Chapter Content
Okay, so, um, where to begin? You know, it's funny, looking back on things, it all feels so, I don't know, inevitable now, but at the time, it was anything but. I mean, I was a grad student at Cornell, right? And I was totally blown away when I started to see how well science and Christianity actually, like, meshed on some really fundamental levels.
I mean, seriously, everyone, including me, always thought they were totally at odds, you know, these like, ancient enemies. So, yeah, that was a shock.
Now, I was still basically a practical atheist. I was living my life as if God didn't exist, regardless of whether he actually did or not. But, I was super curious, like, *how* wide and *how* deep was this apparent agreement between science and Christianity? I wanted to dive in!
So, during my investigation, I dug into a bunch of these huge questions. And two in particular, really stood out: Are humans unique? And is light special?
And these were important because science had pretty strong answers to both of them. If Christianity's answers were totally different from what us scientists thought was true, well, that was it. Game over. I'd stick with science and atheism.
Okay, so first, are humans unique?
So, the Christian worldview, basically, it's a "yes." A lot of people who interpret the Bible think every vertebrate has a soul – *nephesh*, in ancient Hebrew. So that means you, your dog, your cat, your ferret, you've all got a living soul. But, according to mainstream Christianity, humans also have something else: a spirit. Every person is made in God's image, and the Bible describes God as a spiritual being. "God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” You know, the whole thing.
So, Christianity says you're a soulful, spiritual creature, just temporarily living in a physical body. And *that's* what makes you different, unique from all other animals.
But what about the scientific worldview? Well, also, yes!
When I was a kid, my science teacher told us humans are unique because we're intelligent. But that's, like, totally old school now. Science knows that tons of animals have intelligence: whales, dolphins, dogs, pigs... you name it. So, my teacher was wrong, you know? IQ doesn't make us special.
So, is there anything *else* that makes us unique?
It's not immediately obvious, to be honest. Because even today, we often act just like other animals, except we're, you know, wearing clothes.
Humans can talk. But so can other animals. Some African grey parrots have vocabularies of, like, a thousand words. It's crazy! Humans build societies, invent tools, build skyscrapers – but animals do too. Bees live in organized societies. Otters use rocks to open clams. Chimps use twigs to fish for termites. And termites themselves? They build eco-friendly skyscrapers out of mud and spit.
Humans have impressive genomes. But plants and animals do too. The largest strand of DNA belongs to some flower in Japan. It's, like, fifty times bigger than ours. And some African lungfish has the biggest animal genome, like, forty times bigger than ours.
Humans are at the top of the food chain. But even that doesn't make us *uniquely* special. If you think of the environment as a Jenga game, and you remove humans, nothing happens, you know? In fact, other plants and animals would probably be happier. So, our position at the top of the food chain makes us uniquely insignificant, if you think about it!
Okay, so scientifically, *is* there anything that makes us unique? Yes. Actually, there's a few things.
Paleoanthropologists and other scientists say *Homo sapiens sapiens* – modern humans – appeared on Earth suddenly, not gradually. The fossil record is a little ambiguous, but it shows we showed up less than 100,000 years ago. Basically, yesterday, considering the Earth is, like, four billion years old.
Plus, we showed up with a bunch of behaviors never seen before on Earth. An archaeologist named Sarah Wurz says these include "art, religious beliefs, and complex technologies," plus "the ability to communicate habitually and effortlessly in symbols... and advanced problem solving and long range planning abilities."
Jared Diamond calls our sudden appearance the "great leap forward." "Insofar as there was any single moment when we could be said to have become human," he says, "it was at the time of this Great Leap Forward." But he also asks, "What happened at that magic moment in evolution? What made it possible, and why was it so sudden?" And the truth is, "This is a puzzle whose solution is still unknown."
So what?
Well, when I was teaching physics at Harvard, I was pretty shocked at how compatible these scientific findings were with Christianity. Science can't *prove* the Christian worldview, but it doesn't contradict it either, which is a big deal.
I was also writing a column for *Psychology Today* called "Rational Alternatives," where I wrote about psychology research from a hard science perspective.
So, I knew that Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner was making waves with his theory of multiple intelligences. He argued that people have very different intellectual strengths.
He identified at least seven: visual/spatial, logical/mathematical (which make up IQ), bodily/kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and verbal/linguistic. Later, he added naturalist and existential intelligence.
Then, another reporter, Daniel Goleman, introduced emotional intelligence, or EQ. He wrote a bestseller called *Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ*.
So, I started thinking, why hasn't anyone talked about spiritual intelligence – or SQ? One of the unique traits of humans is our spirituality: our religious art, our literature, our music, our belief in an afterlife, our burial ceremonies, our religious passions.
Basically, spiritual intelligence is what makes us *humans* unique. No other animal has it. So, for you and me, SQ is a positive number. For everything else, it's zero. You can see it everywhere, in paintings, cathedrals, literature, music. No other animal does that!
Alright, so the next big question: Is light special?
Christian worldview? Yes!
