Does God exist?

Part I

I want to know how God created the world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in spectrum of this or that element; I want to know thoughts; the rest are details. Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
-- Albert Einstein

The first time I had a chance to read the Bible was in Italy, when I stayed with my family for about two months waiting for a visa to the United States. The content of the Bible was in deep contradiction with the science that I had studied in the University back in the Soviet Union.

My object of interest, and theme of my Master's dissertation, were theoretical physics and, especially, Quantum Mechanics and modern Cosmology. These areas of science were well developed at that time by a team of numerous scientists with the leadership of two "giants," Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr. One of the respected members of the mentioned team was Lev Landau, a physicist from the former Soviet Union and winner of the Nobel Prize. In the late twenties he worked with Niels Borh in the famous Niels Borh's Institute for Theoretical Physics. When I studied Quantum Mechanics in the university in the middle sixties, the lecturer of this branch of science was Professor Yury Perlin, a member of the Landau School. I was deeply surprised when discovered that Albert Einstein, Niels Borh, and many other famous scientists believed in God!

Now I share their belief and want to help others to join this club.

Unfortunately, without a deep knowledge in physics, especially quantum mechanics, special and general relativity, thermodynamics, and other scientific subjects, it is almost impossible to understand Albert Einstein's and Niels Borh's religiosity.

I am more than happy to help people who want to understand.

Now, the first question: who is the God of the Bible? He is an alive, omnipotent, omnipresent, and an everlasting spirit ("...the spirit of God hovered over the surface of the waters," Genesis, Chapter I, 1, page 2). He created the Earth and the Life as described in The Bible, has a free will, and can do everything he wants. He can talk to people as he talked to Noah (Genesis VI, 9, p. 26), to Abram (Genesis XII, 1, p. 45), and to Moses (Exodus III, 2, p. 213 and other places). He sent his messengers, "angels of the Lord," to the people (Genesis XVI, 7, p. 56), he "appeared to Abram," (Genesis XVII, 1 & 5, p. 57 & 58), renamed Abram to Abraham and argued with him about different topics including the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis XIII, 20-33, p. 65-66), sent a son to 100-year old Abraham and 90-year old Sarah, and performed many other miracles, especially in Moses' times.

The second question: Does science deny God's existence? Not at all. Science, physics, chemistry, biology, history, etc., discover and investigate natural laws that are everlasting, that is, existed billions of years ago, even before Einstein's birth, control nature now, and will exist for billions of years more at any place in the Universe, on the Earth, the Moon, the Sun, and other planets and stars. According to Einstein and other scientists, everything in the world has a cause, natural or supernatural. Any possible event in nature does not break the laws of nature that are supported by the supernatural force. This force is supernatural because all natural forces, including "life force," if existing, are controlled by some law of the nature, discovered or not. With your permission, we will name this supernatural force as God. This is the God of Aristotle, Newton, Spinoza, Einstein, Bohr, and other great scientists.

The third question: What is the difference between the spirit of God from the Bible, God-creator of the Universe, and the God of Aristotle, Newton, Spinoza, Einstein, Bohr? Almost nothing; the details are not important, as Albert Einstein said.

Part II

As it was for all other students, everything was clear and simple when I studied physics in college. For me, the existence of God was not required to explain all of the laws of Nature as I did not think question why those laws exist at all, why they are observed with absolute precision, or what keeps everything in the universe—from atomic particles to human beings, the most complicated of nature’s creations—following these laws. Voltaire said, "the recognition of God’s existence leads to one question (the question about his nature), but the negation of God leads to many questions." For instance, orbiting the Earth, the Hubble Space Telescope allows viewing the outskirts of the universe as far as 13 billion light years away. In other words, light particles, photons, after flying 13 billion years in space bring information about the universe to the Earth and end their voyage at the Hubble Telescope. With absolute precision, photons are identical regardless of the direction in universe from which they come. Their speed is the same, also. If any difference exists, current test equipment cannot find it. Why is that so? There is no answer if God’s existence is denied.

Some people know that light has a dual nature, exhibiting characteristics of a wave and particle simultaneously. Less known is that atomic particles also have a dual nature: in some circumstances they behave as particles; in others, waves. For me, as well as for thousands of students, everything was understandable. However, Albert Einstein could not stop thinking about what the photon—quanta, as he originally named it—is. Is it just a clot or cluster of energy? Einstein also asked the question, how do photons or electrons know how to behave: when to behave as particles, and when to behave as waves. There is no answer for that if God’s existence is denied.

Consider another of nature’s phenomena: the radioactive disintegration of atoms. It is known that radioactive chemical elements have a certain half-life, i.e. time after which one half of the number of original radioactive atoms exist. Einstein’s question is posed: how do the atoms know which one should disintegrate and which one should not.