Contemplations: Quantum Theology

Chapter 16

I’m grateful to share my contribution to Quantum Theology, Volume 1, released by Quoir Publishing and edited by Keith Giles.

This anthology gathers scientists, theologians, mystics, philosophers, and cultural voices into one provocative conversation: What happens when quantum physics and theology begin to speak to one another?

I’m honored to be included alongside thoughtful contributors such as Jenny Loraine Nielsen, William Sarill, Nish Dubashia, Dr. Steve McVey, Zac Cannon, Brandy Anderson, Mo Thomas, Michelle Collins, Mary Terhune, Br. Jay Clark, Eric Scot English, Ellen Haroutunian, John van de Laar, and Mark Merizan. I’m grateful to Keith and the team at Quoir for creating space for a dialogue that feels both timely and necessary.

You can learn more about the publisher here: https://quoir.com

The book is available on Amazon here: https://a.co/d/0bP7Bvdp

My chapter, Chapter 16, explores something simple but often overlooked.

If quantum science has unsettled our assumptions about time, matter, and observation, perhaps faith can afford to loosen its grip on certainty.

Perhaps grace is not formulaic.

Perhaps Christ is not limited by space or time.

Perhaps mystery is not the enemy.

Below is the full text of my contribution.

I hope it meets you wherever you are.

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Quantum Grace: The Physics of Recovery, Mystery, and Ballyhoo
by Jeremy L. Evans

I got sober at 21. Not because I read some powerful book or had a vision in rehab. I got sober because I was exhausted. My life felt like a daily throat punch. My body was a wreck, my mind was a dumpster fire, and my soul felt like a burned-out old water bong.

I knew I wasn’t going to last much longer in that life. I didn’t have a deeply profound theology or some beautiful prayer of surrender. I was homeless, desperate, and ready for change. I had a simple, guttural cry: “God, help.”

Now I’m 52. I’ve been in recovery for over three decades. I’ve lost a wife, raised two daughters, gotten remarried, and walked through more grief than I ever imagined. As fate would have it, I’ve been a probation officer, a hospice chaplain, a grief counselor, a behavioral health worker, and a pastor. I’m also autistic, which I learned after being tested while in EMDR therapy to treat trauma, which my therapist in Oregon suggested after following up on his suspicions.

I’ve also written science fiction, reflections on recovery, and theological musings that try to stitch together everything I’ve learned about pain, faith, quantum mechanics, and wonder. Somewhere in the mess of all this life stuff, I found something unexpected: my fascination with quantum physics started helping me understand God.

I know that sounds strange. Quantum physics is math, right? It’s nerds in lab coats and Swiss particle accelerators and mescaline-induced theories that barely make sense to people with doctorates. But, to me, it’s also a mystery. It’s the study of things too small to see, too strange to predict, and too real to deny. That speaks to me. That speaks to my recovery, my grief, and my faith.

I started seeing connections from a very young age, and that has carried on into my adulthood. It’s not in some hippie dippy, woo woo, pseudoscientific “manifest your vibration” kind of way (although, I am starting to believe that cymatics might just be that). I’m talking about real, grounded, curious connections between what science was discovering and what Scripture had sort of been whispering.

For example, Hebrews 11:3 says that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. That’s not just theology. That’s quantum theory. So, I started writing, thinking, pondering, wondering, and wandering. I began to see how the mysterious truths at the core of reality matched the messy truths at the core of my recovery. And slowly, I began to piece together a way of seeing the universe that made space for science, scripture, and suffering all at once. As we say in A.A., “those are the ways of the God of my understanding.”

When I first heard about the double-slit experiment, it felt like a mirror to me. As I understand it, in that experiment, particles behave one way when no one is watching and another when someone is. They act like waves, like possibilities, until someone observes them. Then they collapse into a single outcome (the act of observing/measuring collapses the wave function)—the act of seeing changes the result. Energy congealing into matter.

