Catholica Commentary by Fr Peter Dresser: God is Big .... Real BIG! (Chapter 9: God, Our Universe and Ourselves Part 2)

"God is Big ..... Real BIG!" by Fr Peter Dresser (Chapter Nine - Part 2)

Does a relatively recent scientific and technological discovery, the hologram, give us insight into the mind, and design, of the Divine Creator? That's essentially the question Fr Peter Dresser addresses today in this second extract from Chapter Nine of his book exploring "A Theology for the Third Millennium".

Chapter Nine (Part 2): God, Our Universe and Ourselves

The Sacrament of the presence of God...

The universe, the earth, nature – whatever – is really the sacrament of the presence of God. We humans are not the centre of the universe or the end point of evolution. We and the rest of the universe are interdependent. Indeed, there can be no religion if we denigrate nature or destroy nature because then we are destroying the presence and face of God itself. This was the great tragedy that Christians remember on Good Friday, viz., the killing of God's freeing and liberating and healing spirit in the crucifixion of the man Jesus, a man who gave full expression to the divine in his life. Other Avatars have been similarly mistreated, a fact that presents a great tragedy in our history in the way we sometimes treat people of goodness, truth and integrity. We need to respect and honour and appropriate all of nature, the entire universe, if we are to discern the God of order and chaos in our midst. It is imperative that our Christian religion takes into account this idea of Wisdom and to acknowledge liturgically and prayerfully that the entire universe is a sacrament, a visible sign of God's presence. We have to make our religion meaningful and relevant. And if our religion is not assisting us in any way to come closer to our God and to appreciate his presence in all the order and chaos of the universe, then it is best that we dispense with this millstone around our necks. Religion should be freeing and liberating and healing and vibrant and should fill us all with awe and reverence and wonder for our universe; should fill us with awe and reverence and wonder for our God.

In this respect I note once again that efforts should continually be made to find some rapprochement between religion and science so that the one can enhance and perhaps confirm and test the other. The present Dalai Lama makes the observation that "a greater understanding of the humanities, philosophy and spirituality ... can help to fill the moral vacuum in which many scientists are forced to operate. For those who practice religion, science offers sometimes to confirm, and at other times to challenge, long-held beliefs. In either case, this is useful because spiritual knowledge must always be tested in the laboratories of logic and personal experience."[75] Like so many contemporary theologians and scientists, the Dalai Lama who is neither a theologian nor a scientist is a firm believer in the religion/science interface. However one would want to go explicitly further. It is the unity and oneness of God and the Universe, the rapprochement between theology and science that needs to be explored and articulated as far as possible.

"The Future of God" edited by Samantha Trenoweth

"The Future of God: Personal Adventures in Spirituality with Thirteen of Today's Eminent Thinkers" edited by Samantha Trenoweth (Paperback 1996). No longer in print but second hand copies available on the internet.

John Seed to whom reference has been made already states that he is not afraid of death and says that it surely doesn't matter a great deal whether all of our constituent molecules merely go back into the great cycle out of which they emerged. This is a point that Chet Raymo made earlier when he spoke of the cosmically embedded self. Seed views the human person as something like a hologram that in a sense contains the entirety of the Universe and can give expression to, or reflect, that force we call the Universe or God or Nature. He sees everything as miraculous and I am miraculous, but not-I is just as miraculous as I.[76] It could be added as a rejoinder that the not-I is perhaps even more miraculous than the I. The fact is that Seed like so many others seeking a collective spirituality with all of creation sees everything in a state of connectedness. Indeed as he himself says: "Every single thing around us is a relative".[77]

This notion of hologram that John Seed refers to is radically changing our way of perceiving and understanding reality. It intensifies the understanding that everything is interconnected, the idea of oneness, and I am reminded of the last verse of W.B. Yeat's poem Among School Children:

Labour is blossoming or dancing where
The body is not bruised to pleasure soul,
Nor beauty born out of its own despair,
Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.
O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?

