Quantum Physics and Kierkegaard

I realize this is a strange combination: Quantum Physics and Danish existentialist philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), but I think Kierkegaard’s ideas in relation to proving God’s existence are relevant to how we interpret the meaning of quantum physics in relation to a spiritual reality.

Here I am connecting Kierkegaard’s rejection of arguments intended to “prove” God’s existence to people who think that quantum physics verifies a spiritual reality. I will be using God and Spiritual Reality interchangeably, so when I refer to Kierkegaard’s references to God, which he believed in, you can substitute the term “spiritual reality” instead if it makes you more comfortable.

Does Quantum Physics Prove Spirituality?

First off, let’s start with quantum physics. Quantum physics shows us that the material world, at its core, is nothingness, as in “no-thingness”. What once looked so solid and stable (individual objects), quantum physics now tells us is a “chimera”. Those individual objects are not real. They’re stability and solidity are an illusion.

The material world is like water; the more we try to grasp it, the more it slips through our fingers, leaving our hands empty.

We now know that when we investigate what these “material” objects are composed of, we find their components ultimately reduce down to emptiness or nothingness. They just vanish into thin air.

Now some people believe that because of this, quantum physics has proven a spiritual reality. I once believed this, but on reading Ken Wilber’s book, Quantum Questions, he convinced me, through the writings of the quantum physicists themselves, that just because quantum physics has disproved the existence of individual physical objects (matter), it doesn’t mean that therefore a spiritual reality exists.

What is this Nothingness Quantum Physics Proves?

The nothingness that quantum physics reveals to us, is not necessarily the “nothingness” that our great spiritual teachers talk about. What quantum physics does, however, is to open the door to such a reality, meaning that science no longer stands in the way of a spiritual reality as it once did when modern Newtonian science ruled the day.

Now I know a lot of people may disagree with me on this, so I need to explain a little further. This nothingness that quantum physics has revealed to us is ultimately just an abstract concept. Intellectually, we now understand that all physical objects reduce to nothingness, so that ultimately nothingness is all there is. But what is this nothingness that quantum physics leads us to?

It’s just empty space devoid of objects. It’s a vacuum, a black void, an annihilation of all individual objects. If people take that literally, it leads to a nihilistic worldview where there is no meaning or purpose in the universe.

In the end there is just this black hole from which everything accidentally emerged, and nobody can explain how it occurred. It seems impossible, but there are scientists who believe this. And then when we die, we just return to this meaningless black hole; our lives reduced to a meaningless futility.

So we have to take the next step and make the leap from objective “knowing” (the quantum physics’ concept of nothingness) to subjective “knowing” (the inner experience of this nothingness as a fullness).

Kierkegaard: Can’t Rationally Prove God’s Existence

This is where Kierkegaard comes in. Kierkegaard talked about how we have to take a “leap of faith” into our belief in God (spiritual reality) because ultimately he realized that reason itself could not prove the existence of God. Many before him had tried, including St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Anselm, and Descartes just to mention a few.

Kierkegaard believed that the problem with using reason to prove God’s existence was that it turns God into an object that needs to be proved.

Reason is Helpless Before the Unknown

According to Kierkegaard, you can’t prove God rationally because reason is helpless when it confronts the metaphysical or the unknown. He says,

“But what is this unknown something with which Reason collides when inspired by its paradoxical passion, with the result of unsettling even man’s knowledge of himself? It is the Unknown. It is not a human being, in so far as we know what man is; nor is it any other known thing. So let’s call this unknown something, God.

In short when we look inside ourselves and confront the unknown, that nothingness we all experience when we close our eyes at night as we prepare to go sleep; this is what Kierkegaard wants to call God. He goes on,

“It [God] is nothing more than a name we assign it [the unknown]. The idea of demonstrating that this unknown something (God) exists could scarcely suggest itself to the Reason. For if God does not exist it would of course be impossible to prove it.; and if he does exist it would be folly to attempt it.”

How do you prove that unknown, that nothingness is God? Maybe it’s just the void, the no-thingness that atheists believe is our ultimate reality.

So, Kierkegaard claims that in order to prove God’s existence, one must first prove the unknown is God, but reason is helpless in this endeavor.

Kierkegaard then says we must let go of efforts to prove the existence of God, and instead just relax and allow let God’s existence become manifest in us. This he says is hard to do because we want certainty before we believe. We want proof, but we can’t have it in this context because God’s existence is beyond proof, meaning it is beyond our rational abilities. He says,

“As long as I keep my hold on the proof, the existence [of God] does not come out, if for no reason than I am engaged in proving it; but when I let the proof go, the existence is there.”

Take a “Leap of Faith”

So, in order to believe in God, Kierkegaard says we need to take a “leap of faith”, meaning a real letting go of all efforts to “prove” God’s existence. Only then can we have our own inner experience of God that is personal, passionate and subjective.

We will have experienced a subjective knowing based on a direct, unmediated connection to God. This is opposed to an objective knowing based on a rational understanding of God’s existence which is dispassionate, impersonal and objective.

Philosopher John Chaffee says in his book, The Philosopher’s Way explains it this way,

“For Kierkegaard, ‘objective knowing’ can never achieve a genuine understanding of God because it treats God as an object to be proved and understood—an impossible task, given the limits of our reasoning capacities. ‘Subjective knowing,’ on the other hand, is the consequence of establishing a relationship with God by means of our leap of faith, a connection founded on passion, not dispassionate rational understanding.”

Tying it All Together

So this last point is exactly the point I want to make about quantum physics. In both cases we are trying to use reason to “prove” something that is beyond its purview: a spiritual world in the case of quantum physics, and God in the case of Kierkegaard.

My problem with the notion of quantum physics verifying a spiritual reality is the same problem that Kierkegaard had with using reason to prove the existence of God. Sure, quantum physics shows us that ultimately everything reduces down to nothingness, however, that nothingness is not necessarily a spiritual nothingness filled with potential. It could just be the void many atheists believe is at the core of everything.

Reason can only take us so far here. Can we prove rationally that this nothingness is in reality a fullness”? No. We can no more prove that then we can use reason to prove the existence of God.

What we need, as Kierkegaard shows, is a direct experience of “knowing”. We need direct contact with the ultimate to realize that this “nothingness” is also a spiritual fullness.

So, in short, Kierkegaard’s views on our ability to prove God’s existence through reason is identical to trying to prove a spiritual reality from an intellectual understanding of quantum physics. We need to get out of our heads and take the Kierkegaardian “leap of faith” and let the “spiritual reality” become manifest in ourselves. In short, quantum physics opens the door to a spiritual reality, but to realize it, we have to make the leap into it.

To learn more about the Intelligence and Magic of the Universe: Click this link: The Magical Universe.