The Invaluable Tom Kreitzberg formulated…

Last updated on: December 30, 2014 at 2:42 pm by Mark Shea

The Invaluable Tom Kreitzberg formulated… 2014-12-30T14:42:50-07:00 Mark Shea

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Spong’s Law of Theophysical Asininity some time ago. It declares:

Whenever a person appeals to quantum physics as the basis for a theological or religious principle, he is making an ass of himself.

Stephen Barr, who is typically pretty smart about such matters, concurs and wisely answers the musical question “Does Quantum Physics Make it Easier to Believe in God?” as follows:

Not in any direct way. That is, it doesn’t provide an argument for the existence of God. But it does so indirectly, by providing an argument against the philosophy called materialism (or “physicalism”), which is the main intellectual opponent of belief in God in today’s world.

This reflects the nuance of St. Thomas, who points out that no point of supernatural revelation can be proven by reason, but all attacks on supernatural revelation can be refuted by reason.

Of course, the existence of God is not a matter of supernatural revelation and can be arrived at by the light of natural reason as Paul points out in Romans 1:20 and as the First Vatican Council reaffirmed. But since the human mind is clouded by conscupiscence and believes all sorts rubbish that makes it harder to apprehend the existence of God, various tools of reason can sometimes clear away the rubbish. One of those tools is the sciences which, properly handled, can help clear the mind of cant. So, for instance, to the mind dominated by a mechanistic view of the universe in which it is thought there is no room for God since the Machine is all, quantum physics can help reintroduce to such tidy minds the realization that creation is passing strange and not at all the machine so popular with minds from the age of the machine.

That’s no “faith” in the Christian sense, but it can be a step toward it from the flat-footed determinism of some New Atheists. Quantum physics reminds us we live in a universe that is deeply mysterious. It suggests, rather than proves God. But suggestions can still be refused.

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