Electromagnetism and the Sacred: At the Frontier of Spirit and Matter (review)

Electromagnetism and the Sacred: At the Frontier of Spirit and Matter.By Lawrence W. Fagg. New York: Continuum, 1999. 144pp. $24.95.

Lawrence Fagg, retired Professor of Nuclear Physics at Catholic University of America, is the author of two previous books on the interface of religion and science, namely, The Two Faces of Time (Theosophical, 1985) and The Becoming of Time (Scholar's Press, 1995). Since he holds an M.A. in Religion from George Washington University along with a Ph.D. in Physics from Johns Hopkins University, he is well equipped to explore points of contact between the natural sciences--above all, nuclear physics--and insights out of the various world religions. His focus in this book is on light, both visible and invisible, which can be understood scientifically as electromagnetic radiation and religiously as a symbol for God or the Transcendent, that which dwells in inaccessible light. Moreover, electromagnetism empowers human beings in all their mental activities, as it empowers all living beings without exception in their vital activities and the inanimate things of this world in their atomic and molecular interactions; it even underpins the world of technology (e.g., radio, television, computers, the internet). Consequently, the all-encompassing field of electromagnetic interaction (EMI) can readily be seen as a physical analogue for divine immanence, the universal presence and activity of God in creation.

Fagg develops his thesis in nine relatively easy-to-read chapters, requiring no knowledge of the mathematics underlying the discipline of nuclear physics. In the introduction, for example, he notes the difference between natural theology and theology of nature and indicates how his theory lends support to both approaches to the God-world relationship. That is, insight into the uniform operation of electromagnetism throughout the world certainly provides evidence for the existence of a Creator-God, even as it provides an obvious physical analogue for God's invisible presence and activity in the world from the perspective of a theology of nature in which the existence of God is already assumed. Chapters two, three and four spell out, first, the relation of electromagnetism to the three other basic forces in the universe (i.e., gravity, and both the strong and the weak nuclear forces); second, the history of the scientific discovery of electromagnetism in the nineteenth century and its contemporary formulation as the theory of quantum electrodynamics; and finally, the character of electromagnetism as the single most influential factor in the development of life on this planet.

Turning then in Part II to the possible relationships between electromagnetic interaction and spirituality, Fagg first notes the ubiquity of light as a symbol of the divine presence (in any case, transcendence) in the various world religions. Special attention, of course, is given to the symbolism of light in the Bible and in the writings of Christian mystics. But references are also made to Taoism, Shinto, and Buddhism, each of which in its own way presupposes that nature as a whole is more than simply the sum of its parts. As Fagg sees it, this experience of dynamic interconnectedness within nature, from a scientific perspective, is clearly enabled by the invisible workings of the electromagnetic field both in the human brain and the world at large. Then in three concluding chapters, Fagg takes up the more technical questions of the nature of analogy, the relationship, again, of the scientific theory of electromagnetism to natural theology and theology of nature, and, finally, contemporary speculation on the end of life on this planet and possible survival of intelligent life in nonhuman form elsewhere in the universe. These final chapters, in my judgment, are in some ways the most intriguing in the book but at the same time the weakest, because they bring up complex philosophical issues that Fagg does not discuss at any length. In the remainder of this review, I will cite a...