Open Theism and Quantum Physics
Today’s topic is about open theism and quantum physics.
Huh???
Open theism is based upon the idea that the future is open, or full of possibilities. The “theism” part of the term relates to the fact that God has, by his own decision—reflected in the way he created the cosmos and human beings—decided to subject himself in some aspects to the free will of human beings and thus to their possibilities.
This is very clearly illustrated in the simple process of salvation. God will not force people to follow him. Coercion is not compatible with either love or free will. Therefore, God has subjected himself to your decision about whether or not you will love him or follow him. Possibilities exist – you may or may not choose to love and follow God – and therefore God’s reactions depend on your future decision.
The future is open. God is not 100% in control of everything.
This, too, is corroborated in scripture. It’s plain to see that God desires that all should be saved, but many are not. Therefore, it is obvious that God does not get everything he wants. This has nothing at all to do with God’s power or sovereignty. Of course God has the power to force people to do things, but he will not and He cannot. He has created a universe containing beings with free will, and he cannot contradict his own creation, because in doing so he would contradict his own nature as a creator. Forcing beings with free will to act according to his desires would be to contradict the whole concept of beings with free will. And God will not contradict himself.
God is limited in what he can accomplish, based on the actions of human beings.
Lots of people choke on this idea. The first, most common objection is that open theism somehow diminishes God. It is commonly assumed that open theism teaches that God does not know the future, therefore open theism believes God is not omniscient. This is not actually the case. God certainly knows the future, because he knows in perfect detail every possibility. When faced with an agent possessing free will, who is about to make a decision, God knows in perfect detail every possible outcome out of all the possible outcomes. This is omniscience by anyone’s definition.
In fact, I would submit that the God of open theism requires an even greater intellect. It is certainly impressive to be able to see the future. But it is a much greater talent to see every possible outcome, and to have already created a contingency plan for every one of those outcomes even before the decision is made. That’s the amazing intellect of our God!
Also, in regard to “seeing” the future: does it require more intellect, power and awesomeness to be able to simply see the future and write about it in the Bible, or to subject yourself to all the possible outcomes that could emanate from a planet occupied by billions of people and yet, over a period of millennia, work among all those people and countless situations to still accomplish your stated will as written in the Bible? I would submit that the latter requires the greater intellect, wisdom, knowledge and insight.
The key to open theism is that God has subjected himself to the decisions of those agents of free will, i.e., humans, and therefore has subjected himself to the all the possibilities of the future.
Now let’s tie this in with quantum physics.
One of the primary tenets of quantum physics is that all of matter exists in a state of possibilities. This has been experimentally verified countless times since the age of Einstein in the early 1900s. Matter, on a sub-atomic level, is unpredictable. So much so that Einstein initially rejected the idea, claiming the randomness of matter is not compatible with a deterministic, scientific worldview. Matter cannot possibly act randomly. In his words, “God does not play dice.”
However, he later recanted this opinion, calling it one of the greatest blunders of his career.
God does, indeed, play dice. In a manner of speaking.
Matter is subject to consciousness, and this also has been empirically proven. The mere act of observing an elementary particle can cause it to change its behavior in seemingly random ways. Before observation, the various options of manifestation exist in what is called a cloud of probability. This is called the quantum wave. The quantum wave is that cloud of possible manifestations that the particle might make before the act of observation forces it to choose.
Strange, but true.
So, when the particle is observed and it therefore makes a choice on how to manifest itself, it is said that the quantum wave has collapsed. A choice has been made. The future is now fixed. It cannot be changed. All reality for the entire universe has now changed and will travel along this new path. The ramifications of the decision that the particle made has to be accepted and lived with. It could possibly affect all of humanity from this point forward. These ramifications might be more or less, depending on what is actually being observed, but things have certainly changed if only on a sub-atomic level (see my book Prayer, Quantum Physics and Hotel Mattresses, Destiny Image, 2012, for more insight).
So, we have open theism, which states that God, by the way he created the cosmos and the agents of free will that inhabit it, has willingly subjected himself to all the possibilities that individual humans can conjure up.
And we have quantum physics, which observes that all the physical matter in the known universe is subject to the will of conscious observers, namely, human beings, and that before an observation is made, any of a number of possibilities could become physical reality.
Now we introduce the fact that God created the entire universe from a conscious act of his will. He commanded all the sub-atomic particles of potential, trapped in all the possibilities of the quantum wave, to collapse in such a way that they formed the entire known universe that we now observe and study.
In other words, the very fabric of the cosmos is knit together in the very same way that God deals with his creation today. Everything is about possibilities. Some feel threatened by this, like God is not powerful enough to create a universe in which everything will run like clockwork according to his pre-conceived plan. I see it as just the opposite: it’s an amazing testament to God’s unlimited intelligence and wisdom to believe that God can, even in spite of a world filled with independent-thinking agents of free will, still accomplish his overarching plan for the world! In addition, it’s an act of love to allow his creatures—created with free will—to act on their will, and especially to choose to act in ways that honor him.
The entire point of creating humankind in the first place was to prove that free-willed, sentient beings would choose God, that “the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 3:10). What a huge risk! He expected that “through the church” his wisdom would be made known. That took some guts, but it also took confidence in his own ability to choreograph the universe in such a way as to guarantee that the church would, indeed, exist and that it would, indeed, choose to serve him.
Wow.