personal opinion was intolerable.
I owe my apology to my mother. She also was born into the delusion that I eventually escaped. She lived and died as an extremely devout Catholic. Her influence, reinforced by my Catholic teachers, led me to join the Order. My parents took me to Melbourne, we said goodbye and I stepped into a modern day facsimile of medieval life, based on the Rule of St Augustine the Order used to gain Papal approval in 1216. Dominican Order - Wikipedia
Here I discovered a whole new world of theology, the work of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1275). It was nothing like the stories the nuns, brothers and priests had been telling me. The most fascinating feature of his work was his reinterpretation the faith using the best science available in his time, the work of Aristotle. More than 1500 years after his death, Aristotle's work was carried from East to West and entered the new universities of Christian Europe. It came from the Greek and Muslim worlds where it had been preserved and studied for centuries. In Europe the Greek was translated into Latin. Aquinas studied it in meticulous detail. Thomas Aquinas - Wikipedia
So far, so good. I was up to my ears in Aquinas and very happy. My mother's dream was fulfilled. It caused her great pain to give me away to the Church but worse was to come. There was a serpent in my Garden. And her loss was compounded five years later when the church rejected the gift of her firstborn. They had to do it. I had explained that Aquinas’s work could be duplicated using modern science only if we assume that the Universe is divine.
25.2: Bernard Lonergan: Insight—understanding and affirmation
In my third monkish year I discovered Bernard Lonergan's book, Insight. Lonergan had made a close study of Aquinas's theory of knowledge and his use of the term >verbum (word), in his explanation of the Trinity. Bernard Lonergan (1997): Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas, Lonergan (1992): Insight: A Study of Human Understanding
Aquinas argues from a physical observations that the Universe cannot account for itself and therefore God, the Creator, must exist. Lonergan moved the question into the epistemological realm:The existence of God . . . is known as the conclusion to an argument, and while such arguments are many, all of them, I believe, are included in the following general form: If the real is completely intelligible, God exists. But the real is completely intelligible. Therefore God exists.
But, he says, the Universe is not completely intelligible so it is not God. This is because the world contains unintelligible data, the empirical residue detected by inverse insight (Insight, pp 43-56):
. . . the five ways in which Aquinas proves the existence of God are so many particular cases of the general statement that the proportionate Universe is incompletely intelligible and that complete intelligibility is demanded. ibid., p 700.
He falls down, I believe, in his affirmation of the empirical residue. It is easy to believe that we do not know everything, but as science progresses, we find that there is an evolutionary explanation and meaning in every little detail from nose hairs to supernovas. He seems to be begging the question by relying on the central plank of the Christianity, that God is both invisible and transcendental, beyond the reach of human science.
The Catholic Church recently reinforced this allegedly infallible belief. The Second Vatican Council, through its Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation tells us that: Through divine revelation, God chose to show forth and communicate Himself and the eternal decisions of His will regarding the salvation of men. That is to say, He chose to share with them those divine treasures which totally transcend the understanding of the human mind. Second Vatican Council (1965): Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei VerbumMy conclusion from the study of Lonergan's work was that a God other than the Universe is meaningless and all science, all experience, is divine revelation. I began to talk about this, and came into conflict with Catholic dogma. I was rightfully, by their standards, ejected from the Order. I will explain in Chapter 27: The political consequences of physical theology why I now see that this not only an imperialist denial of my humanity, but also as a blessing, excarceration from ideological imprisonment.
This was particularly painful for my mother. In the 50 years between my expulsion from the Order and her death I tried to explain to my her that what has happened to me was for the best. She never forgave them, but held onto her faith.
25.3: Theology, physics and intelligent evolution
Lonergan’s idea that the world contain ‘empirical residue’ fails because the world has evolved through variation and selection. Variation arises from random events, in themselves meaningless, like the fall of a spinning coin. Selection picks the variations that acquire meaning because they successfully reproduce themselves to pass their genes on to their children. Species may last for millions of years as long as this chain of succession is not broken.
