The scientists working at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland are expected to announce today that they’ve found the “God particle”, the Higgs-Boson. I’m not a scientist, and would love someone to explain it all to me in very short words, but I think it’s a particle which, if it exists, proves the “Theory of Everything” and explains what happened right the start of the formation of the universe.
That’s why it’s called the “God particle”.
But there was a fantastic moment on Radio Five Live this morning when a scientist from Manchester University (whose name I missed) said that if the God particle does exist, it’s very exciting because (and I paraphrase) “then we can start finding out even more, and looking for more particles like this one”.
So it’s not really the “God particle” then, is it?! The thing about God is that, if you find Him, you have your first cause, your primary reason, your explanation of everything that is, was and will be. You don’t find God and then need to keep looking for answers.
So if this particle exists, and if once scientists have found it they’ll get on with looking for other, even more exciting, things, because actually the Higgs-Boson was never the ultimate answer, shouldn’t it be renamed: the Idol Particle?
On a more serious note (and again, my understanding is from a couple of newspapers articles and Five Live Breakfast, so do please correct me!), this particle will explain what happened in the nano-seconds after the universe began. Which really is very exciting.
But not exactly on a par with finding God. Assuming the Big Bang is how it all started, God is the One who stands behind the Big Bang. He’s the One whose word was heard nano-seconds before the Big Bang. He’s the One who created the Higgs-Boson.
The God/Idol Particle may tell us more about how creation happened. It will, if we have the humility to do so, enable us to worship the great God of everything more. But nothing that exists within creation can ever explain away, or be offered as a replacement to, the God who stands outside creation. There’s a reason Genesis 1 v 1 starts “IN the beginning”, not “Very, very shortly after the beginning”!
Carl is Editorial Director at The Good Book Company and is a member of Grace Church Worcester Park, London. He is the best-selling author of The Garden, the Curtain and the Cross and God's Big Promises Bible Storybook, and also serves as series editor of the God's Word for You series. Before joining TGBC, he worked as a journalist and then as a teacher, and pastored a congregation in Hull. Carl is married to Lizzie, and they have two children. He studied history at Oxford University.
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In THE beginning GOD- -
Spoken in the O.T.
Confirmed By GOD thro' "HOLY MEN" in the N.T.