A 21st century midrash (A Rabbi "re-imagines" Judaism and Justifies Evolution using QM Theory)

How do Judaism and modern science fit together? Science & Theology News web editor Matt Donnelly asked Rabbi David Nelson, author of Judaism, Physics and God, about the ways in which science is helping Jews to re-imagine their traditional understandings of God and creation.

In your book you define religion as a “search for meaning and for guidance,” and not about “finding the Truth as revealed by God.” Doesn’t one imply the other?

For me, the core of theology is anthropology. What human beings do is far more important, far more concrete, and far more subject to our knowledge than what God does. As I say at several different points in my book, there are some very strict limits on what we can know of God, or of God's Truth -- the analogies to what we can know for certain of quantum phenomena, of what happens inside the event horizon of a black hole, and of what we can know of the Big Bang really capture my sense of our relationship to God.

On the other hand, we can have clear knowledge of, and influence on, the human processes by which we "do" religion. So in a sense, my choice to define religion as I have flows from practical concerns regarding what is possible, knowable, and controllable. And as to whether seeking God's revealed Truth and seeking meaning are related, my answer is: maybe, but how would you know?

In other words, when I speak of the human search for meaning and guidance, I make little distinction between "finding" them and "creating" them. We humans are pattern-finders by nature, and we will "find" patterns even when they don't exist. If so, I would rather be honest and say that often our "search" for meaning is an inventing expedition, rather than pretending that it's really about seeking that which is already there. To create meaning is every bit as holy a pursuit as finding it.

Why are metaphors important for bridging the worlds of science and religion, in particular Judaism?

Metaphors are about how humans think, and how we "know" anything. When we were all little kids, our Crayola box had "sky blue" and "sea green" in among the 64 hues. These are metaphors, and they are one of the primary ways we come to know reality. Science and religion -- for me, Judaism -- are two crucial ways in which we process knowledge of reality, the world, and our lives. To see them both as processing methods, albeit with different rules, links them as being two different human creative activities. For me, this is a much more productive approach than the often used approach which sees them as ways of getting at two fundamentally different sources of truth. Science is the search for observable, experimental, logical truth, while religion is the search for revealed divine truth.

Roger Penrose has defined "singularity" as "a region of infinite curvature ... at which the laws of physics break down." Without the laws of physics to guide us, we can know nothing. Thus, the concept of a singularity represents the absolute theoretical limit on human knowledge. The existence of such a limit is a powerful, and deeply humbling, idea. If we go a step further and imagine God as a (or The) singularity, the notion that our ability to know God is absolutely limited is an important one for any religious thinker to ponder. Such a step is a small one: traditional religious language often describes God as One, Infinite and Transcendent.

Storytelling is a quintessentially human activity. It is one of the most important ways by which we find (or make) meaning in the world. The Big Bang is one of the many stories that we tell about creation. As such, I find it quite useful to think of God as the Big Bang. God, after all, in many stories, is Creator. How did God create? By thought? By a Neo-Platonic out-flowing? By subduing forces of Chaos? These are all ideas that religion has played with over the centuries. That God created by the mechanism that physicists describe as the Big Bang is another useful way the story may be told. Like all the other ways, it has its advantages, and its drawbacks.

Does the Big Bang imply Deism? What does this mean for miracle-believing Jews, Christians and Muslims?

If the Big Bang were the sole and total metaphor for God, then its existence as a powerful, creative, but one-time-only event would indeed pose a problem for those who insist on seeing God as having day-to-day involvement in the life of the universe. But, as I explain in my book, any God-metaphor is only partial, and we can only come closer to "knowing God," to the extent that that is possible at all, by using multiple metaphors. This principle applies equally to the language of physics and to the language of traditional religious text. Is "Shepherd" a total description of God? If so, why do we need "Rock" or "Father" or any of the others?

You write of the “revolutionary effect quantum theory must have on Jewish life.” Could you explain what you mean?

Quantum theory is revolutionary in a Jewish context in a couple of ways. First of all, traditional Jewish texts are pretty comfortable with the idea that God knows -- and controls -- everything in the universe. Quantum theory teaches that, on a very tiny level, events are not controlled by any system, divine or otherwise, but rather are random, or probabilistic. If so, this reduces God's control in a significant way.

Furthermore, random events cannot be known, but can only be predicted as probabilities. So God can't know the outcome of a quantum event in advance, not because God "isn't smart enough," but because the outcome is unknowable. These are serious challenges to our inherited assumptions about God. Secondly, according to the most radical views of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory, the outcome of a quantum event is created -- in technical terms, the wave function is collapsed -- by the fact of our observation/awareness of it. That makes human awareness a tremendously powerful tool, and that power also has far-reaching religious implications.

