Thierry Magnin

Introduction

This paper is devoted to the dialogue between physics and Christian theology, through some new ways to think about reality that have been introduced by quantum physicists during the first part of the twentieth century. In fact, quantum physicists experience a kind of incompleteness with respect to reality, which is close to that of the well-known philosopher Kant who claimed that science cannot reach the ultimate reality.{1}

In a completely different field, the theologians facing God’s mystery also face a kind of incompleteness which requires the adoption of the well-known apophatic approach.{2} Thus, the aim of this paper is to show how the mystery of knowing, and the corresponding attitudes of research, emerge as very relevant epistemological mediations for the dialogue between physicists and theologians. The objective is then to show how we can articulate the theology of creation by Trinity (creation by relationships) with the new scientific view of the relations between the physical substances that reveals quantum physics (particularly through the concept of non-separability) and more generally with the sciences of complexity.

1.For a detailed analysis, see Max Jammer, The Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics (New York, J. Wiley and Sons, 1974); Lena Soler, ed., Philosophie de la Physique (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2006).

2.For a detailed analysis of the corresponding attitudes between the physicists and the theologians, see Thierry Magnin, Le scientifique et le théologien en quête d’origine (Paris: Desclée de Brower, 2015).