Quantum Mechanics & Divine Communication

Faith & Science Conversation
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Can quantum mechanics offer some explanation of heavenly communications?

Last night I was reading Bill Bryson’s “A Short History of Nearly Everything.” What I learned was fascinating, and I couldn’t help but wonder if it has implications for how heavenly messages are communicated to mortals. Here’s Bryson:

"Perhaps the most arresting of quantum improbabilities is the idea, arising from Wolfgang Pauli’s Exclusion Principle of 1925, that the subatomic particles in certain pairs, even when separated by the most considerable distances, can each instantly ‘know’ what the other is doing. Particles have a quality known as spin and, according to quantum theory, the moment you determine the spin of one particle, its sister particle, no matter how distant away, will immediately begin spinning in the opposite direction and at the same rate.

“It is as if, in the words of the science writer Lawrence Joseph, you had two identical pool balls, one in Ohio and the other in Fiji, and the instant you sent one spinning the other would immediately spin in a contrary direction at precisely the same speed. Remarkably, the phenomenon was proved in 1997 when physicists at the University of Geneva sent photons seven miles in opposite directions and demonstrated that interfering with one provoked an instantaneous response in the other.”

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It is true that entangled particles talk to each other faster than the speed of light. However, It is limited to the collapse of one wavefunction causing the instantaneous collapse of another (yes, even across the universe.) It has been demonstrated that this effect cannot be exploited to send messages faster than light. See the No Communication Theorem.

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I think trying to tie quantum to heavenly communication reduces heaven and God to a physical place and physical person. God is spirit, not matter. Quantum only works with matter.

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No.

Is heavenly communication something which happens according to mathematical equations?

Surely not. But that is the only thing which the theories of physics can explain.

But…

Yes it does. Quantum physics points to limitations inherent in scientific explanations. It tells us that the physical causality according to mathematical equations is not a closed system. This does not in any way prove that communications come from outside the scientific worldview but it does leave open a door to the possibility of such communications.

All that is demonstrated by the two things you have quoted is that physical reality is not entirely reducible to local causality. To be sure, this is outside the scientific worldview. But the possible answers to this are numerous speculations in any of a great number of different directions. But I suppose you can say that your ideas are no less valid than those of anybody else.

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Yes, it’s fascinating, and it’s part science, and it’s part God’s mystery, and it’s hard for the human mind to fully grasp, and it’s difficult for us to reconcile such messages with other parts of the quantum puzzle we believe we understand . . . but I can attest (as can others) that heavenly messages are part of our everyday reality.

I’ve had my brain scanned while in state of quantum communication with the Divine. Can I prove such communications are real? No, because it’s beyond the current scope of science. But so is love. And so is forgiveness. All I know is that my life has been dramatically altered for the better because of these communications.

Anyone who’s had a personal experience of Divine presence will not be dissuaded by the somewhat limited scope of human understanding when it comes to quantum science. We know only a little about the vast complexities of God’s Creation, so I personally believe we should keep our Hearts and Minds open to the wonders and possibilities of God’s mysteries.

Mystery and science aren’t mutually exclusive. They’re just two sides of the same coin.

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I appreciate your thoughts … My belief is that the Father and the Son both have physical bodies. I also believe that the spirit is composed of matter:

7 There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can 
only be discerned by purer eyes;

8 We cannot see it; but when our bodies are purified we shall see that it is all matter.
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Well said. Interesting too that you’ve had your brain scanned during divine communication. I’d be curious to see what regions of the brain were activated. I did receive some information from a neuroscience professor about brain studies during people’s spiritual experiences … I need to dig through my email and share that info. Fascinating.

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I certainly don’t buy into the belief popular among LDS that God is family of aliens on other planets. Makes for great movies like Thor but I have little interest in turning the Bible into a comic book in that way. Besides, this directly contradicts the reasons I have for believing in God and the Bible anyway. Nor do I find any merit in their idea that we come to the earth in order to get bodies. I do not, in fact, believe in any kind of pre-existence whatsoever – not reincarnation and not any of this stuffing spirits into zygotes nonsense.

On the other hand… I certainly believe that the spirit is tangible and substantial… even more so than the physical. But not a part of the mathematical space-time relationships and equations of the physical universe and that includes quantum physics, of course – so I am with @gbob on that one. Its not visible to our physical eyes because it has no part of the relationships by which matter interacts with photons. But this doesn’t mean that the spirit is incapable of being seen by other means.

The talk about bodies being “purified” sounds like scientology and I wouldn’t touch any of that stuff with a ten foot pole. Though it sure fits with the whole sci-fi twist on religion.