I propose that the Universe itself is divine because it is evolving from a divine omnipotent beginning. Every detail of our world and our lives is divine revelation. This revelation is updated from moment to moment by our actions and experiences. All this information is input to theology, our most ancient theory of everything.
Lonergan tells us on page 658 that our immanent source of transcendence is our desire to know. The authors of Genesis knew this when they wrote So God created man in his own image (I:27). I interpret this statement in terms of quantum theory.
Lonergan opened my eyes to a the need for logical explanation of the physical world. Galileo was right to see mathematics as language of physics, but we must also take into account the rapid development in logic and mathematics which began in Galileo’s time. Stephen Hawking (2007): God Created the Integers
Richard Feynman's idea that quantum mechanics is not so much a theory of physics as a theory of communication and computation was emerging about this time. Some were dreaming that quantum computation would be more powerful than Turing computation. I dreamt that it explains why the Universe is intelligent.
In Aristotelian terms, we might say that quantum mechanics plays the role of the agent intellect in solving the eigenvalue problem. It is the simple equation
α|P⟩ = a|P⟩
discussed in Chapter 14: Evolution and intelligence. The symbol |P⟩ represents a structure, a space a bit like the heaven of Platonic forms or a human genome. α is a linear operator which searches |P⟩ to find an observable number a (called an eigenvalue) which tells us something about both αand |P⟩. We measure a but the operator α and the vector |P⟩ are unknowns that have to be chosen either by nature (in the process of creation) or by physicists (in the search for understanding). What we really want to know is the operator, α which explains the relationship between a and |P⟩. Unfortunately there is a lot more information in α than a, so we have to repeat the measurements thousands or millions of times to approximate the answer. Paul Dirac (1983): The Principles of Quantum Mechanics (4th ed)
My intuitive feeling about this equation arises is the following scenario: On introspection I begin with a blank mind, no sharp imagery and then, in a Cartesian moment, which is analogous to the construction and solution of the equation above, suddenly an operator, an eigenfunction and a spectrum of eigenvalues associated with the eigenfunction appear flowing from the tip of my pen, a real time observation of an idea. Our brains also work quantum mechanically.
How does this happen? It feels like an act of evolution by natural selection, finding a stationary eigenvector in the chaos of mind. John von Neumann spent a number of years studying quantum mechanics to put it on a sound mathematical footing. His major contribution to quantum mechanics came in 1929 with a theorem about linear operators associated with the eigenvalue problem. John von Neumann (2018): Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics
25.4 Perhaps quantum field theory is not possible?
Quantum field theory was developed in an effort to harmonize quantum theory with the special theory of relativity. From my point of view it is a source of many problems.
I see two related fatal errors in QFT, a failure to distinguish between dynamics and kinematics, and the the belief that the universe is geometrically rather than logically continuous. I return to this critique in Chapter 26: An alternative to field theory?. Sunny Auyang (1995): How is Quantum Field Theory Possible?
We know that the world works and that it built itself, so we will eventually find a consistent story to explain it. A consequence of this hypothesis is that physics and theology have the same subject.
Now, having rejected most of Catholic theology, I find some reasons to reject much of quantum field theory too. Naturally I accept all the data that physicists have collected over the last few centuries. It is the theory that worries me.
25.5: Physical data: SLAC and deep inelastic scattering
Electron microscopes use electrons accelerated to hundreds of thousands of volts to visualize the structure of cells. In the 1940s, as high energy electrons became available from accelerators, and it was clear that in order to resolve the tiny structure of protons we needed to needed microscopes a million time more powerful using electrons a million times more energetic.
At 1 MeV it became apparent that the proton is not an elementary particle but has internal structure. This motivated the construction of the 50 GeV Stanford linear accelerator with the intention of resolving the internal structure of the proton.