Maybe it sounds weird to you, but that’s how my life felt before I got sober. I was a wave, undefined, a complete mess of potential and regret. But when someone saw me, really saw me, I started to collapse into something solid. I began to become a person again—a person who could heal.

The observer effect in physics reminded me that attention and intention matter. That observation shapes reality, almost like we co-create with God. Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is within you.” That it’s not coming with signs to be observed, but it’s already here. That sounds a lot like what quantum physicists are saying. That reality isn’t fixed. It’s fluid. It’s influenced by observation.

When I think about God as the Ultimate Observer, I think about the power of being seen by that field of unconditional love. When I felt most invisible, most scattered, God’s presence stabilized me. It still does.

John Wheeler, one of the pioneers of quantum theory, is known for saying, “No phenomenon is a real phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon.” That lands differently when you’ve lived through addiction and mental health crises. When you’ve felt like nothing about you was real until someone noticed you. And not just anyone, someone who saw the good in you, perhaps even divine in you.

I started noticing the connections between scripture and science everywhere. Paul says in Colossians 1:17 that “in Christ all things hold together.” I used to think that was just poetic fluff and puff. But then I learned more about quantum fields. Fields that stretch across the universe, holding matter together, even when nothing seems connected. It blows my mind to even think about it.

That verse became more than a metaphor after my wife died. One minute she was here, the next she was gone. My world felt like someone had dropped a bomb in the middle of it. I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t even know how to breathe. But something held me together. It wasn’t a feeling; I hated those. It wasn’t a doctrine, but a presence. Something that didn’t make sense, but refused to let go of me.

It reminded me of what David Bohm, a quantum physicist, called the implicate order. The idea that beneath what we see is a deeper pattern that connects everything. I felt that. Not because I understood the science, but because I lived it. In the darkest moment, I was still somehow being held.

Then there’s entanglement. Two particles become connected so that when one changes, the other responds instantly, no matter how far apart they are. Einstein called it spooky action at a distance. I guess I’d call it love.

After my wife died, I would feel things. Weird things. I’d be doing dishes or driving or boohooing in the shower, and something would shift. A peace I didn’t ask for. A memory I wasn’t chasing. I’d feel her with me. I’d feel God with me. I couldn’t explain it. I still can’t. But I know it was real.

Jesus told us to pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” That’s entanglement. That’s heaven pulling on earth. In Acts 19:11-12, people were healed just by touching cloths that had touched Paul. That sounds a lot like nonlocality. Not Merlin’s magic, and not hyper-religious superstition. Maybe just a sign that the Spirit isn’t limited by time or space.

Romans 1:20 says that “…God’s invisible qualities have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.” When I started looking at science that way, everything opened up. Black holes. Fractals. Fibonacci spirals. The beauty and pattern in creation that no one had to invent because it was already there.

I’m autistic, which means I often notice patterns other people don’t. That used to feel like a curse. Now it feels like a superpower. Fractals are repeating patterns that show up at every scale. Zoom in, and they look the same as zoomed out. That’s how grace feels in my life. I see it in the big moments and the small ones. I see it when I’m falling apart and when I’m holding someone else together.

Recovery itself is a fractal. Just when you think you’ve dealt with something, a new layer shows up. Not because you failed, but because healing happens in spirals, not straight lines. That realization gave me peace. I stopped trying to graduate from recovery and started letting it shape me.

Quantum Field theory says that everything in the universe arises from invisible fields. Particles are just excitations, like ripples in a pond. That’s how I understand grace. Not as something you earn or achieve, but as a ripple in the ever-present field of God’s love. Karl Barth said, “Grace is the gift of Christ himself, inserted into our lives and our world.” That’s what I feel. Grace, not as an idea, but as a presence that disturbs the surface of my pain.

I’ve spent years writing science fiction. Publishing books on Amazon. Exploring alternate realities, strange planets, and deep questions. Before I ever read Bonhoeffer or Nouwen, I read Clarke, Herbert, and Le Guin. These authors taught me to ask weird questions. To let mystery be part of the answer. To imagine a God bigger than my fears.

