We all meet people all the time. We talk to them, interact with them, we “know” other people exist. We know they have memories, can process information, can make choices, etc.

At one point in human history, people seemed rather mysterious and supernatural (as did all life.) So the world was philosophically split up into “living” and “non-living” types of matter.

Now that we have a science world view, a fair question to ask – and science does ask this question – is “how do people function?” How do they store memories? How do they make choices? How do they process information? etc.

From a purely temporal / brain point of view, these questions all have answers. We can hook a person up to an MRI, and see their brain activity and see that thoughts are real physical processes as are memories. We can actually interfere with memories by disturbing the neurons that hold the information. We can force a person to think of certain memories by activing other neurons. Etc.

Therefore, we might say that “a physical person” is “reducible” to a set of chemical laws which are further reducible to a set of physical laws and initial conditions (i.e. initial conditions probably have a techincal definition I don’t understand. I merely mean the existence of basic things that laws act upon. This might be quarks or strings, maybe? Or maybe not even that).

Now imagine meeting a spirit. It’s an immaterial disembodied mind. Science would immediately ask (and they’d be right to ask) “how do spirits function?”

Now let’s assume two possible answers:

1. Spirits, like temporal persons, are also reducible to a set of initial conditions and laws. In this scenario, to comprehend spirits is to understand how they function by their laws and initial conditions. Spirits are therefore “explainable”
2. Spirits, unlike temporal persons, are atomic. They have no underlying description at all. They *are* an initial condition.

I’ve been calling #2, “incomprehensible” and claiming its equivalent to “God not comprehending spirits.” I’m going to stand by that claim but with a caveat that softens it a bit. This is because, from another point of view, the reason it’s “unexplainable” is because there is nothing to comprehend or explain. They just are what they are. They are just an initial condition. The scientific question of “how do they function” is an unanswerable question and doesn’t actually even make sense.

As I understand it, Catholics officially believe in #2 and Mormons perhaps have no official belief either way, but I’m saying I personally believe in #1. I believe all things can be explained by God.

The reason I believe in #1 is because #2 strikes me as problematic in that disembodied minds are clearly not something atomic. They too store information (memories) and can think thoughts and make choices. A disembodied mind is (to me anyhow) obviously complex and therefore reducible. So I’m really ruling out #2 as impossible.

Since I see #2 as a non-option, and #1 as the only other option (so far anyhow) then logically I must accept that spirits *can* be explained via some set of laws. Once science understands and documents those laws, those laws would then be part of the ‘laws of physics’ (as far as any scientist is concerned) and would therefore be considered real ‘physical process.’ From this point forward, spirits would rightly no longer be considered “immaterial” except maybe in the same sense we might consider energy, or alternative universes to be immaterial from our point of view.

This isn’t such a large leap. Consider that all Christian religions believe a physical body and an “immaterial spirit” can somehow interact with each other in that one embodies the other. This implies a certain level of physicality by definition. So scientists would probably consider #2 to also imply that “immaterial spirits” are still “physical.” Indeed, science is going to consider the existence of anything at all to be “physical” in that sense. So the word “physical” isn’t necessarily that useful unless we’re positing that spirits are immaterial in that they are “not physical in any sense at all” (which would then just mean they don’t exist and are imaginary.)

Now what if you accept #2 as true? Does this mean God can’t comprehend spirits?

The reason I was asserting it means this is because of the following:

Pretend like you are talking to God and you ask “gee, how do disemboddied spirits store memories?”

If #2 is true, there is no possible answer to this question. The answer is “they just do.”

To me, this is really just the same as saying “God can’t explain spirits either” though in reality we might also see this as “God just did explain spirits. The answer was they require no explanation.”

I’m not sure I agree or even understand you fully, but my main concern was just to state the correct Catholic position as I see it. Since I have done that I won’t argue any further.

I enjoyed reading your comment, and thanks for your feedback on my own.

You wrote [quoting me], ‘“This is an assertion which has not, indeed cannot, be proven.” –Aquinas would disagree.’

The assertion I was referring to was that “nothing can exist which is not physical”, and I was saying this has not been proven. Are you really saying that Aquinas would disagree with that? In other words Aquinas would say that it has been proven that nothing can exist which is not physical?

I suspect we have a miscommunication somewhere…

I see your point.

The word “physical” seems to be a sticking point that isn’t really necessary. Music is “not physical” in one sense but clearly is physical in the way I intended it in that it follows explainable laws based on comprehendable initial conditions or axioms and is therefore a “physical process.”. The word “physical” may not be the best word here, though it’s not clear that any word will suffice in that any word I choose will come with baggage.

