{"id":12215,"date":"2012-08-27T10:00:31","date_gmt":"2012-08-26T23:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/?p=12215"},"modified":"2012-08-29T21:54:20","modified_gmt":"2012-08-29T10:54:20","slug":"a-particular-search-for-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/2012\/08\/27\/a-particular-search-for-god\/","title":{"rendered":"A Particular Search for God"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tasmanian Anglican article <\/a>(August 2012):<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve found it!\u00a0 After many years of searching and billions of Euros, scientists in Europe have found with a fanfare, the so-called \u2018God Particle\u2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I have had a lot of questions about this. It has \u2018God\u2019 in the name, so what does the Bishop think? Have these scientists found what the Church has been looking for?<\/p>\n

Is the Bishop concerned? Is this yet another step in the long-line of happenings where scientists have seemingly conquered the divine?<\/p>\n

There have been many claims. From the first cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, and the Soviet propaganda that invented the words \u2018I went up to space and I didn\u2019t encounter God\u2019 (as if God were confined to Low Earth Orbit); to Stephen Hawking\u2019s recent announcement that \u2018We don\u2019t need God for the universe to exist.\u2019<\/p>\n

And now we have the God Particle itself. Bishop, what think ye?<\/p>\n

I confess that it is many years since I did physics at university. So with the help of a clever friend and Google I did some exploring.<\/p>\n

The newly discovered particle is popularly called the God Particle because it is the fundamental cornerstone of modern physics. Just as God is the fundamental cornerstone of all that is, so this particle is the fundamental cornerstone of modern physics. Nice. I like it!<\/p>\n

The particle\u2019s scientific name is the \u2018Higgs boson\u2019. The Higgs boson is all about mass, heaviness, inertia, and things being weighty. Scientists have speculated that the universe exists within a \u2018Higgs field\u2019 like a big sloppy ocean of potential heaviness. The Higgs boson attaches itself to things that exist and, like blotting paper, soaks up mass from the Higgs field. The more bosons for a particle, the more weight \u2013 it adds the plump to neutrons, atoms, planets, stars and scientists!<\/p>\n

It is not exactly the stuff of liturgy, theology, or episcopal devotional instruction!\u00a0 But there is still something that the Bishop can say:<\/p>\n

Firstly, we rejoice in new knowledge. The discovery of the Higgs boson, just as with Gagarin\u2019s space travel, and Hawking\u2019s theoretical physics, advances our understanding of God\u2019s creation. God is not relegated to those areas which we have not explored yet. God is not only found in the places where we have no understanding. God is the God of the known as well as the unknown and he has made us to be inquisitive and to explore. We are after all, stewards of God\u2019s creation.<\/p>\n

Secondly, there is an illustration in the finding of the God Particle.<\/p>\n

It reminds us that God himself can be found. And it doesn\u2019t take billions of euros and superconducting magnetic fields to achieve. We can find God because he has found us, come to us, revealed himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n

When we search for God, we find him, when we knock, he answers, and as we study his inspired word, the Bible, and seek out Jesus in the power of his Holy Spirit we come to know him just as he knows us.<\/p>\n

Now that\u2019s a discovery, and joy forever more! Amen.<\/p>\n

Shalom,<\/p>\n

+ John Bishop of Tasmania<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tasmanian Anglican article (August 2012): They\u2019ve found it!\u00a0 After many years of searching and billions of Euros, scientists in Europe have found with a fanfare, the so-called \u2018God Particle\u2019. I have had a lot of questions about this. It has … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12215"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12215"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12315,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12215\/revisions\/12315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}