Quantum theology

Last February 6th some truly interesting news came out: the James Webb telescope discovered a new galaxy that belongs to a very rare type, of which few other examples are known.
It is a dwarf galaxy that should not exist: it is isolated and quiescent, does not interact with nearby galaxies, nor does it produce new stars. His knowledge could change current knowledge about the formation and evolution of galaxies. In the last three decades, thanks to new technologies, billions of galaxies are being discovered and with them billions of billions of stars. In the scientific field, more discoveries and innovations occur in a single year than in the entire past century. The possibilities of human knowledge are reaching heights never before imagined. Knowledge is fully included in God's plan. It is enough to return to Genesis when God expresses his first command to man: "Subdue the earth". Command unfortunately forgotten and neglected by religious people and men of faith who tend to remember only the other commandments. Sometimes it seems that love, that of the capital "A", should be aimed solely at human creatures in need. Instead, we forget that the one who is most "thirsty" for our love is someone else: it is God!

Along with love for those who are derelict, sick, affected by war and hunger, we can also love by raising our gaze towards the universe around us.
Someone claims that we only know 5% of it, the rest constantly invites us to open our minds and hearts. Perhaps, by knowing the sky we will be able to discover new ways to face the many evils that afflict the earth.
Earth and sky, a relationship that man has cultivated since its origins. The history of humanity that he believes, since he drew on cave walls, has always had a special relationship with God, according to its possibilities. All sacred art (and how much of it we are custodians of in Italy!) has sought to give glory to God in a painful, embodied, dialoguing prayer. Today we have the opportunity to follow different paths. Let's think of the Webb telescope, launched on December 25, 2021, the result of an international collaboration between NASA, the well-known US space agency, ESA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency. For almost three years it has been orbiting the Sun at 1.5 million km from the Earth, aligned with the Earth's orbit. The Webb Telescope broke new ground in astronomy with cutting-edge design technologies. It is the largest telescope ever sent into space, and will allow us to broaden the horizons of research into the cosmos inaugurated by the Hubble telescope. In the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 6, we read: «Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life [...] Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them . […] Observe how the lilies of the field grow: they neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon, in all his glory, was dressed like one of these. Instead, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness."

Those who feel a priestly vocation spend a lot of time studying theology, it is very rare that they spend time in a physics laboratory or looking at the sky.
Yet how far science is making without us believers (and pastors) realizing it! And how many new things that broaden our hearts to the love of God could we learn if we did not remain attached to forms of devotion that are too old-fashioned which no longer manage to make us love the Creator and push us to be content with loving, perhaps, creatures like us. I say "maybe" because it is only by broadening our borders that we can truly solve the problems of those in front of us. As the well-known Chinese proverb states: "Don't just give fish to eat today, but teach them how to fish." Sometimes we confuse our psychological turmoil with true love.
The sky exists not only because we look at it. Numerous rovers have been trampling the soil of Mars for some time, collecting and analyzing samples, sending us amazing photos. The Osiris-Rex probe brought samples of the asteroid 101955 Bennu to earth which are being analyzed in many specialized laboratories. God exists, not because we evoke him. He exists not because we look at him, but because everyone, with the little things he has, since he was a child, sends him messages of love to which he responds with just as much love. With a certainty that gives us peace of mind: God continues to look at us even in this time.

Our generations can look beyond and more deeply into things
Heisenberg's uncertainty principle states that it is not possible to precisely and simultaneously determine two conjugated variables, i.e. it is not possible to know exactly and at the same time the position and momentum of a particle. Niels Bohr's quantum mechanics appalled the great Einstein, father of general relativity. His quote is: "Do you really believe the moon isn't there if you don't look at it?" It is a cornerstone of quantum mechanics that a measurement always disturbs the observed system, generating modifications. So does watching change things? At the Arsenale we spend hours in front of a host displayed in silence, looking at it. This too is looking, but more than anything else, it is feeling looked at. I would say that we exist because Someone is watching us and not vice versa. After Galileo with his telescope, we look more and more at the stars and see more and more of them. We remain enraptured, sometimes annihilated in the face of such majesty.
Despite having extremely different ideas, on April 27, 1920, three of the most important physicists of the time, Bohr, Max Planck and Einstein, met in Berlin. The three found themselves at ease talking about physics the whole time, comparing their ideas. “Few times in my life has a person given me so much joy just by his presence as he did,” Einstein later wrote to Bohr. We can't imagine what levels the three reached, but they said they felt "joy". It is a fragment of the same joy that we can savor by going deeper into creation.
 

Rinaldo Canalis 
NPFOCUS
NP March 2024