A friend of mine just pointed me to this post and the fact that you linked to two of my articles in one of your comments. So I came over to check out what you had written. I liked your article and I just wanted to give a few comments.

I think what you are actually driving at (without explicitly saying it) is a correct epistemology. I generally don’t like to use that word because it has a lot of philosophical baggage that comes with it. But in essence you are trying to find a correct view of how we know the world (or universe, as the case may be). What makes physics so attractive to people like you and me is that it has a fundamental approach to gaining knowledge and insight about the world that resonates with us. We find that the methods used to discover new truths in physics are similar, and in some cases identical, to the methods used to gain knowledge and truth in a gospel or theological setting. So part of why we find physics (or the gospel) so exciting is because it is easy and natural for us to study it as it uses the same modes of knowing that we are familiar with and are already adept at using. (Note to understand what I mean by modes of knowing see Truman G. Madsen’s talk entitled “On How We Know” http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=628&tid=2 )

This means that when we read something about physics, I do not mean any one particular law or equation, but when we read or participate in the method used by physicists to gain knowledge we will feel it and say, “Yes! This is correct, because I use the same method to know and comprehend my God.” When we come to this point and have this realization the feeling can be “electrifying” as you put it. While this can be very exciting and fun, it does have the danger of getting us over enthusiastic about the connection between physics and the gospel, and then we run the risk of making connections that are tenuous at best and blatantly untrue at worst. Even still, just because we cannot draw immediate and clear connections between physics and gospel topics does not mean that one or the other is false, or not worth studying. Still the methods we use to learn both are very similar and that makes it natural to move from one to the other.

If we think of this topic in terms of how we know things, instead of whether or not God is physical then the question reduces down to “Is God knowable in the same way that the universe is knowable?”. Meaning, can we come to know God through the same modes of knowing that we use to know physics, or science in general. For those who find no inherent disconnect between science and religion, the answer generally is “Yes”, but for those who do find a conflict (or are prone to find a conflict) between science and religion the answer is “No”.

I think that if you approach the topic from this perspective then you will avoid many of the confusions that may arise from addressing it from a “physics” perspective. Personally I think that it is a stronger assertion to say that God, spirits and other such things are knowable and comprehensible to us than to say that they are “physical”. In reality it is the same thing, but by making that assertion we get around the problem of having people acknowledge that God and spirits are physical, but still insist that they are unknowable. But then again if we say that God and spirits are knowable, then some people will agree but insist that they are not physical. So in the end we get problems both ways, but I find that more people have a hard time thinking of God as knowable then they do as physical. But that is just my own personal opinion and will be different for different people in other situations.

That was all the thoughts I had on your article. I also have a few comments on the comments.

From Agellius: “Your basis for this remark is the premise that comprehending reality and comprehending physics are the same thing.” –St. Thomas Aquinas would agree with this statement, depending on what is meant by “reality” and I think that is the main question here (I’m trying to find where in the Summa Aquinas talks about this, I remember reading it I just can’t find it right now). “Which really is the same as the assertion that nothing can exist which is not physical.”–Again this is the crux of the matter.

“This is an assertion which has not, indeed cannot, be proven.” –Aquinas would disagree. “We Catholics make so bold as to deny that assertion, and say that God does indeed comprehend spirits, as he comprehends all things whatsoever.”
–Aquinas would agree (see Summa Theologica, Question 50 Article 1)

I think that the important question is not whether or not God can comprehend Himself, or the angels, but whether or not we can comprehend them. I think we can discover God (Aquinas argues quite strongly that we can, See Summa Theologica Question 12), but the question is whether or not the same modes of knowing can be used to discover God as are used to discover the “physical” world. I think here the LDS perspective is unique in that we assert that God and angels are “physical” in that they have bodies of “matter” (again with a broader definition of matter), but that to comprehend them we must “see them with our spiritual eyes”. So in the latter respect we would tend to agree with Aquinas (and Catholics in general) that God is knowable through the intellect, but we also assert that He is also physical and we can “handle [Him] and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as [we] see [Him] have.” http://scriptures.lds.org/en/luke/24/39#39

So thus we have the additional assertion that the same modes of knowing that we use for science can be used to discover God, and I think that this is where the disagreement comes. This means that if the modes of knowing that are used for science (i.e. finding laws through observation) apply to God then He too must follow Law. So now we have another question, whether or not God is bound by law.

From Geoff B.: “I don’t even know where to start.” This reminded me of a line from the Chronicles of Narnia. When Susan gets her first full view of Narnia she says, “It’s so big!” to which Mrs. Beaver replies, “It’s the world dear. Did you think it would be small?” It is a very, very big topic and sometimes it’s hard to find where to start. I know how you feel.

Remember, if God reveals something to someone, he/she has to live up to it, or they are damned. If you live up to it, then you qualify for the next tidbit.

