And So, it Begins

Physics was my first love and has been my passion since my first physics class in high school. I was also gifted by my parents with a quiet Christian faith that, together with my analytical side, forms part and parcel of my being.

Having one’s sense of self firmly anchored in such a way means that any conflict between physics and faith becomes an inescapable personal one as well.

My passion for physics begins with the emotions of curiosity and wonder about the natural world around me. My faith begins with a sense that this thing we call life is about something more than just me.

Physics and faith are always presented as things in perpetual conflict; logically incompatible ways of seeing the world around us. But when I look inward, the emotions of curiosity and wonder, and a longing for transcendence all seem to arise from the same wellspring.

The world tells me that physics and faith don’t belong together; my life experience tells me that they are two sides of the same coin.

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After graduate school, I entered the workforce as a Silicon Valley engineer working in embedded systems hardware design. The 1 ½ to 2 hour commute every day gave me ample opportunity to think about things. Sometimes it was a design problem at work, sometimes it was a personal design project, but mostly I filled those hours pondering questions of faith and physics.

Over the course of the years I commuted over Highway 17 every day, I accumulated a storage shelf full of questions; questions that I had thought about, wrestled with, and taken as far as I could. But my progress would always end when the physics crossed over into theology.

I’ve longed to find an author or spokesperson who could address for me the theological side of my physics/faith questions. But in all these years I’ve never found such a source. On such questions, the Christian Church remains painfully silent.

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You can only take an idea so far when the only person you have to talk to is yourself; feedback and interaction with others are necessary for the growth of any idea or the quest for any answer. It is my hope that, by opening up my thoughts and questions to debate and criticism, I might finally find some of the answers I’ve been searching for.