We're Almost Miracle-Workers

We move a lot of atoms.

For fun, I asked Grok about a strategy to reach 1,000 paid subscribers on Substack. One suggestion was: “Clearly articulate why your newsletter is worth paying for. Offer insights, frameworks, or perspectives that readers can’t easily find elsewhere.” I think I do, but honestly “…because atoms…” is a hard sell when so many people have painful memories of chemistry class. Of course, the AI suggestion is a (literal) no-brainer, but I like to see how AI handles questions. I’m considering doing some freelance work solving chemistry problems to train algorithms in supervised learning models. It’s appealing to me to think I’d have a small influence on how chemistry is understood in the future—and that is also why you should be reading my work at GOD & ELEMENTS. How we understand the composition of the universe affects how we understand our place in it. I want to tell you about an idea I first proposed in Particles of Faith, my 2016 book.

The “System of Wills”

I coined the phrase “system of wills,” to describe atomic theory through the lens of creation. The inspiration came from a remark by Pope St. John Paul II to the director of the Vatican Observatory, Fr. George V. Coyne, S.J., in a June 1, 1988, letter on the twofold nature of the dialogue between science and faith: “Science can purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes. Each can draw the other into a wider world, a world in which both can flourish.” I described the wider world as a system of God’s law, the laws of nature, and the free will of creatures—a system of wills.

God’s Law and the Laws of Nature

St. Thomas Aquinas explains in the Summa theologiae that there is an order in nature of causes and effects (I.105.6). God is the first cause, the Creator. Everything created, in entirety, is subject to this supreme law. The will is a mover, a cause of motion. God wills everything into being.

God is not subject to secondary causes, such as change and motion. In the physical realm, even the particles that are invisible to the human eye act according to the created laws that govern them. These are the laws that scientists observe and explain with theories because the laws are consistent and predictable. Using their intelligence, scientists study an intelligible world.

Now stop here and try to imagine the world without any living being inserted into the system of wills. Imagine the universe before any life arose. It may seem ridiculous, but this is how the physical scientist tries to visualize nature and design experiments, as if we humans were not there. The scientist is self-aware of the experimentation underway by using free will and intellect, but there is no mathematical accounting for free will in the isolated systems of chemistry or physics. It is within this purity of physical system that physical scientists calculate and operate. They define an isolated system, remove every other factor, control the variables, and examine the effects of changing other variables.

It’s no different than cooking. I make a really good jalapeno chicken spaghetti from scratch. As I joke with my family, they will never eat the same dish twice because every time I cook it, I change something to test the effect on the final product. When I experiment, I mentally exclude the rest of the universe from my kitchen and casserole pan. I am aware that my little system exists within the rest of the universe, and that that universe contains living things, including myself, but I don’t consider all that in my isolated experiment. By approaching cooking this way, I have tweaked how to make a good blonde roux, find the right tomatoes, and mix seasonings for the success of my chicken spaghetti.

If there were no living things, then the physical realm would follow, to the elementary units of matter and energy, the laws of nature as God designs, prescribes, and determines them. The only will that would alter the particles following laws of nature would be God’s will, were God to intervene. (In other words, Stacy Trasancos’s Jalapeno Chicken Spaghetti would never exist.)

This scenario presents an interesting sandbox for considering quantum mechanics and what, exactly, the laws of nature are. Are they determinate? Are they indeterminate? I cover this, per Fr. Jaki’s teaching, in Particles of Faith, but let’s move on and add people to our imaginary world.

Rational Beings with Free Will

The only created rational beings (persons) with will and intellect are angels (bodiless spirits) and humans (body and soul). Each is a mover, a cause of motion. Just as God can move particles, so too can rational beings, but in the limited ways.

We can, for example, kick rocks, overcome hangri-ness, and build integrated circuits capable of storing entire libraries. We cannot change a peanut into gold, live indefinitely without food, or make children un-grow. Animals are movers in the physical realm as well, but they do not have rational souls. Their motions are governed by instinct and other internal senses, which is why anyone with a dog knows that as loyal as he is, he cannot be trusted to guard your sandwich. My point here is that creatures move matter in ways that matter left to the laws of nature would not move. The created movers are both subject to the laws of nature and capable of intervening in them. That is: we can make choices.