Arthur C. Clarke said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Sometimes grace feels like that. Not because it isn’t real, but because it’s more real than anything else.

Ursula Le Guin wrote, “The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty.” I’ve lived that out in my recovery, my grief, in parenting, and in prayer.

When I first started reading about quantum mechanics, I didn’t expect to find much of God there. I thought it would be math, weirdness, and diagrams I couldn’t follow. And yeah, I suppose you could argue that some of it is that. But I started noticing that the deeper I went, the more I saw patterns that looked strangely familiar. Patterns of grace, recovery, and mystery.

Niels Bohr was one of the founding minds of quantum theory. He once said, “If quantum mechanics hasn’t profoundly shocked you, you haven’t understood it yet.” That hit me because recovery was like that. So was grief. Grace too. If it doesn’t knock you off balance a little, maybe it’s not real.

Bohr helped develop the idea of complementarity. That something can be both a particle and a wave depending on how you look at it. That’s called wave-particle duality. It sounds impossible, and it kind of is. But it’s true. Light acts like a wave until you measure it. Then it acts like a particle.

That helped me understand myself. For years, I thought I had to choose between being strong and being broken. Spiritual or struggling. But grace taught me I could be both. Human beings are dual by nature. I’m a mess and a miracle. I’m trauma and testimony. The particle and the wave. I know that sounds weird, and it’s like saying I believe in non-dual duality.

Then there’s Albert Einstein. He had issues with quantum theory. He called some of it “spooky action at a distance,” especially when it came to entanglement. That’s the idea that two particles can affect each other instantly, no matter how far apart they are. He thought that was too weird, too illogical. But it turns out it’s true. It’s been proven. And that makes me think about God’s presence. About love, and about prayer. About that feeling I get when someone across the room or across the country says the exact thing my soul needed to hear. About how I still feel connected to people I’ve lost. I think that’s entanglement, not just in physics, but in spirit.

Einstein also famously said, “God does not play dice with the universe.” He didn’t like the idea of randomness at the heart of reality. But quantum mechanics says otherwise. It says the universe is based on probabilities. You can’t predict what will happen exactly, only what might happen. That sounds like free will to me, which I used to joke about when teasing my Calvinistic friends. I’d say. “Of course I believe in free will, God doesn’t give me a choice!’ Deuteronomy 30:19 says, “I have set before you life and death... now choose life.” It seems like God gives us choices. We are not robots, although that sounds kind of cool. We live in a universe of possibility, not fatalism. That gives me hope, especially as someone in recovery. I can choose again. I’m not stuck.

As I understand it, John Wheeler, one of Einstein’s students, took things further. He said the universe isn’t just observed. It might be participatory. That our observation doesn’t just change things, it might actually help bring things into being. That sounded crazy to me until I thought about prayer, faith, and creativity.

Wheeler said, “We are participants in bringing into being not only the near and here, but the far away and long ago.” That blew my mind. Because when I write, when I pray, when I show up for someone, I’m participating in shaping reality. That’s not just science. That’s kingdom work

David Bohm, another physicist, talked about the implicate order. The hidden unity beneath everything. That the universe isn’t just random stuff flying around, but a deeply connected wholeness that we only see parts of. That’s how I understand the Spirit. That’s how I’ve experienced God’s grace.

When my life felt like chaos, something deeper was at work. A pattern I couldn’t see but was somehow guiding me. Romans 8:26 says the Spirit helps us in our weakness with groans too deep for words. I’ve lived that.

Amit Goswami, a theoretical physicist who’s written about the spiritual side of quantum mechanics, says, “Consciousness is the ground of all being.” He’s not a theologian, but that line sounds like something from Acts 17, “…in Him we live and move and have our being.” Goswami believes consciousness is more fundamental than matter; that what we call physical is actually rooted in mind, or what we might call Spirit.

