A NASA rocket scientist finds God in astronomy, quantum physics and Genesis. This is the story of one man’s quest to know the Creator of the universe, in the face of postmodern thought and atheistic claims.
Finding God in Science is like ‘A Brief History Of Time’ meets ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told,’ revealing the consistency of the Bible and science in plain language. This is the first book to demonstrate that Jesus Christ’s earthly message and mission parallel the natural laws of the universe, revealing a Divine premeditation. Finding God sheds new light on the mystery of why Christ had to die to save us from our sins, and why we have to die to finally realize eternal life. Scientific implications in Finding God illustrate the nature of truth, and what it means to really know God and communicate with Him. It shows by analogy the indwelling of the Spirit, the security of our salvation and how Jesus Christ could be both God and man, in direct contact with the Godhead. This is done without adding to scripture.
As incredible as it may sound, these claims are based on the key features of quantum mechanics, which has a deep and unexpected relevance to Christianity. The gospel is presented in a new language that has a direct correspondence with the fundamental principles of physics. Finding God in Science will challenge your thinking, touch your soul, and deepen your faith. Newly revised edition v1.7
Praise For
“In my judgment, Michael O’Connell has produced an important new study of God and Christianity from a scientific perspective. He offers fresh insights into the peculiar nature of quantum physics, and how it provides a new understanding of spiritual realities. O’Connell writes with great clarity and precision, a welcome relief for those who wish to grasp scientific notions that too often are weighted down with scientific verbiage. Whether or not one believes in God, this book is a joy to read. It sheds light on the most powerful forces of our origin and our existence. Any book that can do so with such elegance and poise is well worth the read. I highly recommend this book.”- William J. Havlicek, PhD.
“Michael O’Connell has written a most fascinating book that will challenge the reader to rethink their perspectives on the universe and its creation. His book will help the reader to see the amazing creative genius of the God of the Universe.”- Greg Campbell
“I highly recommend this incredible book. Whether you are a doubter or a person of faith, you will be enlightened in so many ways.”- Linda Sbicca Rowland
“Finding God In Science reconciles science and devotion to the God of the Bible. This book allows the reader to begin thinking intelligently about Science and faith without being trapped in a false dichotomy. The language is accessible to those who have little background in science, while Mr. O'Connell's enthusiasm for his subject draws in the reader.” – Kristin B.
“Finding God In Science has been extremely helpful in informing my thoughts on the God of the Bible and scientific discovery. The treatise on the creation story should be a must-read for people of faith. The breadth and depth of subjects touched on showing God’s hand on the natural world is truly mind boggling. The author does a masterful job of introducing challenging concepts to novices.”– David Birch
Responses To Key Amazon Review
a) I do not advocate that ‘pre humans became like God,’ as one reader states,
b) Reader wrote, ‘Black holes…(do not) prove hell could exist’; point taken and sentence deleted,
c) Readers wrote, ‘Gap Theory,’ and ‘trite, incomplete conclusions’; such labels are not counter arguments.
approximately 15% of this book is autobiographical.
A BOOK DEALING WITH UP-TO-DATE EVENTS OF QUANTUM MECHANICS, ETC.
