Quantum Theology (part 1)

Reflections on the theological implications of quantum energy.

Posted: 2025-Jun-23

June 19, 2018

I'm on a final delivery today and had to do a reset, so I have some time to think. I was listening to an explanation of Einstein's E=mc² equation, and it clarified something in my conception of the model that I've been working with. I was already doing this intuitively, but now it's actually simplified in my understanding.

Understanding Mass as a Property of Energy

When you look at the mechanics of some quantum particles, they're essentially compressed energy. We know that photons are light—pure energy. The mistake I'd been making was thinking that E=mc² represents the conversion of energy into mass, like some kind of alchemy where you change base metals into gold. But the explanation I was listening to clarified that energy and mass aren't separate things where energy gets converted into mass.

Mass is a property of energy. E=mc² tells you how much mass a given amount of energy has. When you add up all the various forms of energy—kinetic energy, thermal energy, potential energy, whatever forms of energy you may have—that equals the mass of the object. This works all the way down to the subatomic level.

It's not E=mc² as a conversion from energy to mass. It's that the amount of mass that energy has is determined by taking the energy and multiplying by c². When you rearrange the equation as m=E/c², and this is how Einstein first wrote it, the relationship between energy and mass becomes clearer. Mass is a property: you take the amount of energy, divide by c², and that gives you the mass that the energy holds.

This makes sense and simplifies things. It's not that energy becomes something else—everything, and this is what I've always known intuitively, when you get to the bottom of it in quantum mechanics, everything is made up of energy and light. Even in Doctrine and Covenants section 93, Jesus says he's the light of the world. What's true is that everything is light. Everything at the root is light, which is another way of saying energy.

Theological Implications

The impact of this on my personal theology is significant. Even with my previous misconception about energy being converted to mass, I've been thinking about this. As I look backwards through the eons, infinitely backwards, and realize that whatever I am now, whatever evolutions I've gone through—from intelligence to spirit being to physical form—I've realized that the best way of thinking about what I used to be, what I originated from, is energy.

It was from energy that every form of matter originated. Joseph Smith said there's no such thing as immaterial matter, and he was right. At the most fundamental level, there's no distinction—matter that we see is energy. That's what matter is: energy.

So mass doesn't equal matter. The equation isn't about energy being converted to matter. It's that everything, all matter, is comprised of energy. That's the way to think about this.

This fits with the Big Bang theory perfectly. All of the universe is comprised of energy. It's built up from the quarks to what we think of as physical reality, but it's still just energy at the root. Energy comprises everything—the quarks, the subatomic particles, the protons, the electrons, everything.

Co-Eternal Energy and Mormon Theology

This is interesting when we talk about Mormon theology and my personal theology. The idea that I cannot be created by someone else, because if someone created me, then they created my limitations and weaknesses, and I wouldn't be responsible for those limitations. In Mormon theology, we don't think of ourselves as being created by God in the sense that we have always existed.

With a proper understanding of Einstein's equation and the nature of physical reality—that the building blocks of physical reality are energy—we are co-eternal with God. We are energy. God is energy. Everything is energy. Energy is existence.

The second law of thermodynamics—the conservation of energy—tells us that energy is eternal. In the theology of eternity, we talk about us being eternal, looking backwards and forwards. This squares perfectly with Mormon theology: my individual quantum of energy has always existed independently of any other quantum of energy. If I didn't exist independently, then I wouldn't be accountable because some other quantum of energy would be responsible for my essence and limitations.

But the conservation of energy—that's the harmony between theology and science. They just don't understand that they're talking about the same thing. God is energy. I am energy. Matter, the material world, is energy.

Energy Before and After the Big Bang

I don't have a firm grasp of all the nuances of quantum physics—a physicist might find holes in how I express this—but in effect, the Big Bang is the conversion of energy from one form to another. At the moment before the Big Bang, all the potential for everything in the universe existed in one singular point. From that, everything we are, everything we see, came into being.

That's an interesting question: how do we have more energy added to us? The molecules that make up my physical body came from the energy that was released at the Big Bang. But presumably—no, necessarily—by the essence of what I am, my energy had to exist outside the energy that was released at the Big Bang. And that's the beauty of it, isn't it? We understand now that something existed before the Big Bang.

If I can make some assertions and assumptions: if my quantum energy existed prior to the Big Bang, if God existed as quantum energy before the Big Bang, then my essential energy has been combined with the energy unleashed at the Big Bang. That energy that comprises my physical body has been added to, combined with, my essential energy to create my present existence.

I like this. I think it makes sense. I need to go back and understand the fundamentals of physics a little better to more fully grasp what I'm trying to comprehend, but this feels right to me.