Can God Change the Past?
“God does not play dice.” – Albert Einstein
Heavenly Father,
I believe You are everywhere and can do anything. Many (most?) scientists do not believe that. But I see a connection between modern theories in physics and the kind of God I perceive you to be. I cannot pretend to understand the theories at all well, but I have done my best. I hope it honors You.
This train of thought all started when I attended a guest lecture in seminary. The speaker, whose name I cannot remember, threw out in the middle of his talk this statement: “God cannot change the past.” Bing! My antennae sprang up immediately. “Not true!” my whole mind and body said. “God can do anything.”
Then I read some things about relativity and quantum physics and experienced another “Bingo!” I think You can indeed change the past, Lord. You can redeem it.
To really understand physics, one has to know math. I do not. I cannot follow the equations, but have read some books that explain what I am interested in with graphs and simple language. I remember that math (and music, another mystery of the universe) is a gift from You and am not surprised that You have created beautiful formulae that describe Your universe.
Relativity
One of my sources is Sabine Hossenfelder’s Existential Physics: A Scientist’s Guide to Life’s Biggest Questions, Viking NY, NY 2022. She gives a (mostly, to me) understandable explanation of Albert Einstein’s theories of general and special relativity. I will not go into all the steps, but will try to summarize the end result.
According to special relativity, information cannot trave instantaneously from one location in the universe to another. It can only travel at a speed less than or equal to that of light.
Imagine that two events happen: my birth and a super-nova explosion. Because the explosion takes so many light-years to reach earth, its light hasn’t reached me at the time of my birth. But Sue, my friend the space traveler, located at a point half-way between my birthplace and the super nova, sees both events at the same time, so they seem simultaneous to her.
Some years on earth pass. Then I die. By this time, the light from the super-nova still hasn’t reached the earth. Another space-traveler friend, Paul, is stationed half-way between my deathbed and the super-nova explosion. He also sees both events simultaneously. So, according to my two friends, both my birth and my death occur at the same time as he super nova! (paraphrased from Hossenfelder, p. 9-10)
Spooky, huh? No wonder she called her book Existential Physics!
But to a Christian, should this appear at all strange? Think of scripture: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” (Rev. 22:13) Surely this means You are all three at the same time.
Also: “But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” (2 Pet 3:8) So for You, at least, time is relative.
In the book of 2nd Kings, King Hezekiah is on his deathbed. He wants a sign from You that he will be healed. So he asks the prophet Isaiah to give him a sign. Isaiah in turn asks Hezekiah if he would like the sun to go back or forward. Hezekiah chooses what seems the more difficult alternative – that the sun go backwards. Then what happens? – “Isaiah cried to the Lord, and He brought the shadow on the stairway back ten steps by which it had gone down on the stairway.” (2K 20:11)
Here is another “time miracle” recorded in the Bible:
Then Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel,
“O sun, stand still at Gibeon,
And O moon in the valley of Aijalon.”
So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped,
until the nation avenged themselves of their enemies. (Josh 10:12)
Neither of these last two are relativity, I guess, but it is You changing time, which answers my original question, “Why can’t God change the past?”
Quantum Physics
The little I have learned about quantum theory points to me that You can indeed change the past. This is a great mystery. (I know that scientists have scoffed at spiritual interpretations of quantum theory, but I believe there is something Godly hiding within this newish field of study.)
So here goes: We all learned in school that matter is made up of atoms. Atoms contain a nucleus which in turn contains protons and neutrons, and around which electrons circulate. Experiments in quantum physics have demonstrated that these subatomic entities have weird properties: They can be in multiple places at once, travel through impassible barriers, spin in two different directions at once, and can communicate with one another across distances instantaneously (which violates Albert Einstein’s theory of special relativity). (Some scientists call these weird entities “particles,” others “waves.” I will follow John Polkinghornes’s label, “entities.”) John Polkinghorne, Quantum Physics and Theology: An Unexpected Kinship, Yale University Press, 2007, p. 21)
This weird behavior of subatomic entities has spawned many theories of how and why it happens. These theories continue to be developed right now and into the future. Philosophers as well as physicists have joined the speculation.