The construction of the accelerator and the elaborate system of spectroscopes necessary to measure the energy and deflection of electrons from the hydrogen target was completed and began doing physics in 1967. The first inelastic scattering experiments began in August 1967. SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory - Wikipedia
The surprising results suggested the presence, contrary to expectation, of pointlike constituents within the proton. High energy experiments had produced a surprisingly large number of different hadrons (the "particle zoo" era). Murray Gell-Mann and George Zweig attempted to classify these using the SU(3) group and the "eightfold way" which suggested that the different hadrons were different combinations of theoretical constituents which came to be called quarks. Particle zoo - Wikipedia
The inelastic scattering experiment produced two surprises. First, there appeared to be freely moving point particles within the proton. The second surprise was a feature known as scaling. The forces between the quarks seemed to decrease as they became closer together, the opposite of what we normally expect for charged particles. They were asymptotically free. Asymptotic freedom - Wikipedia
The final chapter was written by Gross and Wilzcek early in the 70s. Their work provides an explanation of the confusing experimental data and brought a final form of quantum field theory, quantum chromodynamics. The only task to complete the standard model, the physicists theory of everything, is to quantize gravitation. David J. Gross (2004): Nobel lecture: The Discovery of Asymptotic Freedom and the Emergence of QCD, Frank Wilczek (2004): Nobel lecture: Asymptotic Freedom: from Paradox to Paradigm, Frank Wilczek (2008): The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces
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Notes and references
Further reading
Books
Auyang (1995), Sunny Y., How is Quantum Field Theory Possible?, Oxford University Press 1995 Jacket: 'Quantum field theory (QFT) combines quantum mechanics with Einstein's special theory of relativity and underlies elementary particle physics. This book presents a philosophical analysis of QFT. It is the first treatise in which the philosophies of space-time, quantum phenomena and particle interactions are encompassed in a unified framework.'
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Dirac (1983), P A M, The Principles of Quantum Mechanics (4th ed), Oxford UP/Clarendon 1983 Jacket: '[this] is the standard work in the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics, indispensible both to the advanced student and the mature research worker, who will always find it a fresh source of knowledge and stimulation.' (Nature)
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Hawking (2007), Stephen , God Created the Integers, Running Press 2007 ' Bestselling author and physicist Stephen Hawking explores the "masterpieces" of mathematics, 25 landmarks spanning 2,500 years and representing the work of 15 mathematicians, including Augustin Cauchy, Bernard Riemann, and Alan Turing. This extensive anthology allows readers to peer into the mind of genius by providing them with excerpts from the original mathematical proofs and results. It also helps them understand the progression of mathematical thought, and the very foundations of our present-day technologies. Each chapter begins with a biography of the featured mathematician, clearly explaining the significance of the result, followed by the full proof of the work, reproduced from the original publication.
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Lonergan (1992), Bernard J F, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan : Volume 3), University of Toronto Press 1992 '. . . Bernard Lonergan's masterwork. Its aim is nothing less than insight into insight itself, an understanding of understanding'
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Lonergan (1997), Bernard J F, and Robert M. Doran, Frederick E. Crowe (eds), Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas (Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan volume 2), University of Toronto Press 1997 Jacket: 'Verbum is a product of Lonergan's eleven years of study of the thought of Thomas Aquinas. The work is considered by many to be a breakthrough in the history of Lonergan's theology . . .. Here he interprets aspects in the writing of Aquinas relevant to trinitarian theory and, as in most of Lonergan's work, one of the principal aims is to assist the reader in the search to understand the workings of the human mind.'
