The Quarkiness of God

There was a time when the average human considered a grain of sand the smallest object in the universe.

And for obvious reasons: you could actually see it, and couldn’t find anything smaller.

Then along came microscopes in the 1600s.

Fast forward a few centuries. Titan Krios, a cryogenic electron microscope (base price: a mere $6 million), allows samples to be observed at atomic levels. Instead of using light, these microscopes use beams of electrons with a much smaller wavelength than light, allowing magnification up to 50 million times. Atoms suddenly appear as glowing blobs.

Hence, the philosophical question over the millennia: can objects be divided in half infinitely? Turns out atoms could be divided into protons, neutrons, and electrons.

And then along came quarks. Protons, for instance, are made up of three quarks.

And here is where quantum physics loses me: apparently, six types of quarks exist and, for some reason beyond my pea-brain, they call them “flavors” and list them as Up, Down, Charm, Strange, Top, and Bottom. Scientists apparently have reasons for those taxonomies. Beats me. What’s more, each flavor has a corresponding antiparticle: antiquarks, of course.

No one has seen a quark. All that can be observed are their effects. And who knows how quarks can be divided? Here one has to enter the weird mathematical world of quantum mechanics.

Dang. Algebra was a problem for me.

But here’s my point: you and I can’t see a quark. But we believe in their existence because of the authoritative voice of experts who study their effects.

This is where the historical account of the resurrection of Jesus gets fascinating and, as leaders, should be regularly attested to with our messaging. It’s clear from the gospels that Jesus’ disciples weren’t the sharpest crayons in the box—and let’s be honest: neither are we.

More so, they weren’t always the most courageous. I mean, come on: If I had written an account, I would have made myself look better. I’m always the hero in my own stories.

But something clearly marked them as changed men in the book of Acts. After the resurrection, they each had extremely difficult lives and many were martyred in unenviable ways.

There was an effect that can be observed. Not just for them, but for the thousands of recorded stories of men and women of faith throughout history. It was the transformational evidence that revealed the existence of something beyond direct observation. Jesus’ own brother, James, apparently thought Jesus had lost his mind with his messianic aspirations prior to the resurrection. And then James became the leader of this new Kingdom movement in Jerusalem, later suffering his own execution by stoning.

We see the effects—and understand that Something Else exists.

Peter—who himself didn’t come off great in the gospels—later describes this for his readers: Although you have never seen Christ, you love him. You don’t see him now, but you believe in him. You are extremely happy with joy and praise that can hardly be expressed in words. 

1 PETER 1:8

A “joy unspeakable and full of glory” effect that reveals the Something Else.

If our people are not experiencing that, then they have no story to tell. And if they have no story, the existence of God remains hidden to those outside the faith.

This is where spiritual leaders must concern themselves: something is not being messaged by us...and transformation is not being experienced.

Dave Workman | The Elemental Group

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