I wonder, in my own small uneducated way; is this complex unpredictable behavior of quantum entities actually chaos? Did You, Father, create reality from chaos? If physicists can believe that a subatomic entity can be both here and there at the same time why can’t Christians believe that You can change the past?
(In case you were wondering, the proof that quantum theory is correct is that it works: It enables accurate predictions that have been used in many of our technological advances, such as lasers, computer chips, GPS, MRI, and mobile phones, to name a few. The Internet, government defense, cryptography for security, etc., plow all sorts of money into building quantum computers.)
What About Predestination?
In a similar way, I ask a different yet parallel question: Why can’t we believe that predestination and free will can exist simultaneously?
The predestination/free will controversy echoes through the halls of Christian seminaries and churches as well as in the offices and labs of physicists. Do You preordain all our actions, or do we actually have the power to choose? I have always said that both are true, according to scripture. Here is St. Peter, in his sermon to the crowds at Pentecost:
…this Man [Jesus], delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. (Acts 2:23) (emphasis mine)
Here, Peter is both describing Your action in history as well as the people’s personal responsibility in crucifying Jesus. Both happen. Predestination and free will somehow work together.
The same thing happens in the Book of Exodus, where You both give Pharoah responsibility to react to the plagues You send and at the same time harden Pharoah’s heart. Is not this an example of predestination and free will working together?
Like me, some philosophers see predestination and free will as compatible. Hossenfelder disagrees. She believes that the future is determined by past events. She thinks the idea of compatibility is silly and not scientific. Her words: “But the future is still fixed except for occasional quantum events that we cannot influence.” (Hossenfelder op. cit. p. 129) (Notice the exception for occasional quantum events” – I think that’s significant.)
Polkinghorne seems to agree with me:
One can take with absolute seriousness all that physics actually can tell us, and still believe in a world of true becoming, in which the future is not just an inevitable consequence of the past. (Polkinghorne, op. cit., p. 95)
Some philosophers of science have a “…dipolar view of the divinity, locating the presence of both eternity and temporality within the divine nature.” (ibid, p. 97)
In other words, You, Father in heaven, can operate within both eternity and time as we know it on earth.
By the way, why do we always see time as a straight line, a one-dimensional reality, consisting of an unchangeable past and an unforeseeable future? Could the structure of time be more complex, perhaps even filling another dimension, unknown to us? Could there be an array of futures, which are triggered partially by our choices, and partially by God’s providence?
A personal illustration about predestination and free will: There was a time in my life when I was forced to make three different, difficult major decisions. When I took one step towards making my choice, it felt as if I was on a giant three-dimensional chess board. The moment I took that step, the players on the board all shifted their positions. I had the power to choose, but You worked with that choice to fit it into Your own pattern. I believe this is how reality works – as one school of thought says, kill a butterfly and the ramifications echo throughout the earth.
Isn’t this similar to the way quanta work? When we shine a light on one location, everything is affected – the pieces on the chessboard shift.
Perhaps You, my Lord, have harnessed quanta (or chaos, if I may call it that). If the universe was created out of nothing, perhaps “nothing” does mean “chaos.” Only You can understand the power of chaos and rope it into submission: “The earth was formless [chaotic] and void [empty or nothingness].” (Gen 1:2) (bracketed words mine) You created boundaries to put things in order: Light and darkness are separated; so are sea and land, the heavens and the earth, and plants and animals in their various kinds. (An aside: You assigned Adam the responsibility to name the animals; it looks like he was the first scientist!)
Some think that the quantum world exists only on the smallest scale; it cannot be discerned in the movement of larger objects on earth or in the cosmos. Scientists and philosophers ask “…why does quantum physics so flagrantly contradict our experience of the world? Why aren’t our keys ever in two places at once?” (Adam Becker 2018. What is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics. Hatchette Book Group, p. 4,) If quanta can only be found on the smallest of scales, perhaps You fence them in as well, regulating their movement and character in ways only You can fathom.
Of course, there are those who believe that quanta exist in all sizes. Physicist John Wheeler “…wanted to….marry general relativity with the theory of quantum gravity with the ultimate goal of describing the entire universe, including its origin.” (Ibid., p. 120) (emphasis mine) Some physicists posit that quanta may form the essences of several universes.