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There’s been some research on the topic. It’s complicated, though, because some of the researchers show no awareness that there are different kinds of spiritual states. Some spiritual states, especially those derived from the use of psychotropic drugs or those that arise after a head injury, say more about the brain’s physical “wiring” than they say about spiritual experiences.

There is also, unfortunately, a great deal of overlap between major mental illness and claims of spiritual experience. So despite my own long and intensive practice as a cataphatic mystic, I urge great caution to anyone who wants to pursue quantum communication with the Divine. You can really hurt your brain (at a physical, biological level) if you don’t know what you’re doing. I have zero patience or tolerance for most of the “teachings” I’ve seen on this topic. Most of the “teachings” floating around out there insist that you have to transcend your biology by using all kinds of flaky rituals and/or dangerous drugs and/or extreme forms of asceticism. All you’ll get if you listen to these “teachers” (who never incorporate legitimate scientific findings in their methods) is a seriously busted brain.

The only way – and I really mean the only way – to make this path safe for you and your loved ones is to treat your brain, central nervous system, and body with the utmost care and respect. It’s the brain – the biological brain – that does the heavy lifting when you’re trying to hear God’s voice. So the brain has to be healthy and balanced, with strong network connections. It’s really the strength of the network bundles, not specific brain regions, that matters most. (Here’s a paper on networks that I find helpful.) Having said that, the regions that most need to be connected to each other via networks are the primary visual cortex, the secondary auditory cortex, the thalamus, the posterior cingulate, and the claustrum, with loops through the cerebellum.

What’s the best way to keep this network healthy so you can sense messages from God (what we call intuition)?

Follow the teachings of Jesus with respect to love, forgiveness, and healing (seen best through the Gospel of Mark). Be sensible. Keep your Heart and your Mind balanced. Don’t be an ascetic, but don’t be a hedonist, either. Look for the goodness in other people, but be willing to call them on their unloving choices. Make sure your faith is a thinking faith, not a blind faith. Follow the path of humbleness (where you feel grateful for other people’s gifts), not the path of humility (where you believe everyone is drenched in sin). Treat everyone you meet as a child of God (even if he or she isn’t behaving like a child of God). Have a sense of humour. Admit your own mistakes. Be kind to God.

When you follow the Kingdom teachings of Jesus, your brain will look very different on a SPECT scan than the brain of someone who has embraced ancient dualistic religious doctrines.

And you’ll be much better equipped, from a quantum biological perspective, to fully participate in God’s Creation to the best of your human ability (which is limited, of course, but what the heck – we’re only human).

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When I saw this, I thought you might have Mormon theology. There is, of course, a logical inconsistency with the above and what the Bible says of God: John 4:24: God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth

Regardless of what the truth about God is, one can’t hold both to Doctrine and Covenants description of God and to the Biblical description of God at the same time. They are logically inconsistent. One or the other is untrue.

This isn’t the only place that the Bible speaks of God’s spirit. Rom 8:9 the Spirit of God dwell in you If God is matter, he can’t dwell inside me. Another logical contradiction-two pieces of matter can’t occupy the same space at the same time. Thus to be intellectually consistent one must say either the Bible or Doctrines and Covenants is false or you must show that the laws of matter and physics are not as we understand them, allowing two material objects to occupy the same space at the same time.

This raises another physics problem. The only way current physics allows objects to occupy the same space is if they totally don’t interact with each other–like neutrinos which don’t easily interact with the matter of our bodies. If they don’t interact, then they can’t influence each other so a pure material spirit occupying my body that didn’t interact with my body is relatively useless. Religion shouldn’t require us to accept contradictions and thus tie ourselves into logical pretzel knots

1 Cor 2:12: But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit

I think there is another contradiction. 1 Cor 15:45 says:
The first man Adam was made a living soul

The word translated as ‘soul’ was a word the Greek’s understood as an immaterial object. Thus the use of this word in a Greek language document like the New Testament means that the writers of the NT didn’t believe that the soul was material. The word is ψυχή. The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament says:

“While the Platonists with few exceptions, e.g., Ptolemaeus in Stob. Ecl., I, 378, 1 ff., cling to the immortality of the soul as a part of intelligible being, and accept the difficult process of its temporary union with a material body, for the Peripatetics the immaterial soul is the principle of the form, life, and activity of the total organism, since there is no separate intelligible being in Aristotelian ontology”

Schweizer, E., Bertram, G., Dihle, A., Tröger, K.-W., Lohse, E., & Jacob, E. (1964–). ψυχή, ψυχικός, ἀνάψυξις, ἀναψύχω, δίψυχος, ὀλιγόψυχος. G. Kittel, G. W. Bromiley, & G. Friedrich (Eds.), Theological dictionary of the New Testament (electronic ed., Vol. 9, p. 613). Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

They could have used other words than ψυχή to convey a material soul. Again a logical conflict between the Doctrines and covenants and the Bible.