This scenario also presents an interesting sandbox for considering the hierarchy of living things in comparison to humans. If some animals are more ‘intelligent’ than others, then how close to being human are the most intelligent animals? Or, for the most basic single-celled organisms, how would we describe their abilities in terms of external and internal senses? Where is the line between living and non-living? I cover this in the book, but not in as much detail as I would like.

The system of wills, then, is God’s laws, rational creatures, living things, and everything else physical. This sets up a good consideration of miracles.

Miracles and the Law of Nature

Do miracles break the laws of nature? Aquinas says no, “…since the order of nature is given to things by God, if he does anything outside this order, it is not against nature” (I.105.6). In the hypothetical case that only God and physical creation exist, God’s intervention to move particles outside the created order would not break the laws of nature because all matter, which is subject to God’s law, would still be following God’s law.

Technically, according to Aquinas, this would not be called a miracle because, although nothing has happened outside God’s law, miracles are specifically meant for humans because they reveal God’s presence to us. We notice miracles because something outside the usual order of nature occurs.

Does human free will break the laws of nature? Again, no it does not because God created rational beings with free will. I borrow a concept from the great thinker C. S. Lewis. In his 1947 book Miracles: A Preliminary Study, he refers to nature as a “hostess” (New York: Harper Collins, 2001 reprint, p. 94). I like his use of the word incommoded. Of the intervention in physical nature he says, “We see every day that physical nature is not in the least incommoded by the daily inrush of events from biological nature or from psychological nature.” If a cup of tea is invaded with sugar, he explains, physical laws rush to accommodate the newcomer. If the tea is stirred, physical laws follow suit.

In perhaps a less elegant manner, I said in Particles of Faith that I prefer to think of nature as a “medium” rather than a pleasantly smiling female eager to fetch the cookies. Matter and energy follow laws of nature and form the physical medium in which we live and move, a medium that accommodates the actions of our free will. We are at home in nature where we innovate, produce art, grow gardens, build castles, and so on. When a violinist pulls her bow across the strings to make music, she intervenes in nature, and nature complies. If we throw a ball off the roof, it falls to the ground and, unless intercepted, the projectile motion is calculable. Every choice we make moves matter in ways it would not have moved without our intervention.

So it is that during our lives, we move a great many atoms. Lewis points out that God’s laws and the laws of nature are interlocked. If a couple has a baby, they have moved uncountable atoms. If a man builds a house, and if a woman fills it with furniture, and if that couple raises a family, they have altered the course of nature, including atoms that are far away and affected by an infinitesimal amount, like in the atmosphere. Because of our free will, we are almost miracle workers but not quite. Despite some of the laws of nature being named after men who discovered them (like Newton), they are not our laws. It’s God’s plan that laws of nature integrate with us as they do. Only God works miracles.

Still, this is a riveting idea.

It means that with every breath you take, every move you make, every bond you break, every step you take, (sorry, couldn’t resist), you are in fact changing the universe in ways it would not have changed without you—probably a googolplex of atoms changing their trajectory for all the rest of time because of that little shrug you just made! Every choice any of us makes leaves a permanent imprint on nature. This is awesome as well as humbling. Such freedom comes with great responsibility, which is why we say we are stewards of creation.

Interesting Questions

There are some interesting questions that result from this understanding of the hierarchy in nature. In Particles of Faith, I wondered if this means that in the past humans have mistaken events for miracles when, in fact, the witnesses simply did not yet understand the physics? I am sure that has happened, but God would have known the extent of human understanding at that time such that quite possibly it would still qualify as a miracle in the sense that something wonderous occurred.

Does this mean that angels can move matter in ways unbeknownst to humans but still within the laws of nature, such that their doing so appears to be a miracle to humans? I’ve asked many a theologian this question. How could anyone know?

All speculation aside, we can say with certainty that mathematical models will never fully account for every particle’s motion because of the free will of rational beings, and that’s just another way of saying science cannot have all the answers.

I hope to dive into these questions as I continue my study of atoms and elements. How do we distinguish between artificial and natural? What are the limits of our interventions? How does this apply to understanding AI? Can angels help scientists? (A big yes!) There is a lot to mine in the “system of wills,” but I need to stop for now because there are some sticks, leaves, pine needles, and stones in my yard that need my intervention.

As for you, if you could move yourself to tap a button and trigger some electron motion in the way of a like, share, or comment, it would not only change the world forever, but it would also mean a lot to me. Thank you!