Scientists all over the world are celebrating the CERN research center’s discovery of the elusive subatomic Higgs Boson particle. For fifty years physicists have “believed in the particle without seeing it,” (NY Times, July 5) and “dedicated their lives and fortune” to the search. They now have evidence for an invisible force field that imbues elementary particles with mass. Fabiola Gianotti, one leader of the two research teams, is quoted as exclaiming, “thank you nature.” (And it’s a fabulous milestone for feminists to see a woman scientist in charge!)
Christians also can rejoice in another of the wonderful achievements of science. These give testimony to the God of Reason and Truth who creates human beings in the Divine image. Decades ago the physicist Peter Higgs was able to reason and theorize that an invisible particle was waiting to be discovered. Invariably the universe rewards curiosity, imagination, reason, patient testing and daring hope.
True to form the cheering scientists are most excited by the prospect that this discovery points to “new, deeper, ideas beyond The Standard Model nature of reality.” On to more—and the compelling lure of the unknown.
Religious believers in an infinite God Who makes all things new, understand this magnetic attraction of novelty.. Awe and faith in reasoned reality inspire the search. John Polkinghorne, a prominent physicist and Anglican theologian, points out in his latest book, Science and Religion in Quest of Truth, the complementary characteristics that exist in religion and science.
I was also struck by Polkinghornes’s assertion that every scientist and theologian dedicated to truth, knows that things he now believes to be true will be found false as it is superseded by the advent of new knowledge and fuller understanding. Humility and openness are the requirements of these pilgrim professions.
Mystics and great Christian philosophers, such as Thomas Aquinas, have had similar intimations into Divine Mystery. Is it too much to ask that our present church authorities display more understanding of the humble openness accompanying the Spirit of Truth?
It is intersting to note as well, according to NPR interview, that Peter Higgs hated the term "God-particle" becasue he is an atheist and originally it was referred to as the "god-damn parfticle" but that was dropped because it was obscene. Not sure what all that means, but I think that the "discovery" of the trail is very exciting...even if I know I can't really completely understand it!
Here is what we know. A new subatomic particle, with a mass close to 130 protons, has been discovered that has some characteristics that fit with the theoretical idea known as a scalar boson. It may have been present before quarks, the smallest particles of matter currently known. It has no closer relationship to God than any other speck of matter, or you and I for that matter. It is still material and so does not explain the preceding and more fundamental immaterial (or supernatural, if you like).
Sidney does not seem to understand the difference between scientific and theological knowledge (see her penultimate paragraph). While it is the nature of new science to correct and replace old science, and the scientific story is inherently incomplete, this is not the way it is with Revelation. We will not come to disprove the Trinity or the Incarnation by performing a new study (a new opinion poll, especially of Episcopalians, doesn’t count as science or Truth).
Sidney also does not seem to understand that nature is not a person (or maybe this is just sloppy thinking). One cannot rationally thank matter, as if the matter made a choice to reveal something to us. Thank not matter, but the Creater of matter.
All of us have one thing in common with the pope: we like to pontificate!
Bottom line is, would I rather have a full understanding of the Standard Theory and the Higgs boson or would I rather have all the money of Gates, Gog and Magog Koch and the Rombot? I think what's in you is more important than what is attached to you.
What are you talking about? How is the Vatican attacking scientific knowledge? Pure cliché.
But is it really the end of the story, or just the beginning of the discovery of a new multiverse, with a seemingly infinite fling prepared by an illusive God? Or is it really the END where human ingenuity has finally, arrived at the plateau of “nothingness” where it all began and where for centuries theologians have been sitting, awaiting the arrival of other seekers and proclaimer of TRUTH, the physical scientists? Together, pleased with cooperative assistance one towards the other, may both now cry out in unison, “WE TOLD YOU SO!” Yes, each within its individual competence .