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von Neumann (2018), John, and Nicholas A. Wheeler (editor), Robert T Beyer (translator), Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, Princeton University Press 2018 ' Quantum mechanics was still in its infancy in 1932 when the young John von Neumann, who would go on to become one of the greatest mathematicians of the twentieth century, published Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics--a revolutionary book that for the first time provided a rigorous mathematical framework for the new science. Robert Beyer's 1955 English translation, which von Neumann reviewed and approved, is cited more frequently today than ever before. But its many treasures and insights were too often obscured by the limitations of the way the text and equations were set on the page. In this new edition of this classic work, mathematical physicist Nicholas Wheeler has completely reset the book in TeX, making the text and equations far easier to read. He has also corrected a handful of typographic errors, revised some sentences for clarity and readability, provided an index for the first time, and added prefatory remarks drawn from the writings of Léon Van Hove and Freeman Dyson. The result brings new life to an essential work in theoretical physics and mathematics.'
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Wilczek (2008), Frank, The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces, Basic Books 2008 ' In this excursion to the outer limits of particle physics, Wilczek explores what quarks and gluons, which compose protons and neutrons, reveal about the manifestation of mass and gravity. A corecipient of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics, Wilczek knows what he’s writing about; the question is, will general science readers? Happily, they know what the strong interaction is (the forces that bind the nucleus), and in Wilczek, they have a jovial guide who adheres to trade publishing’s belief that a successful physics title will not include too many equations. Despite this injunction (against which he lightly protests), Wilczek delivers an approachable verbal picture of what quarks and gluons are doing inside a proton that gives rise to mass and, hence, gravity. Casting the light-speed lives of quarks against “the Grid,” Wilczek’s term for the vacuum that theoretically seethes with quantum activity, Wilczek exudes a contagious excitement for discovery. A near-obligatory acquisition for circulating physics collections.' --Gilbert Taylor
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Links
Asymptotic freedom - Wikipedia, Asymptotic freedom - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In quantum field theory, asymptotic freedom is a property of some gauge theories that causes interactions between particles to become asymptotically weaker as the energy scale increases and the corresponding length scale decreases. (Alternatively, and perhaps contrarily, in applying an S-matrix, asymptotically free refers to free particles states in the distant past or the distant future.) Asymptotic freedom is a feature of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the quantum field theory of the strong interaction between quarks and gluons, the fundamental constituents of nuclear matter. Quarks interact weakly at high energies, allowing perturbative calculations. At low energies, the interaction becomes strong, leading to the confinement of quarks and gluons within composite hadrons. . back |
David J. Gross (2004), Nobel lecture: The Discovery of Asymptotic Freedom and the Emergence of QCD, ' The emergence of QCD is a wonderful example of the evolution from farce to triumph. During a very short period, a transition occurred from experimental discovery and theoretical confusion to theoretical triumph and experimental confirmation. In this Nobel lecture I shall describe the turn of events that led to the discovery of asymptotic freedom, which in turn led to the formulation of QCD, the final element of the remarkably comprehensive theory of elementary particle physics – the Standard Model. I shall then briefly describe the experimental tests of the theory and the implications of asymptotic freedom.' back |
Dominican Order - Wikipedia, Dominican Order - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Order of Preachers (Latin: Ordo Praedicatorum, postnominal abbreviation OP), also known as the Dominican Order, is a mendicant Catholic religious order founded by the Spanish priest Dominic of Caleruega in France, approved by Pope Honorius III via the Papal bull Religiosam vitam on 22 December 1216. . . .Founded to preach the Gospel and to oppose heresy, the teaching activity of the order and its scholastic organisation placed the Preachers in the forefront of the intellectual life of the Middle Ages. The order is famed for its intellectual tradition, having produced many leading theologians and philosophers.' back |