That revelation gave me language for what I was feeling in prayer. That maybe God isn’t some distant being on a cloud, but the ground of consciousness itself. The observer who sees me into being. The field that holds me when I fall apart.

Every one of these theories sounds strange at first. But so does the gospel. The first are last. The weak are strong. The dead are raised. Grace is weird. Quantum physics helped me come to terms with that weirdness.

The good news is: I don’t need all the answers. I need presence. I need mystery. I need a God who can live in the “both/and” of paradox. A God who can hold my joy and my sorrow, my faith and my doubt. That’s what I found in quantum mechanics. Not a replacement for theology, but a companion. A smarter-than-me conversation partner. A language that helped me stay curious, stay honest, and stay awake to the wonder of being alive.

It’s worth noting that back in the early 2000s, I came across a documentary called What the Bleep Do We Know. It was a strange blend of narrative, science, and metaphysical speculation. Some of it felt a bit exaggerated, and I definitely didn’t walk away convinced by all of it. But it did something important for me. It made me curious. Not in a “buy crystals and align your aura” sort of way, but in a grounded, sober-minded way. It made me want to understand how science and faith might speak to each other without canceling each other out.

The movie explored how quantum mechanics suggests our perception and consciousness might actually shape the physical world. I didn’t take that as a license to believe I could think my way into winning the lottery, but I did begin to wonder what happens when we start paying attention to our internal lives with honest intention. The idea that observation changes reality felt familiar because, in recovery, that’s precisely what happens. The moment I began to observe my thoughts instead of being ruled by them, something changed.

I started connecting that concept to things I had already been doing, like mindfulness and contemplative prayer. These weren’t New Age practices to me. They were survival tools—ways of staying present. When I paused long enough to notice what I was thinking or feeling, I gave myself the power to respond rather than react. That simple shift from autopilot to awareness became one of the most powerful spiritual disciplines in my recovery.

As I’ve aged, in my day-to-day life, these quantum ideas started showing up in practical ways. When I felt anxiety creeping in while driving or in a crowded space, I wouldn’t fight it. I would notice it. I’d name it quietly and give it space. More often than not, it would loosen its grip. That awareness, that act of witnessing without judgment, reminded me of the observer effect in quantum physics. It also reminded me that just being present with what is can be healing in itself.

In my work as a grief counselor and chaplain, I began to see how powerful it was just to be a witness to someone’s pain. I didn’t have to fix their grief. I couldn’t. But my presence, simply being with them in their suffering, often helped people begin to breathe again. That is something science doesn’t fully explain, but faith and field theory both point to it. The idea that presence has weight, and that love, when applied patiently, can change the shape of someone’s suffering.

The entanglement idea also started to feel less abstract. There were times I would think of someone out of the blue, a friend in recovery or a family member, and later I’d find out they were going through something heavy at that exact moment. I don’t try to map out the mechanics. I don’t claim to know how it works. But I’ve learned to trust those nudges and lean into them. You know…call, text, pray, and show up. Quantum entanglement may be a scientific mystery, but it mirrors something very real in our relational and spiritual lives.

The contemplative path helped bring all of this together. I didn’t need to explain everything. I didn’t need to decide between science and spirituality. I just needed to keep showing up in silence, in awareness, in faith. Whether I was practicing centering prayer or simply sitting on the porch watching the wind move through the trees, I began to sense God in the quiet spaces, not as an idea to argue, but as a presence that permeates everything.

When I read Paul’s words in Colossians, that “…in Christ all things hold together,” I don’t hear that as a metaphor anymore. I listen to it as a truth I live by. Something is holding all of this. Something that moves through grief and doubt and relapse and longing. Something that does not unravel when I do. And when I think about watching that documentary again, I realize it wasn’t the science or the now-aging special effects that stayed with me. It was the invitation to stay curious. To keep asking questions. To let the mystery remain open. That’s how I’ve learned to live, with one foot in recovery and one foot in wonder, always willing to look a little deeper, not for control, but for connection.

