Last Monday, Chabad brought a speaker named Dr. Jacob Zvi Brudoley to campus as part of the second annual Dr. Tzvi Yehuda Saks Memorial Lecture on Torah and Science. Dr. Brudoley put forth a very interesting argument, using quantum theory and theory of mind to buffer his claim that science can prove the existence of God. While we are often led to discuss hip, postmodern topics like "gendered narratives" (whatever they are) and "the construction of womanhood" both inside of the classroom and outside at school-sponsored lectures, Brudoley's basic grappling with theological and scientific questions comes as a breath of fresh air, whether or not you agree with his conclusions. Nonetheless, I have some minor reservations.
To state Brudoley's contention in words far too brief, he argued that consciousness -- the way things seem to us -- cannot be explained through the scientific method. According to Brudoley, quantum theory (the theory underlying such phenomena as nuclear radiation and microwave ovens) states that reality does not exist until we observe it, until our consciousness is able to touch it and make sense of it. Therefore, taking Brudoley's argument to its logical endgame, consciousness contains the entire universe within itself and is, in fact, the sum total of everything. In other words, consciousness is God. This is, however, an overly short summation of Brudoley's ideas, and I would recommend reading the news article about the lecture ("Speaker argues for proof of God," Apr. 7).
To modern ears, so attuned to news of the latest life-enhancing gizmo or the most recent celebrity breakdown, these esoteric arguments might at first seem like white noise. But once they are given their fair share of attention, you cannot help but be provoked into thought. Brudoley's arguments are really nothing new, although they may sound a bit odd and New Age. His ideas are actually ancient ones, with physics added in order to support them and make them credible in today's empirical-minded era. Hindus, Buddhists, disciples of the Kabbalah, Christian Gnostics and others have long surmised that consciousness is the "ground of all being." Clearly, they came to these conclusions not through quantum mechanics but through introspection and contemplation.
Although I think that Brudoley's arguments are compelling enough, I need to question whether it is necessary to synthesize religious belief with science in order to justify its existence. After all, if you could know that God existed through a physics equation, you could escape all the nuances of doubt and chance and settle on what is an apparently proven fact. But the problem is that science changes. New theories are conceived on what seems like a weekly basis. In the Middle Ages, different theologians like St. Thomas Aquinas and Moses Maimonides attempted to ground the orthodoxies of their respective religions in the philosophy of Aristotle. Aristotle's ideas were the conventional wisdom of the time and very few people dared to dispute them. But eventually, of course, Aristotle's ideas were widely discredited, and the religions that sought to use him to justify their theologies (Christianity, Judaism and Islam) have never quite recovered from the blow.
Although using quantum physics to illuminate religious concepts is instructive, it might be overturned at any time and replaced with a new theory of physics. Karl Popper once said that for science, "Nothing can be." Everything is subject to revision. This is why it is so dangerous to try to ground religion in our scientific experience of the material world. It is a much more arduous (but ultimately rewarding) task to search for spirituality in the confines of one's own heart and mind via introspection and meditation -- sifting through the sensations and feelings that comprise the stuff of everyday life -- than it is to attempt to find God at the end of a telescope.
At his life's close, St. Thomas Aquinas had a profound religious experience. He refused to write another word, saying that all of his writings -- the vast theological-philosophical corpus, which would buffer Catholic faith for centuries -- now seemed to him "like straw." If a spiritual vision could lead Aquinas to disavow all of his intellectual accomplishments, might not all of our grand scientific theories seem like straw in the fire of personal religious experience?
