For awhile there I was researching quantum physics and got very tangled up in the subject. Like every other time I find some new or exciting idea I try to fashion ideological lenses out of that idea and see everything around me through the implications of that idea. I would see some guys playing chess and I would say to my self “with a quantum computer, we could finally solve the traditionally intractable problem of the perfect game of chess!” While I still get excited talking about the subject (oh how smart it makes me seem!), I have put away those lenses and boiled its implications down to two categories. The first contains all of those potential technological advances, and the second contains all of the theological implications.

Theological implications of quantum physics? Yup. One discovery in the field of QP was that on the smallest sub-atomic level, the movement of electrons is entirely unpredictable. In fact, they made a principle out of this phenomenon called Heisenburg’s Uncertainty Principle. All of you D&D fans will be excited to hear that the movements of electrons are governed by the roll of the dice. And we all know that these electrons affect the atoms of which they comprise, and the atoms make up molecules, and the molecules make up, well, us. It is very much the case that the placement of all of the gazillion electrons in a given event (like a car wreck) can make the difference between life or death. Physicists, who do not have recourse to the metaphysical world, are left with a funny word: coincidence. Hence when we travel somewhere it is a culturally salient thing to say the phrase “good luck,” because as any seasoned Dungeon Master can tell you, the roll of the dice can upend any “should haves” or probabilities.

For the Christian, however, “good luck” becomes a much different phrase, “God bless.” What this seems to be saying is that ultimately, it is God who can decide where all of those electrons are going to be at a certain point in time, a kind of back door into reality where he can work all those miracles of his without leaving any physical evidence of his intervention. Just today I was sitting through a sermon that seemed to be speaking directly to me, as though I had just walked up to the preacher, told him my life story, and asked for a Biblical consultation. Two years ago, I was in a car wreck that should have taken my life. When I went to get the CD’s out of my car in the junk yard, the guy who owned the place asked me who the guy was who had been driving the car. When I told him it was me, his eyes lit up and he started shaking his head. I had been hit in the driver’s side door by a moving truck and the car’s frame had folded up like origami around me. Somehow not only did I survive, but I also was able to walk home from the hospital the same day! In my head, I started to thank the engineers at Nissan and my lucky stars, when I stopped myself and realized that there was only one being I owe thanks to for my continued life and the life of my son who is about to be born. To misquote Johnny English, “The word coincidence is not one that appears in my dictionary.”