We have seen how the universe is filled with the evidence of God as an infinite Mind; yet, he is also a Trinity, which is a community of Persons. The universe that he created is an extraordinary intellectual achievement, but like the Person who created it, it doesn’t always have to follow strict mechanistic laws. The universe is not simply a machine. There is room for variation and for choice. Outcomes are not always inevitable.
After reigning supreme for over 200 years, by the early 20th century, classical Newtonian physics had literally frayed at the edges. Unsatisfactory results were routinely being uncovered at the edges of observation—either at very small or very large scales. Classical physics could not adequately explain how things such as gravity and electromagnetism actually worked, how subatomic particles behaved, or provide a coherent understanding of the contradictory properties of physical light. Einstein’s discoveries replaced the determinism and certainty of the physical world with relativity. On a subatomic level, certainty was replaced with probability.
In quantum physics, the behavior of subatomic particles does not follow a classical cause and effect the way objects do on larger scales. Instead, the exact location of a subatomic particle in space and the decay of a larger particle into smaller particles are all governed by the laws of probability. The exact location of an electron or a photon cannot be predicted, but only its probability of being in an exact location. However, these probabilities become actual when they are observed.
Here is an example of how this potential-to-actual idea would work in real life. Let’s say that a student is about to take a physics exam. He has studied diligently and couldn’t be more ready. His odds of passing are 100%. However, just before the exam, the student buys a hot dog from an unlicensed street vendor and contracts norovirus, Listeria, and hemolytic E coli. His odds of passing have now dropped dramatically, perhaps to only 50%. However, when he finally drags himself out of his hospital bed and takes the make-up exam, the odds don’t matter anymore. He either passes or he doesn’t. The probability of an event transforms to the actual event. The passing grade is real or it isn’t. More specifically, the passing grade becomes real when a human, in this case the teacher who grades the exam, knows that the student passed. Even after the exam is taken, passing or failing grades are still only probabilities. As soon as the teacher knows the test score, the result leaves the realm of the probable and becomes actual.
In the case of atomic particles, for the nature and activity of atomic particles to become actual, it turns out that the observer cannot himself be physical. He must be outside of the physical system. Otherwise, the observer is nothing more than a probability himself. This common interpretation of quantum theory is known as the “Copenhagen Interpretation,” named for the home and workplace of its developers, the physicists Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg.1
Not only does the common interpretation of quantum theory suggest that the human mind has non-physical characteristics, but also that without the human mind, the universe would not be self-conscious. There may have been a God who brought this universe and everything in it into existence, but what completes the universe and retrieves it from perpetual potentiality is the human mind. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the human mind is the final step in completing physical Creation. We see a hint of this in the “second creation story” in Genesis.
This is the book of the genesis of heaven and earth when they were made, in the day the Lord God made heaven and earth, before any plant of the field was on earth and before any herb of the field sprang up. For God had not sent rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground; but a fountain came up from the ground and watered the whole face of the earth. Then God formed man out of dust from the ground, and breathed in his face the breath of life; and man became a living soul (Genesis 2: 4-7).
Here we see that the earth was formed but something was missing—“there was no man to till the ground.” God does the preliminary work of Creation alone. It is not until God “breathed in his face the breath of life” and gave him a rational soul is the earth tilled and the earth is given form and achieves completion. The earth needs man in order to be productive and achieve its purpose. Otherwise it is a blank slate—mere potentiality.
Even with the uncertainty and probability inherent in the physical universe at the subatomic level, paradoxically at the macro level the physical universe and the machines that humans construct are strictly deterministic. That means they can only follow strict rules. In Hollywood movies, such as “2001—A Space Odyssey” and “Terminator,” computers become “self-aware” and promptly start trying to dominate and subdue humans. The problem with these movies and artificial intelligence enthusiasts in general is the claim that self-awareness is possible for a machine that had once been strictly deterministic. A computer or any other machine simply does what it has been designed to do in the way that it was designed to do it. If A, then B. If C, then do D, etc. If a lever is pulled, then this gear will turn, and so forth. Machines are trapped by the rules that govern their behavior.
With the amazing increases in computing power seen with Artificial Intelligence (AI), computers using advanced chips and neural network strategies are able to process information exponentially faster than before. To proponents and enthusiasts, the uncanny ability of AI to mimic human cognition (and vastly exceed our processing rates for certain computational tasks), has led to the claim that these new machines have agency2 and are sentient3, though most experts remain skeptical that these results are nothing more than a sophisticated simulacrum. Focusing on intriguing outputs created by a poorly understood black box has created something similar to an AI “cargo cult.”45
In 1931, a Czech born Austrian mathematician named Kurt Gödel published what has become known as his “Incompleteness Theorems.”6 Prior to Gödel, it was commonly held that it should be possible to construct all known mathematics from a set of simple, logical operations. If so, a machine could therefore be constructed that could do the same thing. What Gödel demonstrated was that any system that operated within a defined set of rules could never demonstrate that its own rules were true. His logic was a mathematical variation of the Liar’s Paradox. Since machines are always deterministic, they can never justify their own programming. They can’t think outside of their “box.” Their very nature prevents them from making the crucial leap to a will and self-consciousness.
A philosopher from Crete in the 6th century B.C. named Epimenides is said to have exclaimed “All Cretans are liars!” Coming from a Cretan, this statement raised some logical inconsistencies. If all Cretans were liars, then Epimenides was himself lying when he made that statement. On the other hand, if Epimenides was also a liar, then his statement was a lie and someone on Crete might not be a liar. By applying this logic to mathematics, Gödel was able to demonstrate that since deterministic machines such as computers operate within a specific and inviolate set of rules, they cannot demonstrate that what they calculate to be true based on their own rules is objectively true. Gödel demonstrated that only the human mind has the ability to transcend rules and understand its own “programming.” Therefore, machines with “wills” and “self-awareness” that can break out of their deterministic behavior and operate freely are impossible. At best, they are a convincing in silico7 illusion. The most that can be said is that machines may malfunction and engage in harmful behaviors, but that is not at all the same as a machine having the ability to choose to malfunction.
Either mathematics is too big for the human mind or the human mind is more than a machine. — Kurt Gödel8
A detailed analysis of the implications of Gödel’s work for mathematics generally is beyond our discussion here, but it also demonstrates that mathematics itself is dependent and contingent upon something outside of itself and therefore attempts to explain the universe exclusively in terms of mathematics (and therefore physics, etc.) is futile.
To be fair, there are other interpretations of this aspect of quantum theory and the role of the “observer.”
“Copenhagen Interpretation,” Wikipedia, accessed February 22, 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_interpretation.
Danielle Swanepoel, et al, “Artificial Intelligence and Agency: Tie-breaking in AI Decision-Making,” Sci Eng Ethics, March 29, 2024, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11948-024-00476-2.
Charlotte Hu, et al, “What is Sentient AI?”, IBM.com, accessed February 21, 2025, https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/sentient-ai#:~:text=As%20of%20today%2C%20experts%20agree,that%20AI%20is%20not%20sentient.
“Cargo cult,” Wikipedia, accessed February 21, 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult.
Edlyn V. Levine, “Cargo Cult AI,” ACM Queue, May 11, 2023, https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3595860.
“Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed August 12, 2020, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/goedel-incompleteness/.
“In silico,” Wikipedia, accessed February 22, 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_silico.
“Kurt Gödel,” Wikiquote, accessed February 19, 2025, https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kurt_G%C3%B6del.