Free Will and Quantum Mechanics.

     I was thinking one day about "free will" and God's "predestination" of our lives (yes I know ... not something somebody normally thinks about... so sue me!)

     One problem people have with predestination is that idea that God had set up the universe in such a way that some are going to hell and some are going to heaven and that we have no choice in the matter.

     From a Newtonian Physics point of view they are correct.  For example.  If I take a ball a a known mass and put it on a spring of a known strength into a vacuum chamber (no air to interfere) I can with very great accuracy calculate where the ball will hit when I pull down on the spring and let it go.  I can do this because I know all the other "initial states of the system" (the ball,the spring, the strength of gravity).  You might say I have "predestined" the ball to land in a particular place and it has no other choice to land there.   

     So also many people see the whole of the universe and that God has set up the conditions for the universe to run a predefined course and where we "land" was completely God's doing.

      But then came a new kind of physics in the early 1900's called Quantum Mechanics.  This was largely due to anomalies found in experiments when it came to very small particles such as electrons.  Scientists started to see that these tiny particles exhibited properties of both mass and light.   They called this the "particle-wave duality".  This led to findings that these particles could not be described using Newtonian physics where we "know" the initial state and can determine the exact outcome, but instead we can only talk about possible states, possible outcomes and probabilities.  Einstein hated this concept at first exclaiming "God does not play dice!"  but after some time and convincing he did come to the realization that God does play dice.  In fact it is this very particle-wave duality which gives our universe the richness and variety of atoms it desperately needs for without it all the atoms in the universe would be nothing more than small round balls of electrons hugging the nucleus of the atom.  These atoms would merely roll around and provide no geometric structure that our DNA molecule needs, that diamonds need, that water molecules need etc..

Carbon Molecule

    Now how does all this fit with "Free Will" you ask.  To me, the addition of Quantum Mechanics (probability) says God does not "force" anyone to go to hell in the way the ball on the spring is "forced" to land at a certain point on the floor.   There is a chance it will and a chance it will not.  It is God's gift of "free will" to the universe and in a sense creates it and lets it go. (Of course some would I guess still say I am splitting hairs here and absolving God of what happens to his creation)

     Now of course God being outside of time and space can know where it's going to end up and by letting it happen (not hitting the "abort button") he has predestined us.  He  also of course does not just let the universe all go to hell.. instead he reaches in and alters its course by the sending of his Son Jesus Christ to redeem us all.

     Does this mean we can "choose God" ?   Not in the least.   To use another illustration let me use that of a magnet and an iron nail.   When the nail is left by itself, its iron atoms have disorganized magnetic poles inside of it, pointing all random directions.   There is no chance at all all that all of a sudden left to itself they will all decide to point in the same direction and become a magnet.  But when they come in the presence of a strong magnet, they suddenly rotate and align themselves with the magnetic flux lines.  The nail then becomes attracted to the magnet.

It is not the nail attracting the magnet but the other way around.   The nail can resist becoming a magnet (rust, dirt, etc) and not go to the magnet, but it cannot go to the magnet on its own power. So also it is when God calls us.  We can resist the call by our own sinful lives but we cannot by our own goodness come to him.   It is only by his grace and power that he "draws all men" to himself.