What QM Can Never Tell Us About the Incarnation- The Case For no Proofs
Musings that purport to connect quantum mechanics with theology are bound to ruffle feathers. I want to make clear at the start that I am not caught up in such ecstatic illusions of providing a proof. I hope it is useful for precisely the opposite reason. I seek to provide a fair assessment about the nature of reality and what that may tell us about what is actually possible.
Years ago, I was making the case that God did not condemn humanity but became incarnate and took responsibility for human sin. And what divisive spectacle it was, and still is today. A familiar skeptic leaped in questioning how a supposed eternal God who created space-time and matter could become human? I don't know, but it's a very good question.
It's unfortunate he asked rhetorically in order to cast suspicion on the possibility as counterintuitive to natural processes and categories. I had recently read a piece by John Polkinghorne in which he considered this a quite serious scientific and theological question. Polkinghorne was a particle physicist and ordained Anglican priest, so the matter was very much in his wheelhouse.
Polkinghorne acknowledged the resonance between the incarnation and the collapse of the wave function, but he warned against making too much of it. He did say however, that it warranted careful and continued study.
In response to my hostile friend, I said that its a bit like asking how an electron that exists in a superposition of potential states can become manifest at a particular location in time and space? We simply do not understand how. No one understands it. We only know that it does in fact occur, and that our world permits it.
The accusation that God would cease to be God is dependent upon assuming God's nature lacks sufficient quality to be manifest in a physical state and also retain his supernatural position as God. Do we have such knowledge?
We do have knowledge of creating our own avatars by which we interact with created worlds of our own. And most importantly, without ceasing to be ourselves. How clever are we to have dispensed with the objection without even realizing it?
In a separate debate and earlier still, I was challenged by a physicist to point to anything in nature that would suggest such 'theological abstractions' are relevant to physcal reality as we observe it. He wanted a demonstration of scientific consilience. I simply pointed to what physicists had intuited with the advent of quantum mechanics. He really hadn't seen the connection.
To my knowledge there isn't much more to glean from the matter at present. The complexities of divine composition and quantum mechanics are above my pay grade, and everyone elses too. The simple fact that QM provides an illustration of just that sort of paradox; and of phenomena not strictly limited to classical physics is enough. As Polkinghorne said, it is worth investigation.
I would add that proof appears to be a forbidden fruit. Apart from omniscience we are in a position to live only by faith. We do not walk by omniscient sight, but by faith in logic to interpret the evidence objectively. So as Paul observed, we really have 'no excuse' for acting as if natural processes forbid the incarnation.
Romans 1:20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