I didn’t go looking for quantum physics. I went looking for peace. I was trying to make sense of everything I had lost, everything I had survived, and everything I was still carrying. I wasn’t aiming to become a mystic or a science buff. I just wanted to understand why life felt like it broke apart and came together in such strange ways.

Somewhere along the way, the weird world of wave functions and field theory started to speak to me. Not because I grasped every formula, but because something about it felt true to the way I had experienced grace. The more I read, the more it echoed things I already knew deep down. We’re more connected than we realize. Presence matters. Things are often held together in ways we cannot see.

I’ve never claimed to be a physicist. I’m just an average Joe who’s spent decades learning to stay sober, to stay present, and to stay open. What I found in quantum theory wasn’t certainty, it was resonance. It was language for the mystery I had already been walking through. Recovery taught me that transformation doesn’t come from control. It comes from surrender. From paying attention. From being willing to see what’s actually there.

Sometimes I still sit outside and look up at the night sky. I think about how unseen forces stitch together this entire universe. I think about the people I’ve loved, the people I’ve lost, and the strange way time bends around memory and hope. I don’t need to understand it all. I just need to know that I’m part of it. That something is holding the pieces, even when I can’t.

That’s what grace feels like to me now. It’s not dramatic. It’s not loud. It doesn’t always show up as clarity. But it is steady. It is present. It’s what lets me keep going even when I don’t have a map.

If you’re in a place of pain or doubt or transition, I want you to know this. You’re not the only one. You’re not out here floating on your own. There’s more to all of this than we can see. Whether you call it the Spirit, the Field, the Presence, or just God, it’s close. Closer than you think.

I don’t have all the answers. But I’ve learned to live in the mystery. I’ve learned to let the questions breathe. And somehow, in the middle of it all, I’ve found something worth trusting. Something real enough to carry me through.

When I think about it, maybe Jesus was the original quantum physicist. It might sound like a stretch at first, calling Jesus a quantum physicist. But stick with me. I’m not saying he wore a lab coat or scribbled equations on a chalkboard in Galilee. I’m saying that the way he lived, taught, and moved through the world was full of the same mystery and paradox that quantum mechanics points to.

The more I learn about the universe at its most fundamental level, the more I recognize the patterns of Christ right there in the fabric of it. I mean, Jesus constantly spoke in paradoxes or koans: “The first will be last,” “The greatest among you will be the servant,” “Those who want to save their life will lose it,” “Those who lose their life for his sake will find it.” These statements don’t make sense in linear logic, but they’re true. Just like in quantum physics, where particles can be in two states at once, where light is both a wave and a particle, and where observation collapses possibilities into reality. Jesus seemed to live in that same space between what is seen and what is unseen.

Hebrews 11:3 says, “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.” That’s the language of quantum theory right there—invisible foundations. Energy giving rise to matter. Faith is, in a way, the original field theory. Jesus invited people to step into that. To trust what couldn’t be measured. To follow a voice they couldn’t see. To believe in a kingdom that seemed to operate by entirely different rules than the world around them.

I know I already brought up the idea of nonlocality, so stay with me. In quantum mechanics, it means that particles can be connected no matter how far apart they are. Their states are linked. Change one, and the other responds instantly. As I said, Einstein didn’t like it. He called it “spooky action at a distance.” But the evidence backs it up. And when I think of nonlocality, I think of Jesus’ promise in Matthew 28:20, “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” I think of his words, “Where two or more are gathered in my name, I am there with them.” (Matt. 18:20) He wasn’t just present physically. He was present spiritually, eternally, across space and time.

That’s not just poetic. That’s nonlocal presence. That’s quantum-level omnipresence. Not limited by geography or distance. Not waiting for us to arrive, but already there.

Jesus also demonstrated what we now call the observer effect. In quantum experiments, observation itself changes the outcome. The act of seeing collapses the field of possibilities into a single reality. That sounds mystic and esoteric until you’ve sat across from someone who really sees you. Not just notices you, but truly sees you. And that’s precisely what Jesus did. He saw people who were invisible to others. The woman at the well. Zacchaeus up in a tree. The woman has been bleeding for twelve years—the thief on the cross. When Jesus looked at someone, it wasn’t casual. It changed them. He didn’t look past people. He looked into them. And that gaze healed.