Sometimes the dancer is dancing; sometimes the dancer is danced! This is a concrete example of the metaphor of the holon which states that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Rectifying faulty parts will not necessarily improve the whole; in fact, we may very well have to heal the whole in order to get the parts to function appropriately. The notion of the hologram was introduced in 1947 and it took almost twenty years before the first hologram was constructed with the aid of the newly invented laser beam. Diarmuid O'Murchu continues:

"A hologram is a special type of optical storage system that is best explained by an example: If you take a holographic photo, say, of a dog, and cut out one section of it, e.g., the dog's leg, and then enlarge that section to the original size, you will get, not an enlarged leg, but a picture of the whole dog. We are dealing with a method of lensless photography in which the wave field of light scattered by an object is recorded on a plate as an interference pattern. If we look at it with our ordinary eyesight, we see a meaningless pattern of swirls. But when the photographic record – the hologram – is placed in a coherent light beam like a laser, the original wave pattern is regenerated; a three dimensional image appears, and any piece of the hologram will reconstruct the entire image. The hologram provides a concrete illustration of the principle: "The whole is greater than the sum of the parts", but there is added a new and intriguing dimension which states: the whole is contained in each of the parts. We call it the science of holography."[78]

For more information see "How Holgrams Work" at:

So the desk at which I now sit is much more than the sum of the parts that make it up. It is much more than simply the wood and the glue and the nails and the varnish. It also represents the blood, sweat and tears that went into its making including those who felled the trees and it represents the joys, hopes, griefs and anxieties of the families of the workers involved in its construction. It is something even more awesome than this; it is something alive. It has an existence as a real living thing, a scientifically living thing, and certainly not inert. And one day it will decay and eventually turn to woodworm. (In this regard incidentally, when speaking of an inanimate object as living, we are conscious that it is not living in the same way as we humans are. So it may very well be with our God. As mentioned in an earlier chapter, when we say that God exists we must be careful not to necessarily place a human way of living on his manner of existence).

When John Seed notes that the human person is something of a hologram, he is saying the human person contains within himself or herself the entirety of the universe and is able to give expression to the pervading spirit of the universe in their lives. Thus the order and chaos and everything else about the spirit of the universe is expressed in the lives of each individual. Similarly, too, our planet earth is something of a hologram and it also gives expression to the universal spirit in its beauty and catastrophes, in its order and in its chaos. We are all connected in an extraordinarily spectacular way.

NEXT WEEK: Chapter Nine Part 3: "God, Our Universe and Ourselves"

“The order and chaos and everything else about the spirit of the universe is expressed in the lives of each individual. Similarly, too, our planet earth is something of a hologram and it also gives expression to the universal spirit in its beauty and catastrophes, in its order and in its chaos. We are all connected in an extraordinarily spectacular way.” ...Peter Dresser

FOOTNOTES:
[75] Tenzin Gyatso, "To Light The Middle Way", in Samantha Trenoweth, op.cit. p.229
[76] John Seed, "A Voice from the Wilderness" in Samantha Trenoweth, op.cit. p.24.
[77] Ibid, p.25
[78] Diarmuid O'Murchu, Quantum Theology, op.cit., p.54-55

IMAGE CREDITS:
Clicking on the images in the body of this article will take you to the original source and further information.

Peter Dresser grew up in Orange NSW. On completing his Leaving Certificate he studied for some years at Springwood and Manly Seminaries. His life journey has led him down diverse paths and he enjoyed the experience of many and varied employments including postman, public servant and factory worker. He has appreciated his exposure to different life styles and religions and his involvement with music and sport, particularly Rugby League. He eventually turned to teaching where he found an easy rapport with and respect for young people. Peter decided to continue with his studies for Priesthood and entered St. Paul’s Seminary. He was ordained in 1990. Peter's love for his Catholic religion dates from his very early years. His involvement with Science is only a recent phenomenon. His fascination with nature has always been predominant. His continuing pastoral concern is that the Good News proclaimed by Jesus be preached and mediated meaningfully in all its richness and fullness to the contemporary world. Peter holds degrees in Arts and Theology and a Diploma in Education. He produced this document in 2004 whilst Parish Priest of Kandos in Central West NSW. He now lives privately in retirement at Kandos where he spent six memorable years.

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[Index of Commentaries by Fr Peter Dresser]

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