Physicist-turned-theologian John Polkinghorne considered the relationship between God, and His will and acts, and the physical universe. Does God interact with the material world, and, if so, how?

Science and theology waving at one another along the cosmological highway

Of “causal joints” and a top-down universe
In his 1998 book, Belief in God in an Age of Science, physicist-turned-theologian John Polkinghorne considered the relationship between God, and His will and acts, and the physical universe. Does God interact with the material world, and, if so, how?

Polkinghorne asked whether it might be possible to discover a “causal joint” between an immaterial God and the material cosmos which could help us in understanding both the sovereign working of God and the nature of the material cosmos.

This is a large question, Polkinghorne knew, but not one we should bail on for that reason. Rather, he found himself unable to “give up the search for a causal joint”, but understood, at the same time, “that our actual attainments in that quest will necessarily be tentative and provisional.”

Attempts to explain the physical nature and actions of the universe typically proceed from a microscopic vantage point: begin with the smallest particles and work upwards, through their effects, to larger forms of matter. Polkinghorne wondered “whether there might not also be macroscopic phenomena that would lend themselves to interpretation as possible causal joints.”A kind of “top-down” explanation for how the universe coheres.

Continuing to develop this idea, Polkinghorne considered that “different inputs of information” in “small triggers” and “small fluctuations” might be a way of getting at the nature and character of the cosmos. God, in other words, continuously creates and sustains the universe by aiming information and energy at it in a manner comprehensive of all created things.

He argued that this is the way human beings interact with their world – “energetically and informationally” – and, suggested, therefore, that it is likely that God relates to the cosmos in a similar, albeit much more complex and comprehensive, not to mention continuous, manner:

The proposal of this chapter is that human beings act in the world through a combination of energetic physical causality and active information, and that God’s providential interaction with creation is purely through the top-down input of information…It is the translation into the mundane language of conjecture about causal joints, of a long tradition of Christian thinking that refers to the hidden work of the Spirit, guiding and enticing the unfolding of continuous creation.

Given the evolutionary/microscopic bias of contemporary physics and cosmology, it would take a theological mind – one that presupposed the existence of a sovereign God beyond the physical cosmos – to break out of the received mode of thought to consider such a “top-down” information-based cosmological model. In his speculations Polkinghorne offered an excellent example of how theology might serve to spur science to set aside its settled assumptions and look at the data of the universe from a different point of view.

Information first?
Now it seems some very good scientific minds are beginning to do precisely that.

As Tom Siegfried reported in the September 25, 2010 issue of Science News, the question, "Why gravity?" may be leading certain physicists to a position on the nature of the cosmos which parallels, at least, what Christians have believed for centuries, and which John Polkinghorne made an excellent attempt at framing in language which demonstrates the potential for theological and scientific dialog.

I do not, of course, claim to understand all this, but here's the gist: Gravity is a form of entropy and is created by the erasure of certain kinds of cosmic information; and information, existing along a holographic sphere at the horizon of the cosmos, is the prior substance and operative force in the maintenance and expansion of the cosmos.

Like I said, I don't understand this. But I do understand that physicists who think this way are beginning to describe a possible overturning of long-held evolutionary views about the nature of the cosmos. Classic Darwinian thinking insists that matter is eternal and all information derives from matter, upon which it is imposed by a process of human discovery. But “a flurry of recent papers” is suggesting exactly the opposite: information came first, comes first, and matter follows what information dictates.

Two of the papers Siegried summarized* suggest that the entire vast cosmos is circumscribed by an “information screen – somewhat like a holograph: “Underlying all this hoopla is a recurring theme at today’s physics frontiers: conceptualizing nature in terms of information.” Information, not matter, is the primary factor: “In other words, information might be a more profound physical entity than matter or field.”

I consulted the two papers Siegried used as the basis of his report, and, while I can’t interpret the physics, the papers clearly intend to present “an alternative interpretation” for the nature and character of the cosmos.

Easson et al posit a form of “information storage” on what they refer to as “the horizon surface screen” of the universe, where “the central role is played by the ideas of information and holography, entropy and temperature.” On the horizon of the universe, they conjecture, “there is an entropic force contribution acting at the horizon and pulling outward towards the horizon” of the cosmos.

Cai et al propose two holographic screens – one on the horizon and one at the center of the cosmos – acting in tension together. Each of these “screens” is a source of information and energy. As these interact with one another, they explain and shape the cosmos as we know it.

We don’t fully understand this process, of course, but this developing view clearly represents (a) a departure from classic Darwinian cosmology and (b) a nod in the direction of Polkinghorne’s theologically-informed speculations.

Close enough to wave?
Christians should be able to see, if not an intersecting of science and theology, at least a close tangent in perspectives attempting to explain the cosmos. Scientists and theologians are travelling different tracks toward the same destination, and on this point, at least, they may be coming close enough to wave one another.

The Scriptures refer to God’s action toward the universe as His “upholding” it by His Word and sustaining it by His “steadfast love and faithfulness.” In a pre-scientific world, that’s doubtless the closest men could come to describing what Polkinghorne and “holographic screen” physicists are seeking to identify more precisely.

The idea that, outside the cosmos is a source of energy and information which, by continuously injecting each into the cosmos, sustains and explains it, is thus potentially a fruitful platform for further discussion between cosmological thinkers working from within two very different worldviews.

T. M. Moore is Principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition (www.ailbe.org), and Dean of Centurions. He serves as Content Manager for The Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview (www.chuckcolsoncenter.org) and as General Editor for The Worldview Church (www.worldviewchurch.org). Sign up at our website (www.ailbe.org) to receive his daily email devotional Crosfigell, reflections on Scripture and the Celtic Christian tradition. You can also sign up at www.colsoncenter.org to receive his daily study, ViewPoint, studies in Christian worldview living, or at www.worldviewchurch.org to receive his daily pastoral devotional, Pastor to Pastor. T. M. and his wife and editor, Susie, have four grown children and eleven grandchildren and make their home in Hamilton, VA.