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The Physics of Belief
God According to God: A Physicist Proves We Have Been Wrong About God All Along,
Gerald L. Schroeder (256 pages, HarperOne, New York, 2009, $25.99)
Judaism, Physics and God: Searching for Sacred Metaphors in a Post-Einstein World,
David W. Nelson (300 pages, Jewish Lights Publishing, Woodstock, VT, 2005, $24.99)
REVIEWED BY ANDREA WERSHOF SCHWARTZ
Andrea Wershof Schwartz is an
MD/PhD candidate at the
Mount Sinai School of
Medicine and in the Religious
Studies department at the
University of Pennsylvania. She
is an alumna of the Dorot
Fellowship in Israel and earned
an MA from The Jewish
Theological Seminary.
The intersection of science and religion in America often enters the spotlight at mo- ments of tension, such as the debate over
how, or whether, to educate children about evolution or the age of the earth. The two fields are
so often depicted in conflict that one might forget the possibility that both science and religion
can serve as paths to deeper understandings of
humanity and creation. Two recent books strive
to remind us of the positive contribution to be
made by both science and religion to understanding God: physicist Gerald Schroeder’s God
According to God: A Physicist Proves We’ve
Been Wrong About God All Along and
Rabbi David Nelson’s Judaism, Physics
and God: Searching for Sacred Metaphors
in a Post-Einstein World are both eloquent
attempts to revive conversation
between science and religion.
While Nelson’s book is a
self-proclaimed “book about
Judaism” that draws on lessons
of physics to enrich the discourse about God within the
Jewish community, Schroeder’s book addresses a more diverse audience, drawing on the
wonders of nature and the
words of the Bible to describe
an unknowable God. Both books engage in a rich
dialogue between the discoveries of science and
the sacred beliefs of religious traditions, building on both in their quest for a clearer understanding of God and of the world.
In Judaism, Physics and God, Nelson reframes scientific metaphors in a Jewish context.
For instance, Nelson describes the scientific concept of a fractal, a shape within a shape, a pattern
repeated infinitely within a larger finite pattern,
as a beautiful metaphor for understanding God
and creation. The idea of the fractal structure of
nature is echoed in Jewish prayer as well; as
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks points out in the new Koren
Sacks siddur, the structure of the first blessing of
the Amidah, composed of praise, request, and
thanks, mirrors the structure of the Amidah and
of the prayer service as a whole. Nelson provides
many elegant examples of metaphors drawn
from the natural world — from string theory to
the uncertainty principle — that enrich the
Jewish approach to understanding God.
In God According to God, Schroeder seeks to
strip away preconceived notions about God that
readers may have absorbed as children but not
revisited, and introduces a language of discourse
about God based on a close reading of biblical
narratives and the principles of physics. He uses
the flood narrative to explore the notion of a God
who regrets, who is part of
the ongoing learning process
of creation and renewal.
Schroeder reframes biblical
narratives as windows into
human perceptions of God: a
God who needs human partners yet argues with them,
gets frustrated with them,
and loves them. The lessons
of science, for Schroeder,
serve as yet another passageway into understanding God, a
counterpoint to the biblical narratives
about the divine that provides further
clues to God's nature.
These two books remind us that the
relationship between science and religion need
not be one of conflict, nor one of two parallel but
non-intersecting realms. Rather, as Schroeder
and Nelson convincingly demonstrate, the language of science, particularly of physics, is well
served in describing the complex relationship between humans and the divine, and can contribute to a richer understanding of Jewish texts
and traditions. Similarly, reading biblical narratives with a mind toward the interconnectedness
of nature enables the reader to envision a God
of complexity and nuance. Both of these books
require the reader to move beyond a simplistic,
if perhaps comforting, notion of God toward a
nuanced, multifaceted understanding of the
mysteries inherent in nature and in the quest for
understanding the divine.