I guess one question I would have is: If everything, including our minds and God are material, does this mean that materialism is the correct philosophy of life? Afterall, if God is material, then as far as I can see, he is just a powerful being we must deal with but is not really different from us in any way and He too would be subject to the laws of matter and could conceivably die. All material things eventually wear out–that is a law of physics and engineering.

Further, if the soul is actually material would we not be able to detect it in experiments?

edited to add: Isa 42:1 is a statement by God which is translated in Matt 12:18 using the word ψυχή for soul. It is an interested choice of translation by Matthew because it is a word that the society would have understood as the immaterial soul. Matt 12:18 says:

Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased

This would imply God’s soul is not material.

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Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe that we are all spirit children of our Heavenly Father, and therefore brothers and sisters. We lived with Him as spirit children before we were born. He created a plan to help us become more like Him, which involved receiving a body and learning and being tested on the earth. Death is the separation of the spirit body from the physical body. Thanks to the resurrection of Christ, our spirits and bodies can be reunited. Thanks to His sufferings and death, we can repent, be forgiven, and return to our Father’s presence. This sums up what we believe about His plan for us.

I agree that the spirit is not visible to our physical eyes, but it is visible to our spiritual eyes. Angels are among us, as spirits not yet resurrected, as well as resurrected beings.

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A journalist named Wentworth wrote to the prophet Joseph Smith, asking him to sum up the beliefs of our religion. His response was thirteen “Articles of Faith.” Notice Article of Faith #8. We believe that some parts of the Bible were translated incorrectly. John 4:24 is one of those verses. This is Joseph Smith’s translation of that verse:

JST John 4:26 For unto such hath God promised his Spirit. And they who worship him, must worship in spirit and in truth.

We are told in Genesis that man was created in God’s image. If He is a spirit, wouldn’t we all be spirits as well? I do realize that it may difficult for some to accept our belief that Joseph Smith was inspired to make corrections to some verses of the Bible. So if we take John 4:24 exactly as it is written – God is a spirit – well, yes, He is a spirit, clothed with a physical body. We could also consider ourselves spirits clothed with physical bodies-- as spiritual beings having a mortal experience.

In another book of scripture, Doctrine and Covenants, a compilation of revelations to the prophet Joseph Smith, we have these verses:

33 For man is spirit. The elements are eternal, and spirit and element, inseparably connected, receive a fulness of joy;

34 And when separated, man cannot receive a fulness of joy.

And so verse 33 in a sense is similar to John 4:24 - those with physical bodies can be considered spirits in the sense that they are spiritual beings with physical bodies.

On another note, consider this contradiction in the BIble … In 1 John 4:12 we read that “no man hath seen God at any time.” But what about the account of Stephen the martyr seeing the Father and Son in Acts 7:55-56? or Moses speaking with the Lord face to face in Exodus 33? 1 John 4:12 is another verse in the Joseph Smith translation.

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You’ve got a lot of good thoughts here … I’ll respond to more of this later on.

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Dear Ben,
The enlightened Greeks taught that it was the Logos who is responsible to communicate with man, not the God the Father. The early Christians recognizes Jesus as the Logos and as Yahweh who spoke with Moses. Therefore, there is no contradiction since the only way to the Father is through Jesus.
Best Wishes, Shawn

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Actually that is pretty well covered in the OT. No need to go to the Greeks.

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Dear Bill,
Since the Greeks were the first real Christians and the founders of science and logic, I think it is important to make this connection.
Best Wishes, Shawn

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What connection? They were late for the party. It’s old news.

You want to give credit to the Monday morning quarterback for calling the outcome of the game correctly.

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That science and religion were in harmony in the beginning…

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The discussion I was responding to was Jesus as Logos. Last I looked science has nothing to say about that. And if you are looking to the Greeks as the source of knowledge then they must have learned it from the OT. It’s in the book.

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I will let you know that I took ancient Greek in College and am thus familiar with the language. I looked up the verse in the critical text and it does not contain the word promised or any other synonym. The Greek literally says “God, a Spirit,” and those that worship him must worship in Spirit and truth

Now, one can claim that anyone is inspired to ‘retranslate’ any verse but merely making a claim doesn’t make it true. You may believe it is true, because any of us have the freedom to believe anything we want. But what Smith did was not ‘retranslate’ but insert words that are not there in the Greek.

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