NASA rocket scientist Michael O’Connell wrote in the Preface to this 2018 book, “I work in the highly analytical world of space science engineering, and I have been a Christian and a student of the Bible from childhood. This is my chronicle of discovery… my career, the triumphs and losses in the enterprise of space, and of my Christian faith. This work began with my own personal struggle between atheistic claims based in science and my Christian faith… [This book shows] the consistency of scripture and science in an accessible way that reasserts Christianity in a postmodern culture. [It] is the first book to demonstrate that Christ’s earthly message and mission follow the natural laws of the universe, revealing a Divine premeditation. [It] sheds new light, too, on the indwelling of the Spirit, the mystery of why Christ had to die to finally realize eternal life. The science… illustrate the nature of truth, what it means to know God, and communicate with him. It shows how Jesus Christ could be both God and man, and it backs the security of our salvation. As incredible as it may sound, these claims are based on new inferences from quantum physics, which has a deep and unexpected relevance to Christianity. I believe insights implied by deep physical reality have the power to reframe the modern defense of God and the Christian faith.” (Pg. 1-2)
He continues, “[This book] provides a new language to tell the gospel---one that has a direct correspondence with known physical principles. The resolution of faith and science that I found was not quick or easy… The Christological Bible prophecies fulfilled by Jesus Christ are especially convincing for me… You do not have to be a scientist to engage and understand the philosophical implications of the science in [this book].” (Pg. 4-5)
He observes, “In our day, the strength of evidence that Christians present for God’s existence and for our faith will determine the future vitality of the Church, or whether society will continue to move away from its Christian roots. If we do not meet this challenge I fear that Christianity is destined to become a minor feature of Western society.” (Pg. 16)
He notes, “Intriguingly, a black hole is more like hell than anything else in the universe. It is an inescapable place of utter darkness, isolation, and gravitational bondage… Now, I do not know that black holes really have anything to do with hell but they are certainly a type of the biblical hell---a storehouse for evil that cannot be escaped. Black holes are proof that such a place as hell could exist.” (Pg. 32)
He suggests, “So how can the ancient text in Genesis relate to the science of cosmology?... The Sun and Moon appear in the text well after the Earth has been created… But there is a legitimate … interpretation of the Genesis 1 text that eliminates thus quandary. It says that the Sun and Moon became VISIBLE from Earth on the ‘fourth’ day… Science tells us that the early Earth sky was opaque… Over time, the atmosphere was transformed … into an oxygen-rich, transparent atmosphere. This… made it possible for the Sun, the Moon and the stars to be seen from the Earth’s surface for the first time… radioactive dating methods firmly place the age of the Sun and Earth at 4.5 billion years… These ages are consistent with the most reasonable interpretation of ‘day’ in Genesis as a long period of time. The phrasing of the following verses [Gen 2:4, 5:1]… clearly use the word ‘day’ in conjunction with a long epoch… Thus, the old age of the Earth reflects the timelessness of God.” (Pg. 37)
He clarifies, “My intent here is not to recount the considerable scientific evidence for evolution, but to show that the physical theory is compatible with scripture. There are pre-science interpretations of Genesis by Jewish scholars that agree with modern science. Many Christian theologians and scientists like John Polkinghorne and Benjamin Warfield have argued that evolution and the Bible are compatible. Others like Francis Collins, the head of the Human Genome Project and a Christian, have referred to this view as theistic evolution.” (Pg. 40)_
He recounts, "Over time I came to interpret Adam and Eve as allegorical characters, but now I am inclined to take them as real persons in the stream of history. The Bible says God breathed a new kind of soul like into the nostrils of a man whom He had already formed. In other words, there was a human ‘animal’ that God chose to make into a complete human being named Adam… It is consistent with the Bible, then, to believe that a great many pre-human contemporaries of Adam would have been living outside the Garden of Eden. These creatures were the same biological species as Adam, but they did not have the new soul life.” (Pg. 42)
He acknowledges “Some Christians do not like the idea of a Big Bang universe but they do not appreciate the support that this discovery lends to the Genesis account of a beginning.” (Pg. 79) He continues, “Genesis 1:2 then is beautifully evocative of the universe after the Big Bang… In the infant universe, there was at first no material thing, just energy, information, and the stuff of possibility. Matter and Earth had not yet been formed but space was void and empty.” (Pg. 81) He goes on, “Genesis 1:7 correctly describes the expansive nature of the growing universe… this evokes the gathering together of regions of higher density that were separated from the empty regions of the universe.” (Pg. 84)
He summarizes, “a Creator is implied by the central facts of the universe. This cannot be beautiful to an atheist, but to me a universe with a beginning and an end---with finely tuned physical laws and constants---is extravagantly beautiful. Ours is a universe that points unambiguously to an All Powerful God of vast creativity… terrible power and glory---Elohim.” (Pg. 89)
He states, “no one but God knows how the perfection of the atom’s components can exist, created out of nothing but radiant energy. The seemingly arbitrary and finely tuned rules… reveal the world of a dependable and sustaining and organizing Mind… The apparent incorruptibility of the atom’s proton, electron and quark components bear the likeness of God’s unchanging eternal nature and purity.” (Pg. 100-101)
