Q&A: On Energy
On Energy
Question
Hello and blessings,
I don’t understand physics, so it’s possible I’m completely mistaken. From what I’ve understood until now, we cannot sense or observe energy itself, only what it does. If that is correct, then it should belong to metaphysics. And really, how is that different from what we say about God—that we do not know Him Himself, only what He does? Can one say that energy is God?
Answer
Hello Daniel.
If you cannot sense energy, then how do you know it exists? Because there are physical indications of its existence. There are many physical entities that we cannot observe directly, but we do have indirect indications of their existence. For example, an electromagnetic wave at an invisible frequency, or an acoustic wave at an inaudible frequency.
What defines these phenomena as part of physics is that they appear in the equations of physics—that is, they have physical consequences. When on one side of the equation (Newton’s second law) there appears a force (an object that cannot be seen), and on the other side acceleration (which can be seen), that means that both belong to the same conceptual world—physics.
God cannot appear in any physical equation, and therefore His existence has no physical implication whatsoever. Otherwise, His existence would not be a question in philosophy but in physics. And indeed, the way to arrive at the conclusion that He exists is through philosophical reasoning, not scientific-physical indications.
By the way, even if you were right, the conclusion would not be that energy is God, but that energy is spiritual and not material. Not everything spiritual is God.
This reminds me that in the past I heard questions similar to yours regarding light. That, at least, is visible, but it is abstract and not massive (has no mass), and so some claimed that it is spiritual. I do not agree with that, for the reasons I wrote above. Light appears in the equations of physics.
Incidentally, it seems to me that energy is a property of things and not a thing in itself. God is an object, a being. So I find it hard to accept such an identification even apart from the arguments above.