New Age Physics
| By: Dr. John Ankerberg, Dr. John Weldon; ©2001 |
| Does Quantum physics have anything to do with the New Age? It does in the hands of such men as Fritjof Capra, who’s The Tao of Physics first attempted the synthesis. |
New Age Physics
(From Encyclopedia of New Age Beliefs, Harvest House, 1996)
INFO AT A GLANCE
Description. Quantum physics adopted in support of New Age beliefs or Eastern mysticism in general.
Founder. Fritjof Capra’s The Tao of Physics (1975) offered the first major attempt at the above synthesis.
How does it claim to work? Proponents allege that the new discoveries of particle physics and various theories proposed by physicists to understand them lend strong scientific support to ancient mystical religions such as Buddhism, Taoism, and Hinduism and to the modern movements based on them, such as New Age religion, transpersonal psychology, and various practices in the occult and holistic or New Age medicine.
Scientific evaluation. Discredited; science is being misused to support Eastern and occult metaphysics, mysticism, parapsychology, and so on.
Examples of occult potential. The alleged scientific support of Eastern mysticism and New Age occultism has personally justified such practices in the minds of thousands.
Major problems. Physicists in general reject the alleged associations to mysticism and the occult; this even includes physicists whose personal worldview is New Age. Some leading New Age theorists also confess that the associations are nonexistent, contrived, or the result of misinterpretation.
Biblical/Christian evaluation. New findings or paradoxes uncovered in physics research may indeed reveal additional information about the structure of the creation, assuming interpretation of the data is accurate. However, alleged parallels to New Age beliefs based solely on what are still often theories in physics hardly validates Eastern mysticism scientifically or otherwise, nor does it discredit biblical metaphysics, cosmogony, or cosmology. Whether science can ever adequately conceptualize or understand the nature of the creation at the subatomic level is not known; however, factual scientific discoveries that are made can only confirm, and will never deny, the truth of the biblical worldview (Colossians 1:15-17; 2 Corinthians 13:8).
Potential dangers. The misuse of science in the support of an occult or Eastern mystical philosophy of life.
