My relationship with physics is much like my relationship to professional football: I have neither the skill nor desire to play, I just watch the highlights. Somehow I got out of highschool without taking a physics class and have been regretting it ever since. But I do like to understand the general concepts and some of the weird stuff that physicists stumble upon, so long as I don’t have to sharpen my pencil.
The Higgs boson is a fundamental particle. I am told it is why there is something rather than nothing. I will take the physicists word for it. By itself this boson would be massless. Luckily, there also exists something called a Higgs field which gives each Higgs boson mass. The more interaction a Higgs particle has with the Higgs field, the more mass it has. Perhaps a sideways means to understanding this is to picture a jet plane and a flying school bus. The aerodynamic jet has little interaction with the air, while the bus has a great deal of interaction with the air because of its pug-face and overall sloppy design. If the two were Higgs bosons, the jet would have less mass, the van more. Of course the forces at work in the above illustration are very different from the forces with the Higgs field and boson, but I don’t understand those so you will have to do with a half baked analogy. You get the point, though. Don’t be difficult.
In the book of Acts Paul is talking to some gents in Athens about all their gods they have statues for. In the middle of his speech he quotes a poet named Epimenides, a Cretan fellow, saying “In Him we live and move and have our being”. Paul hijacks the poem and uses it to illustrate the nearness of God. As I was thinking about this, the Higgs field came to mind, as it tends to do in one’s daily devotions. Our interaction with God gives us mass and identity.
We all interact with God. The Greek words for live, move and being indicated the different levels of life we have from God. In Him we live – we have the animal life, the biological rumblings and jumblings which make us alive. In Him we move – our emotions and will and choices are from Him. In Him we have our being – this is the ontological nature which constitutes our true, essential being or what makes you, you. Every human, by nature of their being created in the image of God, lives and moves and has their being in God. This is what makes us have mass.
This sort of down-coated analogy is perfect for a morning with a cup of joe and an an open Bible. The Higgs field gives a boson mass as it interacts. If I interact with God, I will have more mass. It is all very sweet and forgettable. However, Paul was not talking to Christians when he recited this verse. He was talking to pagans. Real, live ones. You know, like people who do not know the one true God or Jesus His Son? I bet you could name a few you know yourself. Maybe you are one.
At some point there was a disconnect between the nearness of God in order to avoid pantheism or a watery Christianity. I can understand that. To give the impression that God is cuddly close and snuggly soft would be inaccurate. There is a sense in which he is imminent and as close as a heart beat or a breath and a sense in which he is so far apart we have no hope of bridging the gap, save one. In the process of avoiding any inkling of sinful humans having a relationship with God, our utter separateness from God – not only by our creaturely designation, but by our sinful disposition – has been accentuated to the neglect of his nearness to us. In truth, we do live and move and have our being in Him. He is the field which gives us mass and identity.
There is no option to have a physical or emotional life apart from Him. We cannot have essential being apart from interacting with him, any more than the Higgs boson can have mass in itself. If it is to be anything it must interact. This is true for all humans. You are interacting with God at all levels of the human experience right now, that is why you are you.
This is not proof of God’s existence. Indeed, it would be tautological if it was. It is an acknowledgement and , dare I say, theologically irresponsible position that God is near, tragically close, frighteningly imminent, to all of us.
That we all live and move and have our being is obvious. But what is interesting is how we have come to think of ourselves having mass on our own, by virtue of something we haven’t identified yet. If you were really to think about it, in what do you live and move and have your being? What gives you mass and identity?
Thought Butter 