5.

Given that quantum physics has abandoned the principle of causality, how
can we continue to speak of God as the cause of the universe?
The principle of causality can be understood as the idea that every
event is necessitated by antecedent events and conditions together with the
laws of nature 1 . With the eruption of the worldview brought on by the
quantum theories, the classical principle of strict causality was, to a certain
degree, rejected. It must be said, however, that not all physicists conceded
this point: Max Planck and Albert Einstein were drawn close together in
opposition to the new wave2. Whats more, some physicists, most notably
David Bohm, have created an alternative interpretation known as the hidden
variable theory, which restores determinism and definiteness to microreality3, and likewise the validity of perennial principles such as causality.
That said, we must be quick to clarify the idea of causality. Divine
causality and created causality radically differ in kind and not only in
degree4. Hawking himself once wrote: the usual approach of science of
constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there
should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to
all the bother of existing?5 Whether the principle of causality is useful for
certain models of physics or not is a different matter than whether we can
dispose or not of such principle on the metaphysical or theological level.
Thus, if we are to accept the rejection of causality on a physical letter (not a
given position), I believe, we may continue to speak of causality because we
are speaking on two different levels.
This distinction allows us to recognize two dangers: that of wanting to
derive creation ex nihilo from the laws of nature6 Take, for example, Pope
Pius XIIs questionable statement: Creation, there, in time, and therefore, a

HOEFER, C., Causal Determinsim, in ZALTA, E.N., ed., Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2010Spring
, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2010/entries/determinism-causal.
2
AGAR, J., Science in the 20th Century and Beyond, 17 aprile 2013Kindle, 128.
3
HOEFER, C.
4
INTERNATIONAL THEOLOGICAL COMMISSION, Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in
the Image of God [accesso 1.8.2015],
2010 Edition

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20040723_communionstewardship_en.html.
5

HAWKING, S.W. SAGAN, C., A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes, Toronto etc. 1
marzo 1988, 174.
6
HALVORSON, H. KRAGH, H., Cosmology and Theology, in ZALTA, E.N., ed., Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy, 2013Fall 2013.

Creator; and consequently, God7. The other is the applying metaphysical or

theological categories to physical ones. For example, some have drawn
analogies between the creation of virtual particles from vacuums as a sort of
evidence that things can begin to exist without a cause. Tipler and Barrow
responder however saying: It is, of course, somewhat inappropriate to call
the origin of a bubble Universe in a fluctuation of the vacuum 'creation ex
nihilo,' for the quantum mechanical vacuum state has a rich structure which
resides in a previously existing substratum of space-time, [...] Clearly, a true
'creation ex nihilo' would be the spontaneous generation of everything-space-time, the quantum mechanical vacuum, matter--at some time in the
past.8.

PONTIFICIA ACCADEMIA DELLE SCIENZE, Papal Addresses to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences 19172002 and to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences 1994-2002, Vatican City 2003, 141.
8

BARROW, J.D. TIPLER, F.J., The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, Oxford 25 agosto 19881 edition.