UNCERTAINTY

After my previous post on “Schrödinger’s Cross,” a friend suggested, half in fun, that I should turn to Heisenberg and the Uncertainty Principle. This was a challenge not to be resisted, even for as un-mathematical a mind as mine. I’m not sure that it is possible to apply it in any way but vague, fuzzy and inaccurate analogy. But we can try.

    The Uncertainty Principle relates to atomic-sized situations because in normal life situations it is too tiny to observe. Things are simply too big, too massy and too slow (like an automobile moving along a road). But what about spiritual situations? Factors like Sin and Grace?

    Simply speaking, the Uncertainty Principle says that you cannot measure a particle's position and its momentum simultaneously: as you try to narrow down position, momentum gets fuzzier; as you try to narrow down momentum, position gets fuzzier. Moreover, the element may not have had a definite position before you started measuring it.

    As you try to narrow down your measurement of Sin’s position, what happens? Possibilities:

         1.     you end up with Law, as in Mosaic/Rabbinic, Sharia, or Christian Puritan. You apply ‘Sin’ to more and more specific little actions (eating pork, shellfish, having more than 3 wives, turning on a light switch – or reading Elmore Leonard -- on the Sabbath).

         2.     If and as you do so, your vision of Sin’s momentum, its mass x velocity, gets fuzzier. You cannot measure both at the same time.

         3.     If your vision of Sin’s momentum gets fuzzier, you are in danger. Sin’s direction may not be at all times clear, but it has one constant: away from God. If you are deep in the minutiæ of its position, you are vulnerable to its momentum which may carry you surprisingly far from God in a surprisingly short time.

    Now let’s see what happens if instead you try to narrow down your measurement of Sin’s momentum.

Possibilities:

         1.     you get too interested in, & therefore too close to, its mass/velocity and you simply get sucked into its black hole.

         2.     even if not, your vision of its position gets fuzzier, and specific actions are harder and harder to characterise as Sin. You cannot measure both at the same time.

         3.     This is particularly true of your vision of their (the actions’) consequences. These are not what makes Sin Sin, but they are as it were indications of its (and your) future position.

    This makes a certain amount of sense, so far. Now let’s try it with something other than Sin. How about the Trinity? One’s first reaction would be to say that there are simply not enough data for measurement. However, that hasn’t stopped generations of theologians from trying. It’s now an unfashionable topic for investigation, but that shouldn’t deter us.

    Let us see what happens when we try to narrow down our measurement of the Trinity’s position.
Possibilities:

         1.     Externally, its position is in Heaven. But the more we try to narrow down the position of Heaven, the fuzzier our measurement of gets of its momentum, i.e. its impact on our soul. You end up counting angels on pinheads instead of responding to Glory.

         2.     Internally, the Three Persons relate to one another. But the more we try to narrow down our measurement of that relation as position – to measure the exact role of each Person, for instance – the fuzzier gets our measurement of its momentum. We will not, as one Church Father did, get tears in our eyes merely thinking of the Trinity.

    On the other hand, we might try to narrow down our measurement of the Trinity’s momentum.

Possibilities:

         1.     Paralysis: physical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual. The mass x velocity of the Trinity are so immense, so awe-inspiring – and the immensity and the awe it inspires are not collateral elements to be eliminated by the observer, but part of the Trinity’s very essence – that as we get closer to trying to measure it, we are overwhelmed entirely.

         2.     Our measurement of its position, whether external or internal, gets fuzzier. Internally, we may lose sight altogether of the difference between the Three Persons and confuse them or, worse, conflate them. We may lose interest in, and respect for, any sort of systematic theology. Externally, we may end up thinking that Heaven (and/or, by extension, Hell) is everywhere, or nowhere. “Why, this is Hell, nor am I out of it,” said Mephistopheles. (Who, of course, lies.)

    What all this seems to show me is that yes, it’s an analogy in this context, and can never be precise, even with the limited precision of the UP in mathematics and quantum physics. But as an analogy it can be very valuable. Which in turn raises the question of the value of analogy in any intellectual endeavour. Paracelsian medicine upheld the ancient theory that nature was composed of meaningful and intentional signatures, which man must learn to read and interpret. (Walnuts were good for the brain.) Subsequent science has demoted analogy in favour of cause and effect. But in the intellectual endeavour that is theology – not just professional theology but the theology that is the necessary intellectual part of every believer’s faith – the signature concept may well still hold: an analogy may lead us to a valuable insight, in which case the analogy forms one term of a relationship. And there is every likelihood of that relationship’s being intentional.