Even noted medieval philosopher and scientist William of Occam said, “Laws of physics may change over time. God may have created other worlds than our own.” (JohnJoe McFadden, 2021, Life is Simple: How Occam’s Razor set Science Free and Shapes the Universe. Basic Books, Hatchette Book Group, p. 332)
The Mystery Continues
Relativity and quantum theories have both been proven by numerous experiments to be absolutely real and true. The problem is that they appear to be incompatible given our current knowledge. The word “theory” does not question their reality. There is a great deal of controversy still about the different aspects of relativity and quantum physics.
Here is Becker’s summary:
Somehow, something is going on in the world that is related to the mathematics of quantum physics. There is a correct interpretation, though it may not be any of the ones that we have yet.
Quantum physics is at least approximately correct. There is something real, out in the world, that somehow resembles the quantum. We just don’t know what that means yet. And it is the job of physics to find out. (Becker, op. cit. p. 287)
Back to my original question: Can You, God, change the past?
In my mind, of immense significance to this question is physicist John Wheeler’s remark regarding his quantum experiments: “It’s as if a photon can edit its own past in addition to sometimes being in two places at once – or as if our own choices about our experimental setup can change the distant past.” (Ibid. p. 291) (emphases mine)
Why stop at saying the photon itself can edit its own past (incredible as that may seem)? Why not admit that You, our Father, and the source of all being, are the originator of this possible reality? Perhaps You are even changing the past as I type. We cannot see the past. We pass along stories about the past, or write histories, which surely are as true as we can make them. But what if there’s a greater truth that only You can fathom? You can do anything.
The implications this would hold for theology are mind-boggling: What about personal responsibility? What about good acts and evil acts? Are they totally transformed? Do You somehow stir up the wells of history such that evil is erased? Do You redeem the past? What happens to heaven and hell? As one author says, “…we can’t even be sure of nothing.” (McFadden, op. cit. p. 333)
What are the ramifications of these theories? Father, You are a good God. If You have harnessed quanta, whether in only the smallest entities or across the wide universe(s), surely You mean them to be used for good. If we probe too deeply, what will we unleash? Chaos itself? Already we have split atoms for purposes of hellish devastation. (The theories of relativity somehow led to this.) Now quantum physics has opened up ways of transmitting large amounts of information at incredible speeds…which facilitates Internet communication and may even change the character of that information. In recent years, the Internet, in its form of social media, has provoked revolts in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Rwanda, in addition to riots here in the U.S. and elsewhere. One commentator says it’s the character of the machine that prompts people to more and more violence. (Max Fisher 2022. The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World. Hatchette Book Group, NY, NY) I am writing more about this in another musing.
So, back to my original question: Can You change the past? I say “yes,” because so much of what we thought was reality before the theories of relativity and quantum physics has been turned inside out: Can I be born and die at the same moment? Could what we sense as solid matter really be a mass of movement? Can sub-atomic entities change their own past? What we think of as “the way things are” is only a preparation for what is to come according to Your will and the world(s) You have created. It will be beyond science as we know it.
As quoted at the beginning of this musing, Einstein did not believe You would play games of chance with creation. He fought against quantum theory until his dying day. (Becker, op. cit. p. 44) Of course, I agree with this: life and death, our whole existence, is not a game of chance. But cannot it be that You shift all randomness around to create beauty and order? After all, such action accords with Your nature as reported in scripture. And Your work, though not a game of chance, may indeed be some type of divine play.
I agree with William of Occam, who “…stripped medieval scholastic philosophy, and its theological science, down to the simple premise that God is omnipotent, and then examined the consequences. (McFadden, op. cit., p. 274. Emphasis mine)
No matter what is happening right now (whatever “now” means), I do heartily believe that You can and will change the past at the end of time, when You come to judge the earth and say to us, “Behold! I am making all things new!” (Rev 21:5, emphasis mine) You are indeed omnipotent, Lord. You are Lord of time! We would be nowhere (literally) without you! Praise be to You!
P.S. A reader has mentioned that in some Christians’ minds, You may “change the past” by changing the hearts of those responding to the event. As a Christian myself, that view of things seems to have deep truth. It is worth another “musing!”