In reference to the end of my answer to the previous question, consciousness creates reality. More generally, it seems that the one profound difference between us and the rest of the creatures and objects we see around us is that we are conscious, and they, as far as we can tell, are not, at least not in the way we are. To be human is to be conscious. This simple fact leads us to assume, as we assemble our various traditional beliefs about God, that God too is conscious. This can be seen easily in many traditional texts. Thus consciousness is one of the traits that we share in common with God, one of the important ways in which we are "images of God.” As a side note, there are huge questions about the nature of consciousness, especially as it relates to quantum theory. This is food for much future thought!

It sounds like you are saying: “Here are two versions of Truth as expressed by quantum theory. Which one comes closer to the Truth as expressed by Judaism?” If I've understood you correctly, I don't accept the premise of the question. My sense of Judaism includes a structure of multiple truths, expressed in the Talmudic dictum regarding a dispute between two schools of thought who disagreed over virtually every aspect of Jewish law: “These and those are the words of the living God." Both the Copenhagen and the Many Worlds interpretations of quantum theory suggest ways of viewing the world that find a sympathetic ear in my Jewish soul.

Does the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics imply that Jews are not God’s chosen people?

No. The Many Worlds interpretation implies that in the series of branching-points that lead to this time and place, the Jewish people believes it is chosen, but that other paths through the branching-points of the decision tree may lead to Jewish peoples who believe they are one among numerous chosen peoples, or who believe they were not chosen, and so on. The fascinating suggestion of Many Worlds is that all possibilities actually occur, even though we are only aware of the set that results from the particular path that we have taken. It suggests further that our time-and-place in the history of the universe is not privileged over others. The idea that things could have happened differently, and in fact did happen differently, means that there is not a single ultimate plan.

The butterfly effect teaches that tiny events and actions can have huge and unanticipated consequences, that any individual being or action is potentially of vast importance. This fits perfectly into a Jewish sense that no word, no deed, and no individual are "meaningless" or devoid of ultimate holiness/significance.

You write that we might “think of God’s shape as fractal.” What are you suggesting?

One of the key characteristics of fractals is "self-similarity." This means that if you take a whole fractal, and break off a chunk of it, that broken-off chunk will look pretty much like the whole original. A good example is a leafless tree. Aside from the size difference, there is no gross structural difference between the way the tiniest branches at the very top look, the way the bigger limbs down near the trunk look, and the way the whole tree looks.

If we see God as the force that organizes, energizes, and gives structure and "elegance" to the life of the universe, then it doesn't matter if we look through the most powerful telescope at a galactic cluster millions of light-years away, or at the contours of an island as seen from low earth orbit, or at the branches of a tree, the spots on a giraffe, the energy of a two-year-old toddler, or the structure of a single cell or a single strand of DNA. From the cosmic to the microscopic, it's all the same divine power, beauty, and sublime structure. Thus, thinking of God as fractal-shaped means that I can encounter God in a conversation with my neighbor or the contemplation of a flower as effectively as I can in a worship service. This is, for me, very much in line with the ancient Jewish tradition that each human being is an image of God.

First of all, science tells us that electro-magnetic radiation comes in a wide variety of wavelengths and frequencies. We perceive these as being very different from one another, for example visible light, x-rays, radio waves, and ultraviolet radiation. Yet, on a fundamental level, they are all forms of light. So, I believe that we perceive lots of different “forms” of God -- wavelengths and frequencies, if you will -- and they all seem different from one another, but they are all God.

A second example starts with a basic principle of Einstein's special theory of relativity: unlike moving trains or cars or even sound waves, the speed of which varies based on the movement and direction of the observer, the speed of light is constant, for all observers, regardless of their movement or direction. That implies a certain democracy with regard to light. No one gets to see it as slower or faster, no matter how fast, or in which direction, they move while measuring the light's speed.

In a world in which many wars have been fought and much blood has been spilled over essentially who has the closer, or better, or more accurate perception of God, Einstein's special theory of relativity suggests that God-as-Light is available to all human beings equally. No religious group or individual is privileged over any other. The spiritual playing field is leveled. This idea, in fact, is not characteristic of traditional Jewish views, which tend to see Jews, and the land of Israel, as being in a uniquely special relationship with God. But in our day I am given great comfort by the democratization of religion, if God is imagined as Light along the lines of Einstein's theory.

Absolutely. In my view, religion is not critically dependent on God's infinity. Physics, as I understand it, sees the universe as finite. Whether there is anything "beyond" is irrelevant, since no signals, that is, no knowledge can reach us from beyond the universe. As long as God is much bigger and much more powerful than we are, I don't see a need to insist on divine infinity, except as code for "we don't understand it." I am perfectly comfortable, in many ways, with our inability to understand God. In fact, it's when I am confronted by those who claim to fully understand that I get nervous.

Is it important for Judaism that the earth, in some sense, remains the center of the universe?

In past years it certainly was important for traditional Judaism to maintain this notion. But for me, in our era, to maintain it flies in the face of everything that we have learned over the centuries. If I thought that Judaism required this sort of rejection of what is apparently true, then I would have to reject Judaism. For me, Judaism can adjust to changes in world-view. Its flexibility and adaptability are absolutely crucial to its, and therefore my, survival. I believe that, like organisms, Judaism and all other faiths have only two choices: evolution or extinction. I choose evolution.