Frank Wilczek (2004), Nobel lecture: Asymptotic Freedom: from Paradox to Paradigm, ' Frank Wilczek held his Nobel lecture December 8, 2004, at Aula Magna, Stockholm University. He was presented by Professor Sune Svanberg, Chairman of the Nobel Committee for Physics. Summary: The idea that Quarks that are born free are confined and can’t be pulled apart was once considered a paradox. The emerging theory for strong interactions, Quantum Chromo Dynamics (QCD) predicts the existence of gluons, which together with quarks can be seen indirectly as jets from hard scattering reactions between particles. Quantum Chromo Dynamics predicts that the forces between quarks are feeble for small separations but are powerful far away, which explains confinement. Many experiments have confirmed this property of the strong interaction. ' back |
Jeffrey Nicholls (2020), Cognitive cosmology, ' The idea here is to lay the foundation for a world order based on a theology that identifies god and the universe. If the Universe is divine, all our experience is experience of god so theology can become a real evidence based science. Since there is but one universe, science will unify theology, as it has unified other disciplines like physics and biology. The unification of theology is a step toward the unification of religion. The unification religion is a step toward the unification of humanity. Finally, the unification of humanity is a step toward respecting and sharing Earth as our true home. With current scientific knowledge and adequate political motivation we have shown that we can, at least locally, radically improve both our condition and the condition of the planet. The principal evils standing in the way of global improvement are ignorance and the greed of those who work purely for profit.' back |
Jeffrey Nicholls (2020a), Scientific Theology, ' Most current theologies are based on the assumption that God is outside the world, an invisible mysterious other. It is impossible to know something we cannot see, so we have a jungle of arbitrary and competing theologies. This site assumes that God and the Universe are identical. On this hypothesis, the Universe performs all the roles traditionally assigned to God: creator, guide and judge. If the Universe is divine all our experience is experience of God so theology can become a real evidence based science. Since there is but one God, true knowledge of God will put us on the path to the unification of theology, as science has unified other disciplines like physics and biology.' back |
Particle zoo - Wikipedia, Particle zoo - Wikipedia, ther free encyclopedia, ' In particle physics, the term particle zoo is used colloquially to describe the relatively extensive list of known subatomic particles by comparison to the variety of species in a zoo. In the history of particle physics, the topic of particles was considered to be particularly confusing in the late 1960s. Before the discovery of quarks, hundreds of strongly interacting particles (hadrons) were known and believed to be distinct elementary particles. It was later discovered that they were not elementary particles, but rather composites of quarks. The set of particles believed today to be elementary is known as the Standard Model and includes quarks, bosons and leptons. The term "subnuclear zoo" was coined or popularized by Robert Oppenheimer in 1956 at the VI Rochester International Conference on High Energy Physics.' back |
Second Vatican Council (1965), Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum, 1. Hearing the word of God with reverence and proclaiming it with faith, the sacred synod takes its direction from these words of St. John: "We announce to you the eternal life which dwelt with the Father and was made visible to us. What we have seen and heard we announce to you, so that you may have fellowship with us and our common fellowship be with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ" (1 John 1:2-3). Therefore, following in the footsteps of the Council of Trent and of the First Vatican Council, this present council wishes to set forth authentic doctrine on divine revelation and how it is handed on, so that by hearing the message of salvation the whole world may believe, by believing it may hope, and by hoping it may love. back |
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory - Wikipedia, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Founded in 1962 as the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, the facility is located on 172 ha (426 acres) of Stanford University-owned land on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, California—just west of the university's main campus. The main accelerator is 3.2 km (2 mi) long—the longest linear accelerator in the world—and has been operational since 1966. |
Thomas Aquinas - Wikipedia, Thomas Aquinas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Thomas Aquinas, OP (1225 – 7 March 1274) . . . was an Italian Dominican friar and priest and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, within which he is also known as the "Doctor Angelicus" and "Doctor Communis". . . . He was the foremost classical proponent of natural theology, and the father of Thomism. His influence on Western thought is considerable, and much of modern philosophy was conceived in development or opposition of his ideas, particularly in the areas of ethics, natural law, metaphysics, and political theory. Unlike many currents in the Church of the time. Thomas embraced several ideas put forward by Aristotle — whom he referred to as "the Philosopher" — and attempted to synthesize Aristotelian philosophy with the principles of Christianity.' back |