This page was established to answer the various questions people may have that often are answered incorrectly or remain unanswered. We try to feature new questions and their answers once every two weeks, depending on the type and frequency of questions we receive.
QUESTION:
I read your book, The Evidence of Things Not Seen and found it truly fascinating. I noticed that you did not use any of the concrete analogies of the Holy Trinity and the nature of God that other writers refer to in physics. I also read the book by -------. In it, he points out that the basic particle in all matter is the quark. There are exactly three quarks that make up all matter, and he uses this as an analogy of the Holy Trinity. I have found several other useful analogies in other books about modern science and religion. I am curious as to why you did not use these analogies.
Tim Stephenson.
REPLY:
Thank you for your letter. I wish to say, first of all, that such analogy can be quite treacherous for the writer. Such simple analogies as, say, the heat, light and energy of the sun have been used from time to time for simple catechetical purposes, but they only name three "qualities" and do not suggest that the three are a concrete analogy of the Trinity, nor that they constitute the whole range of "qualities" of the sun. Augustine of Hippo and others actually fell into rather serious heresies by becoming lost in the concept of analogy (and it may have been at the root of a number of Augustine's heretical ideas).
You have presented us with an excellent example of such a treacherous analogy - that is, and analogy which turned out to betray the one who used it. In fact, there are not three quarks, there are six. The majority of things in the universe have only two quarks in their composition. What we call matter, that is, things composed of atom, are composed of quarks and leptons. Quarks form hadrons, such as protons. Still, you do not have an atom with only the three quarks that make up a proton, you have to add a lepton. When you add an electron to your three quark proton, you have an atom. Quarks are not the sole content of an atom. It takes eight protons (24 quarks), eight neutrons and eight electrons to make an atom of oxygen. To add to the slippery path of such analogy, quarks may very well not be the "fundamental particle." Energy particles also exist, and no one is certain if or at what point there is any difference between "energy" and "particle." Quarks are amalgamated by the intermediary of an energy/particle called a gluon, for example. Moreover, at the fundamental level which we now have a clear picture of, there are six quarks and six leptons. This is, however, only the level at which we now have some clear theoretical picture; it is not the final chapter in the question.
Even with this, I have oversimplified the matter, so you can see how treacherous it is for the writer to use analogies from science, and especially to use analogies which purport to be "concrete" analogies of the Holy Trinity or of the nature of God - a practice which is heretical in itself.
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