A Christian Perspective on Quantum Mechanics and Materialism

Though the focus of this blog is New Church teachings, articles etc. I thought that you, the enormous readership of this blog, would get something out of reading an article I just read. Neil Shenvi is a Baptist and a PhD in Theoretical Chemistry. The article of his that I read (and there are more) is called Quantum Mechanics and Materialism and provides a quick and clear overview of quantum mechanics and the philosophical implications of it, particularly as they relate to materialistic arguments against the miracles in the Word.

Today, after decades of testing, thousands of experiments have confirmed the predictions of quantum theory so that it is widely accepted by the scientific community. Yet in my opinion, there is no theory that so fundamentally challenges our intuitive views of reality. ... My hope is that this essay will help people understand the significance that quantum theory has for various worldviews, especially materialism. ...

If nothing else, quantum mechanics teaches us humility with regard to our own knowledge. Our understanding will always be partial, mostly incomplete, and often faulty. ... [S]cience, at its best, will lead us to ask questions that are beyond its reach. ... If we want truths that go beyond the natural, we need to look to for a source beyond the natural. The Bible presents us with a God who is both transcendent and immanent, a God who is both infinitely beyond the created order and intimately involved with it, whose ways are not our ways and whose thoughts are beyond our understanding. If we want to understand the universe, the wisest thing we can do is first to seek the one who created it.