Quantum Mechanics and The Trinity

When Christians speak of The Trinity, as they have for at least 1900 years, we are simply using a label for the following set of statements:

1. God the Father is God.
2. Jesus Christ is God.
3. The Holy Spirit is God.
4. There is one God.

How do we reconcile these statements? By saying that God consists of three persons - that is, in His essence (ousia) and divinity He is one , but in personhood (hypostaseis) He is three. It is easy to see why this is not irrational by expressing these concepts mathematically.

If God is one god and three gods, then:

1 God = 3 Gods
therefore,
1 = 3.

If God is one person and three persons, then:

1 Person = 3 Persons
therefore,
1 = 3.

But in the Trinity,

1 God = 3 Persons.


(And these 3 persons are in eternal relationship with each other, such that God has always lived in a community of perfect love).

This is a concept that is beyond my intellect or imagination. It is an inexhaustible mystery. It defies all categories of human thought. But it is not irrational. It is fully within the bounds of logic and reason.

For years, scientists debated as to whether the electron was a particle or a wave. (Light was also the subject of the same argument). In 1897, J.J. Thomson measured the charge/mass ratio of the electron, thus establishing that it was a particle and earning himself a Nobel Prize in 1906. His son, George, won the Nobel Prize in 1937 for measuring the wavelength of electrons, thus proving that they were waves, which must have made for some awkward conversations at family gatherings. So which is it?

Both. In 1926, Erwin Schrödinger used Louis de Broglie's concept of wave-particle duality to formulate a mathematical equation explaining how anything could simultaneously be a wave and a particle, earning himself a Noble prize and setting off unending speculation about his cat. This result, with it's probabilistic implications (as in the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle), was profoundly unsettling to some. Albert Einstein won the Nobel Prize (in part) for his explanation of the photoelectric effect, which established the particle nature of light and confirmed the basic hypothesis of quantum mechanics. Yet these conclusions led him to angrily respond, "God does not play dice with the universe!"

It's always amusing when scientists - or theologians - tell God what He can and cannot do.

Nevertheless, despite its rigorous formulation and experimental verification, this fundamental law of quantum mechanics is difficult to picture. It's one thing to explain mathematically, via a "probability wavefunction," how something can simultaneously be at one point and also be sort-of-everywhere and sort-of-nowhere. It's another thing to attempt to explain this to someone in terms from everyday life that would make one bit of sense. They would probably see it as a contradiction, when in reality it is simply a little - or perhaps a lot - beyond the sort of thing we encounter in a normal day.

I observed this blurring of distinction, between that which is irrational and that which is difficult to understand, on multiple occasions when interacting with atheists (or with Muslims, in the case of the Trinity). But given the upheavals in physics over the past century, why do we continue to make this mistake in our understanding of the natural world - or of God?

Perhaps it's because we think we are smarter than we are. We think that surely, with our education and our civilization and our iPhones, we are advanced enough to understand everything - if only God would quit talking in riddles. We never stopped to consider that any complete answers might be far beyond our comprehension.

The oldest book of the Bible is an extended exploration of senseless suffering which, in some ways, raises more questions than it answers. We see Job, a righteous man, refusing to believe the logically simple explanations of his friends because they don't fit who he knows himself - or God - to be. He persistently demands his day in court with God. When God finally shows up, the tables are suddenly turned: "Brace yourself like a man! I will question you, and you will answer me!" God then proceeds to show Job just how little he (or anyone of us) actually knows. It's as if God is saying, "If I tried to explain to you what is really going on, it would be like trying to explain the General Theory of Relativity to a kindergartener."

That's why Jesus tells us to receive the Kingdom like little children. Children know that they don't understand everything, that's it's okay to trust someone wiser than yourself, and that the world is often a mysteriously wonderful place. God isn't asking us to believe that 3 = 1 or to reject reason; rather, He is asking us to accept the fact that if we can't even comprehend the electron, we will never be able to wrap our minds around the fullness of His being.