We don’t talk enough about the healing power of being seen. In addiction recovery, being truly seen by someone, especially without judgment, is often the beginning of change. Before sobriety. Before the breakthrough. It starts with someone bearing witness to who you are underneath the shame. That’s the observer effect. That’s Jesus.

He was also a master of what I now recognize as field theory. In physics, a field is an invisible energy that fills space and carries force. You can’t see it, but you can feel its influence. Gravity is a field. So is electromagnetism. You step into a field, and something happens. You are moved, pulled, shifted. That’s what it felt like to be around Jesus. People didn’t just hear his words. They entered his presence and were changed by it.

Even the religious leaders, for all their resistance, felt it. They said, “No one ever spoke the way this man does” (John 7:46). That wasn’t just about content. That was about frequency, about resonance. He was tuning people to a new reality. When the woman with the issue of blood touched the hem of his garment, Jesus said, “Power has gone out from me.” That’s field language. He carried an energy that healed. Not because he was flashy, but because he was fully aligned with the source.

Then there’s the Logos. The Word. The creative force at the beginning. John 1 tells us that through Christ, all things were made. That nothing exists apart from him. Colossians 1:17 adds that in him all things hold together. I used to read that as poetry. Now I read it as physics.

The quantum vacuum, the zero-point field, dark energy. Call it what you want. Science keeps discovering that underneath what we see is a deeper, pulsing reality that connects everything. The Bible has been saying that for thousands of years. Christ is the Logos. The coherence in the chaos. The reason and rhythm underneath it all. If God is the ultimate observer, then Christ is the pattern through which everything is held. Is your mind blown yet?

Jesus didn’t teach quantum mechanics. He lived it and embodied it. He entered into our collapsing probabilities and created a new path. A new creation reality. One that wasn’t based on law, logic, or merit, but on love. He brought coherence to disorder. He stepped into our entangled, uncertain world and held it together through grace.

And the resurrection? That’s not just a miracle. That’s a collapse of the ultimate expectation, death. The most certain reality we know was disrupted not just for Jesus, but for all of us. A new field opened up. A new state of being. If that’s not a quantum leap, I don’t know what is.

This isn’t just interesting theology to me. This is personal. When I think of Jesus as the embodiment of the quantum mystery, I’m reminded that my faith doesn’t have to be rigid or linear. It can be curious, it can be strange. It can make room for what doesn’t yet make sense.

Recovery taught me to live in tension. In “both/and.” In already and not yet. In death and resurrection. Jesus lived and taught in that same space. That’s why he still speaks to me. That’s why I call him the greatest quantum physicist. Not because he explained the universe with numbers, but because he revealed it through love.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for staying with me through all the twists. From subatomic mysteries to the streets of recovery, from grief and grace to the quiet hum of presence underneath it all. None of this was about proving anything. It was about making space to wonder again. To ask better questions. To see that maybe, just maybe, there’s more going on than we can explain.

You don’t have to become a physicist or a theologian to experience this. You don’t have to have it all figured out. You just have to stay curious. That is where it starts. Curiosity is what leads us through uncertainty and into transformation. It is how we grow, how we heal, and how we remember that we are not alone in this.

Quantum mechanics did not give me answers. It gave me new eyes. It gave me a deeper appreciation for the mystery of Christ and the beauty of being part of something I can’t fully explain. And that, for me, has been more than enough.

So wherever you are in your journey, whether you are doubting, recovering, rebuilding, or simply trying to breathe, may this chapter remind you that God is not far off. Christ is not limited by space or time. Grace is not formulaic. And mystery is not your enemy.

Stay open. Stay curious.

You are part of the field, too.

And it is beautiful.

For what it’s worth.

Shalom,

Jeremy E.