He argues, “What … are Christians to make of chance events?... Superficially, chance events don’t seem compatible with a Creator and many Christians believe that nothing happens by chance. But is that really the case? Jesus once said [Jn 3:8], ‘the wind blows where it likes’…... Nature has been given a degree of free reign by God. It is impossible, even in principle, to predict what a quantum particle will do at any given moment.” (Pg. 104) He suggests, “chance events and God’s sovereignty are compatible because god chose everything that will ever happen when He selected the universe we live in… God’s control of random events is largely form outside time…” (Pg. 106)
Turning to the Problem of Evil, he says, “Yes, God allows malaria, but every organism on the planet competes for resources, and some of those competing organisms just happen to be detrimental to us. If single-cell germs did not exist, neither would ‘good’ cells… Chance events, taken with the Bible, lead us to the familiar doctrine that God directly causes some events but merely allows other things to happen.” (Pg. 107) He admits, “The honest observer would have to admit that God might have further plans for resolving evil that are not immediately obvious. But this is not something we can deduce from nature. We must have a divine revelation to know God’s intentions for dealing with evil. I believe this is what God has given us in the Bible and in Jesus Christ.” (Pg. 114-115)
He asserts, “the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics is physically equivalent to the Copenhagen interpretation of wave potentialities. The standard wave potentiality interpretation of quantum mechanics is the one that I accept, partly because it is so wonderfully strange and because its implications match the reality of our conscious experience.” (Pg. 124) He adds, “it has pleased God to create a staggering set of possibilities in this universe and an unimaginable number of creatures on whom to shower His love. There could even be countless beings on different worlds in this universe that experience His love.” (Pg. 126)
He suggests, “Strict materialists have no explanation why nature should rest upon a state of possibility, or why a conscious observer should be part and parcel of the fabric of reality. To me the evidence clearly implies a Divine author of consciousness, and that God tailored physics and the universe so that conscious beings could arise.” (Pg. 138)
He argues, “I do not know how a non-physical Super Being is entangled with the physical world, but God must necessarily know the information representing entangled states… Entanglement also illustrates how Jesus Christ could be in direct contact with the full power of the Godhead, even though he was limited to a human body on Earth.” (Pg. 144-145) Later, he asks, “But how does the universe’s quantum computation avoid the disruption of quantum decoherence, or the natural tendency of atoms to bump together and lose their quantum behavior? It can’t completely, but even a degree of quantum entanglement can result in a level of quantum information processing, or computing.” (Pg. 154)
Turning to consciousness, he says, “Quantum mind theory says that consciousness arises in human beings in conjunction with the interactions of entangled electrons that transfer, or tunnel, from synapse to synapse within the brain… entangled electrons in the brain exist in a quantum state of potential, being in two states at once, leading to super-powered quantum computing… Other recent experiments have verified that consciousness is global in nature and not isolated to one location or part of the brain.” (Pg. 159-160)
He also quotes with approval Amit Goswami’s book ‘the Self-Aware Universe’ (e.g., pg. 162), and states, “Put simply, we change what happens in the world through will. Moreover, the will’s influence reaches beyond time and space, in a manner similar to observation.” (Pg. 163) He adds, “It has been seriously suggested by scientists… that entanglement might even form the basis of life and its underlying processes… This would mean that the underlying protomentality of tiny quantum interactions also contains the spark of life… Is it any wonder that atheists generally deny the quantum model of the mind? The quantum mind points to unambiguously to God’s own consciousness that it affronts the materialists’ worldview… Quantum mechanics has revealed that consciousness is one of the principal features of the universe, and not one of its effects.” (Pg. 166-167) In the final chapter, he suggests, “As unbelievable as it may sound, all the principal tenets of Christianity, the acts of God that bring eternal life, can be posed in quantum mechanical terms, In particular, entanglement and teleportation lead to a series of stunning Christian spiritual analogies.” (Pg. 172)
This book will be of keen interest to Christians looking for commentaries on many ‘current’ scientific topics that are not discussed in other books (e.g., quantum entanglement).
While there are a lot of interesting comparisons between God's creation and quantum physics (for example, I really like the parts about Teleportation and quantum entanglement, and how God has utilized them through the ages), there's also a lot in there, I don't agree with. For example, the author argues that God created the universe over billions of years but Exodus 20:8-11 specifically outlines how he designed man's work week around the creation of the heavens and the Earth and he did, in fact, create heavens and the Earth in 24 hour days as we understand them. The author also dismisses climate change which I vehemently disagree with. There is an overall Catholic vibe to this reading and, coming from a nondenominational perspective and mindful of those with skeptical secular views, is a bit off putting.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
A great book that leaves you pondering and hungry for more about Quantum and God. A definite must-read for anyone trying to breach the gap between science and faith. Note! This is definitely NOT a theology book. I would not recommend reading it expecting sound theology in every page. Some of the points brought up do not adhere to what I know the Bible to say on the matter; nevertheless, it has very interesting points worth digging into.