Book Review: “The Physics of Christianity” by Frank J. Tipler (Doubleday, 2008)

Rick Guetter | April 2009

You may have heard about the efforts of Google and NASA in starting "Singularity University" - a place where the world’s best minds meet to study, as Chancellor Ray Kurzweil states on the organization’s website: “ … the exponential trajectory of information technologies in a broad variety of fields, including health, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence. It is only these accelerating technologies that have the scale to address the major challenges of humanity …. ”

The hope (although it sounds like modernism all over again) is that humans can use the tremendous computing power of the future to solve the world's critical problems of energy, poverty, and disease (to name only a few).  The logic goes something like this:  since the processing power of computers doubles every 18 months (Moore's Law), it is only a matter of time before we can describe any problem in its entirety using computer code and allow the computers to run billions of simulations, selecting the outcome which is most desirable.  It sounds like something HAL the supercomputer would propose.

Frank Tipler envisions a somewhat similar future in his book "The Physics of Christianity".  Tipler argues that the universe is completely governed by the laws of physics - that every event in the history of the universe is dictated or predicted by physics theory.  Although God exists as the Cosmological Singularity, there is no room for God to suspend the forces of nature to accomplish something extraordinary.  He goes to great lengths to describe how biblical miracles - the virgin birth, the feeding the five thousand, the resurrection of Jesus - can be explained very nicely with a knowledge of physics.  The problem is that the physics knowledge required to follow his reasoning is not for the faint of heart.

Perhaps those holding advanced degrees in physics can appreciate his well-argued physical explanation of key events in Christianity, although it requires more than a casual understanding of quantum mechanics, general relativity, thermodynamics and multiverse theory.  Tipler seems intent on having God determine, in advance, the exact “miraculous” events that are required and then fine-tune the physical laws to allow these events to unfold at set times (the Bethlehem star and the virgin birth, to name only two).  

Two other key ideas that require mentioning – only because they seem far-fetched and unscientific to me – are his prediction that in fifty years the world will end (because at that point, computers will outperform and thus eliminate the need for humans), and his assertion that there are multiple universes (a theory that is interesting, but untestable).

Here's my main problem with Tipler's approach:  by limiting God to working within the creation order (natural laws) we restrict his sovereignty over all that he has made.  In the gospels, the comment is made that "even the wind and the waves obey him" – as if to say that the creation responds to the very voice of God (as in Genesis).  To restrict God to following the physical laws of the universe is to make him a clockmaker who winds the universe up and watches it run its course, even if he determines in advance when events will take place.  

While I appreciate Tipler’s desire to provide an irrefutable, scientific basis for Christianity, I find that he misses the boat because he believes in a God held hostage by the laws of physics he created.  There is no room for God to enter the world as Jesus, as an extraordinary event, because that would violate the laws of physics.  There is no room for our prayers for a sick person or a troubled nation, because God is bound by the same laws that we are – he is unable to violate the rules that govern the universe.  “The Physics of Christianity” may be a well-argued apologetic, but Tipler’s world and faith seem lonely, cold, and impersonal.  

Reviewed by Rick Guetter, Physics teacher and Vice Principal at Woodland Christian High School, Breslau, Ontario.