The New Testament says, "God is light; in him there is no darkness at all." It doesn't say God is *like* light, or analogous. It says God *is* light.
It's like a mathematical equation:
GOD = LIGHT
It defines God, and it makes light sacred.
Scientific worldview? Also yes!
Everything in the universe acts like a particle or a wave. They're opposite realities. Like odd and even numbers. There's no in-between.
Rocks, cars, bodies – they act like particles. Particles hold their shape and travel in one direction.
Ripples, tsunamis, sound blasts – they act like waves. Waves spread out and travel in many directions.
At least, that's what scientists used to think.
Isaac Newton thought light was made of particles. Different shapes make different colors. Simple!
Christiaan Huygens disagreed. He said light was made of waves. Different wavelengths make different colors. Also simple!
So who was right?
Well, in 1801, Thomas Young did an experiment to settle it. He shined sunlight through two slits and studied the pattern on a screen.
He predicted:
If Newton is right, light particles will go through the slits and make two slivers of light.
If Huygens is right, light waves will go through the slits and create alternating bands of light and dark.
Young discovered alternating bands of light and dark! Huygens was right. Light acts like a wave.
But that wasn't the end.
Scientists kept digging, and they found five new things about light.
Light's True Colors
1. Light is a contradiction.
Years later, Heinrich Hertz did a different experiment. He shined light at a metal sheet and studied what happened.
He discovered that light acts like particles! Which totally contradicted Young.
What was going on?
Science was in a pickle.
Then, Albert Einstein proposed a crazy solution.
Light, he said, is both particle and wave. Not half and half, but fully particle and fully wave.
He called it a light quantum, now called a photon.
It was like saying a number could be even and odd, a color could be black and white, a statement could be true and false. But both Young's and Hertz's experiments were good. So Einstein was right!
His crazy idea revolutionized science and created quantum physics. And he won the Nobel Prize for it!
2. Light doesn't obey the rules of matter.
In grade school, you learn that you can make all colors by mixing red, blue, and yellow paint. But light, being a weird wave-particle, is different.
The primary colors of light aren't red, blue, and yellow. They're red, green, and blue (RGB), which is what computer screens use. You can make the whole rainbow from RGB.
And if you mix equal amounts of RGB light, you don't get black. You get white! The opposite of paint.
3. Light can transform into matter, and vice versa.
Light acts very unlike matter, but it can become matter. If a photon of light hits a heavy nucleus, it becomes an electron and its antimatter twin, a positron. We call that particle creation.
The opposite is also true. Matter can change into light. If an electron hits a positron, it explodes into photons. We call that particle annihilation.
Either way, it follows Einstein's E = mc2, which shows that energy and matter are interchangeable.
4. Light has a sacred status.
Light can travel at 186,000 miles per second. Nothing else can reach that speed.
5. Light exists in a timeless world.
As you speed up, time slows down. If you could reach the speed of light, time would stop. You'd become a timeless being. There'd be no past, no future, only an eternal now.
So, shining light on the scientific and Christian worldviews...
I was shocked to find that science and Christianity are fundamentally compatible when it comes to light!
1. Light is a contradiction.
Science and Christianity agree that contradictions can coexist and represent profound truths.
Science: Light is both particle and wave.
Christianity: Jesus is both mortal and immortal.
2. Light doesn't obey the rules of matter.
Science and Christianity agree that you can't get black by combining colors of light.
Science: When you combine all the colors of light, you get white.
Christianity: "God is light; in him there is no darkness at all."
3. Light can transform into matter, and vice versa.
Science and Christianity agree that light can become matter, and vice versa.
Science: In nuclear physics, this is called particle creation and particle annihilation.
Christianity: God – who is light – became matter... a man in the person of Jesus. This is called the Incarnation. And when you die, you're transformed into a spiritual being that returns to God, who is light. This is called resurrection.
4. Light has a sacred status.
Science and Christianity agree that light – and its equivalent, God – has a sacred status.
Science: The speed of light is a sacred number and a universal constant.
Christianity: God is sacred and universal. "I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God."
5. Light exists in a timeless world.
Science and Christianity agree that light – and its equivalent, God – exists in a timeless world. Not eternal – timeless.
Science: At the speed of light, time stops.
Christianity: God created time; so he exists outside of it.
When I read about the burning bush, I was confused when God said, "I AM WHO I AM." But now I realize it's exactly what a timeless being would say about himself. "I don't have a past, present, or future. I just am. I am who I am."
And, you know, death is like particle annihilation. You transform into photons of spiritual light that return to your Maker. You escape the timeline. You enter a timeless realm as a spiritual being that just is – just like God. And you stay that way forever.
So, the reckoning.
As a scientist, I gather data and seek the most reasonable explanation.
By 1995, after two decades of gathering data, of looking for scientific and metaphysical perspectives on this question – how did this amazing, mostly invisible universe come to be? – I was ready to sit down and reason my way to a conclusion.
I knew it would be tentative. Science is always tentative. It can't *prove* anything, so it has to keep asking questions and seeking better answers.
But I'd reached a point where I needed to make some decisions.