Personally, I _think_ I’ve discovered parallels between Hawking’s theory of multiverses and string theory, with what is written in Sections 76 and 88 of the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Revelation of St. John.

Joseph Smith even said you can learn more by gazing into Heaven for 5 minutes than by studying everything ever written about heaven (or “the heavens”, meaning the galaxy and universe.)

It’s hard for me to tell whether the parallels I’ve seen between scientific explanations and sacred writings are my own imagination or whether such insights are inspired. I’m honestly not sure.

But this I know: The more I read the scriptures, the more those insights come to me, and the more my questions get answered about “life, the universe, and everything”. (Hat tip to Douglas Adams.)

I think that knowing the human sciences of physics and astrophysics, will merely serve to give short-cut vocabulary, in terms of English words, to those “eternal” concepts.

I think such words “eternal” and “spirit” and “come into being” and “organized” and “pass away” have multiple meanings in scriptural context.

One of the things that helped me understand “eternal” and “existing outside of time” and “time will be no more”, was a conversation on the Star Trek: Deep Space 9 tv show between Captain Sisko and the “Worm Hole Aliens.” I can’t quote the dialog, but it just rang so close to my “gut feeling” for things that I got from Sections 76/88, and Revelation. Maybe the screen writers were reading Hawking.

The Holy Ghost can indeed give us “gut feelings” and “gut level understanding” for things even when we don’t have the vocabulary to put those understandings into English.

One reason I love the restored gospel is that Joseph Smith was the first man of modern times (since the writers of the NT) who put accurate words to things that the Spirit taught me wherein I did not have the vocabulary to describe them. I read some of Joseph Smith’s teachings and said “Wow! yeah! that’s it! Joseph nailed it!”

The glory of God is intelligence, but purely intellectual pursuit doesn’t bring one gospel/eternal understanding. Alvin Dyer was right, above all, as he said “The gospel is a _feeling_”. Also, I have to keep reminding myself that “intellectual” does not mean and does not equate to “intelligent”. There are a lot of intellectuals in the world who are intelligent, but lack common sense. And there are intellectuals who have neither common sense nor intelligence.

When the GA’s put down “intellectuals”, they were not putting down intelligence, or the pursuit of intelligence. They were decrying, like Jacob of old, those who consider themselves learned, but who are not open to the _feelings_ or _spirit_ of knowledge and intelligence that comes through the Holy Ghost.

I give my amen to Alvin Dyer: “The gospel is a feeling.”
See: http://www.ldsinfobase.net/rh/missn/chall_testify.html

Personally, I would rather have the gut-level feeling of the nature of God and “eternity” than merely a physics/astrophysics level understanding.

Also, let us be careful of looking beyond the mark in this. Only those who attain unto exaltation (not the lower 2 rungs in the CK), will “know as they are known.”

It really _can’t_ be known by someone who remains in mortality, even if they are transfigured, or even if they were translated. Bro of Jared and Moses and Enoch saw ‘every particle of the earth’, but they did not, and could not see all of God’s works (ie, this universe) without having attained exaltation. (Abraham has actually attained unto exaltation, so he’s someone who has this understanding of God’s existance of which you speak.)

If one wants that ulimate understanding, the target (“mark”) they need to focus on would then be enduring to the end in a way that leads to exaltation in the CK. Looking beyond the mark/target might cause us to miss it.

To me, what we’ve been given already in Sec 76/88/132 and Daniel/Ezekiel/Isaiah/Revelation is more than the vast majority of us can handle in mortality. And those things written in the scriptures are far far beyond where the vast majority of us are at just trying to live up to baptism and temple covenants.

I also believe that the reason we don’t have “advanced manuals” in the church which lay out many of the obscured meanings of Sec 76/88 in black-and-white is that that understanding truely does have to come from the Holy Ghost. In other words, when a person is ready to understand it, then they will study it on their own, and the Holy Ghost will lead them to the truths they are ready to handle.

Most of us have enough to handle in faith/repentance/baptism/gift-of-the-Holy-Ghost/temple/enduring-to-the-end, and in living up to those covenants. I know I have more than I can handle in those things, and I need to meet a higher standard than I am now if I’m going to progress.

All laws are “physics” in the way I’m using the term. They are thus also “physical” in the way I’m using the term. (Think of the computing theory example here.) Indeed, the very existence of something as a “law” is by definition “physics” and “physical” the way I’m using the term.

“Outside himself” seems to be the key phrase here. But what if you simply assume that all “laws that govern God” are by definition “inside himself”? You’re now open to the possiblity that God is entirely “governed by laws.” So it’s hard to see how this really defines anything one way or the other.