Kester Brewin on theology and the new physics

June 5th, 2009 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Kester Brewin (@kesterbrewin), provocative thinker and author of Signs of Emergence: A Vision for Church That Is Always Organic/Networked/Decentralized/Bottom-Up/Communal/Flexible/Always Evolving, is currently writing a series of blog posts that falls flawlessly in line with much of my recent thinking and research. The series, called Theology and the New Physics has two posts thus far: Uncertainty and Dimensions, with more forthcoming. UPDATE: The third post, Engaging The Maze, is now available.

If theology is even a casual pursuit for you, this is a series you must read. Here’s a snippet of what Brewin says in the first post:

What are the implications [of the new physics] for theology? Primarily, I think the argument between classical and quantum physics parallels quite nicely with the interaction between ‘classic’ and ‘emerging’ church. My experience in the 90’s, with Toronto etc. was that people in the charismatic, evangelical wing of the church really believed that they would soon achieve total immanence with God. God was almost touchable. If only we could sing that bit harder and be zapped that tiny bit more we would actually achieve full communion. When this didn’t happen, it precipitated a crisis among many of those of my generation. We felt cheated, and retreated into ‘alt.worship’ where we explored a ‘quantum theology’ where God was pure equations, transcendent and immensurable.

It seems now that both positions are wrong. While Einstein is yet to be vindicated, most physicists are skeptical about the ‘hard’ quantum model, and feel that some new theory will supersede it, even though Heisenberg’s principle is unbreachable. God, I think we are learning again, is both immanent and transcendent, but never entirely one or the other. Uncertainty remains.

In the second post, he talks about Flatland, which Rob Bell discusses in his Everything Is Spiritual lecture; but think of this blog series as Everything Is Spiritual with balls (to borrow from Stephen Colbert).

Anyway, if you’re eccentric like me and you think this stuff is really kinky (to borrow from a beloved college professor), I also recommend John Polkinghorne’s brief and relatively easy-to-read Quantum Physics and Theology: An Unexpected Kinship. Happy reading!