Is the desire to develop a Theory of Everything an act of rebellion against God or an expression of faith in God?

I think the search for Theories of Everything or Grand Unified Theories is a brilliant expression of deep religious faith. When physicists say, "We can't believe that the universe operates based on two fundamentally different sets of rules, one for big, heavy things and one for tiny, light things," I take the word "believe" very seriously. String theorists to me are people of great piety and faith, even if they are not aware of this fact.

Here I would side with Einstein, who believed that science has nothing to do with evil. Evil comes from human freedom. As a religious thinker, I believe that human freedom is absolutely necessary. One cannot be a moral actor unless one is free to choose either good or evil. But physics has nothing to do with it. The only loophole here might lie in the thinking being done about quantum processes as the heart of consciousness, but I just don't know enough about that yet to comment.

I can't think of any, since that sort of incompatibility would rest on both the science and the religion being rigid and closed to evolution.

Thank you so very much for the ping!

Indeed, I find the fractal to be a very illuminating vantage point to understanding in both theology and science.

Heraclitus (c. 536 B.C.) was probably the first to notice the bridge (and necessity) of stability and flux. Much later of course, Leibnitz (a friend of Newton) argued that there must be something which is conserved and something which changes. Rod Swenson in “Thermodynamics, Evolution, and Behavior” further observed:

If the first law expresses the underlying symmetry of the natural world (that which remains the same) the second law expresses the broken symmetry (that which changes). It is with the second law that a basic nomological understanding of end-directedness, and time itself, the ordinary experience of then and now, of the flow of things, came into the world

And as Grandpierre said in “The Nature of the Universe”:

The realm of the Finite cannot exist without the realm of Infinity, since the Finite can change only by its connection with Infinity, and it can maintain itself only by continuously changing.

But I prefer to examine the physical world through the lens of mathematics. Eugene Wigner and Cumrun Vafa observe (paraphrased) that mathematics is physics looking at itself in a mirror, the term coined by Wigner was “the unreasonable effectiveness of math”.

Mathematics makes the finite/infinite point quite clearly in fractals and is even visible in the graphic representations of the Mandelbrot set.

A fractal is an object or quantity that displays self-similarity on all scales. The common example is the length of a coastline measured with different rulers – the shorter the ruler, the longer the length.

For Lurkers: A Mandelbrot set marks the set of points in a complex plane such that the corresponding Julia set is both non-computable and connected.

In the formula, Z_n+1 = Z_n² + C, the Mandelbrot set includes the points in the complex plane for which the orbit of Z_n does not tend to infinity.

The Mandelbrot set is a fractal; however – although it is self-similar at magnified scales, the small scale details are not identical to the whole.

It is infinitely complex which is to say there is no limit to the detail which can be seen by zooming in on any area of the graph of a Mandelbrot set. It is like a mathematically infinite microscope into a finite graph.

I strongly encourage any Lurkers to see what I mean by clicking to zoom into this graphic of a Mandelbrot set: Crispy neurons

On the physical side of the math/physics mirror, I point first of all to "time" which is a dimension (space/time continuum in relativity).

Those who see our four dimensional block as three spatial dimensions evolving over absolute time may not "get" the point I am about to make, because to them infinite is merely finite without limits.

That is true, but there's more to infinity than this. To those of us who see time as a dimension of the continuum, the concept of time means nothing until it is put in the context of timelessness, which is the “infinity” — or more appropriately, the eternity — of theology and philosophy.

As you can see, the two concepts are not the same thing at all, because one never comprehends the void but rests instead on physical existence for context, in this case physical causality which is suggested by the second law of thermodynamics.

But such concepts are turned upside down when one realizes that there is no time, no space, no energy, no matter, no geometry, no mathematical structures, no physical laws and most especially, no physical causality “beyond” space/time — the “void” that must be considered by all cosmologies. That is the context into which the universe(s) came to be.

The bottom line: order cannot spontaneously rise out of such a void — a true chaos — without a “guide” to the system. We Christians know that guide is God Himself.

Likewise, there is no materialist explanation for mathematics, and especially geometry. And yet the mathematics and the physics are like images of each other — they are truly “unreasonably effective.”

Returning now to the most important "fractal" aspect of all: Jesus Christ. We who are Christian, who are indwelled by the Holy Spirit (John esp. chapters 3, 15-17) – are already alive with Christ in God (Col 3) while we are yet in the flesh. Moreover, we are always aware of the infinite/finite bridge in which we reside while still in the body (Romans 8).

We are like that Mandelbrot set – self-similar in the body of Christ, infinitely complex and detailed.

Therefore, I view our homegoing (physical death) not as a transfer of the spirit from the body nor as a relocation in any sense – but as a weighing of the finite anchor.

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