The Divine Universe

From the atom to the galaxy, with everything in between, there is evidence of design (scientists call it order). From Newton onwards - the era of modern science - scientists have seen the universe as a complex machine. Since Einstein and Max Planck, however, relativity and quantum theory have led scientists to revise their perception of nature and the universe quite radically. We now have what might be called ‘post-modern’ science. Early last century Julian Huxley said, “Nature is not only weird, it is weirder than we can possibly imagine.”

Newton thought the universe was a static entity with internal movements as regular as clockwork. In 1927, Edwin Hubble observed the universe to be expanding. By reversing the process we have the Big Bang theory: that the universe has evolved from the infinitely small and unordered ’singularity’ to the incomprehensible complexity of our universe, including humankind.

This process of complexification is a process through random changes and a fundamental uncertainty about outcomes. The probability of the Universe developing as it has is incalculably small. It depends on extremely finely tuned ratios between the strength of energy fields and certain other physical factors. The process also includes the emergence of what seem at first to be fortuitous ‘vortices’ of increased order.

Thermodynamics theory holds that all closed systems decay towards uniform equilibrium – formless chaos. The universe is a closed system, so if this law of thermodynamics alone governed the universe, it would still expand and cool from the Big Bang, but it would be an almost uniform cloud of gas in almost perfect equilibrium. The evolution from chaos to order seems to contradict accepted theory. Scientists working in a new branch of physics, called ‘chaos’ or ‘complexity’ theory, are discovering how this anti-entropy or ‘negentropy’ is happening. Vortices of increased order referred to above have been observed and experimentally reproduced. It is a new field of study, but suffice it to say that no external agency is involved. It is a matter of delicately balanced conditions and tiny, random disturbances.

After fourteen billion years of such phenomena, where order emerges out of chaos, the human brain has evolved. But what is intelligence? It is more than just the brain. Psychologists measure intelligence quantitatively as the ability to make deductions from given data, but it is more complicated than that. It includes memory and intuition that transcends logic .

Most people associate mind and intelligence mainly with humans and only marginally with other highly evolved animals. We tend to regard humankind as separate from the rest of nature, a different order of being. In pre-modern times this was not so. People of the ancient Celtic tradition, medieval mystics like Saint Francis and Saint Ignatius Loyola and others, saw the whole of nature as an interrelated community. We see the same message in the Hebrew psalms. Today most scientists recognise that humankind is an integral, interrelated part of the universe. We are of the earth, a product of cosmic process, not outside observers or alien invaders.

Insofar as scientists recognise the existence of mind today, they do not confine it to humankind. True, it is manifested quite intensely in humans, but it doesn’t stop there. It appears less clearly in the higher animals and insects, and less still in the lower ones. Even plants seem clever. But although there is no detectable trace of intelligence in a rock, there is no definable cut-off point. Earth may be the cosmic centre of gravity for mind, or it may not be. There may be other concentrations in other places in the universe. Even though mind is not a material substance, it is still not unreasonable to suppose it is distributed through the universe, albeit very unequally, like matter. Some scientists have coined the term ‘psi field’, an energy which we have at present no means of measuring quantitatively.

To sum up: mind is a cosmic phenomenon that we cannot locate precisely. It is everywhere. It functions physically in the organs we call brains, but we cannot locate it there. Some have suggested that the cosmic mind directs the process of cosmic evolution, however limited it is by uncertainty and randomness. But that is metaphysics, not science.

Let us now turn to the religious idea of an intelligent universe. The Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity states that, while God is essentially spirit, ‘He’ has begotten, as the Nicene Creed says, a Son, a material ‘incarnation’ (embodiment) who shares fully the divine nature. The perfect human manifestation of this was Jesus, but Paul and others quickly realised that the incarnation was not merely a brief human event; it is a continuing cosmic event, spanning the whole of time. (Col. 1:15 - 17; John 1:1-3). Physicist Brian Swimme says that the universe is not a material object but a spiritual event. The whole universe, the “Cosmic Christ”, is God’s progressive physical self-manifestation in energy, matter, space and time.

When we speak of intelligence, it is only as we recognise it in ourselves, but in fact we refer to a transcendent quality of the whole universe. Ours is an intelligent universe. There are other abstract qualities we see in ourselves; ones we value and others we would rather not have. We need not baulk at seeing imperfection, unfinishedness, in God’s cosmic incarnation.

The Council of Chalcedon (415) declared that Jesus had two natures, human and divine, in what they called the ‘hypostatic union’. This somewhat technical abstraction has its roots in human experience. According to Paul, “Christ learned obedience through the things he suffered.” Perfection, even in Christ, is a process as well as an eternal state. Jesus is both perfect man and becoming-perfect man. This dual nature can also be attributed to the cosmic Christ, the universe. We can see the universe as both divine and physical. In it’s physical nature it is still in a process of becoming what it truly is.

So, to return to our riginal theme, I think we can see an intelligent universe, though not yet a perfectly wise one. Nevertheless it is still, to those who can see, full of miracles (signs) of the Father’s wisdom and the Spirit’s energy.

These are religious statements, yet they are not inconsistent with the new science of an organic, interrelated, evolving universe of fundamental simplicity and yet unimaginable and increasing complexity. For science, the universe is the ultimate mystery; it invites communication and intimacy but denies final comprehension. For believers, that is true of God too, transcendently so.