[Question:]{.underline} Is there such a thing as a God particle?
[Answer:]{.underline} In July 2012 took place in Melbourne, Australia, a international meeting of 800 physicists, gathered for the announcement of the discovery of a subatomic particle, called the Higgs boson, which discovery was only made possible by multi-national cooperation for the construction of a multi-billion dollar 17 kilometer long underground tunnel to act as an accelerator. They called this newly discovered subatomic particle the “God particle”, for it is, they state, the ultimate explanation of the world in which we live.
That there exist such sub-atomic particles, whose existence can be postulated and verified on the basis of experimentation, is not questioned. The question is, rather, whether such particles can be considered as an explanation of reality, and in particular of the physical universe.
The keen observer of nature that Aristotle was, saw that there are four kinds of causes of the things around us. The most obvious cause is the material cause, that out of which something is made. However the identity of something, or ability or characteristics do not principally depend upon that out of which it is made. An animal is not a deer or a dog because it is made up of various cells, that have molecules made up of carbon, hydrogen or oxygen atoms, much less because of sub-atomic particles that might be contained in the atoms. There are other causes that make the animal a deer or a dog, but which cannot be measured as physical weights, electrical charges, magnetic fields or anything else which is contained in the material make up. This must be another cause, which unites all the atoms, molecules, cells, organs, tissues together to make it a deer or a dog, and to give it life, characteristics and ability to act. It is called the formal cause, because it gives the form or nature to a physical thing. This is obvious for all living beings, and is particularly so for man, whose form is his soul. However, the same applies to inanimate material things. Water is much more than the simple combination of hydrogen and oxygen atoms. Its vast and necessary range of necessary qualities are the consequence of what it is, its nature, its form. Consequently, the material cause cannot be the ultimate explanation of what a thing is, and it is a denial of the simplest logic to consider that the Higgs boson might be an ultimate explanation or God particle.
But even these two causes do not explain how things come into existence. There must be something that acts in such a way as to unite form to matter, so that the material thing can have the nature which belongs to it. Without such an efficient cause, nothing would happen, and there would be no explanation for the obvious observation that changes exists in the physical world around us. To say that Higgs bosons themselves, by a manner of evolution, create matter, is nonsense. It is like saying that the plaster makes a statue, or that the wood makes the house. It is the total lack of explanation of how something comes about. This is one aspect of the physical impossibility of evolution for the creation of the universe. It is the denial of the efficient cause.
Moreover, the real scientist will note that there is always a further cause, without which nothing would happen, which makes the agent act to bring about any change. It is the reason why something happens. It is the ultimate explanation of reality, for without it no efficient cause would act and nothing would happen. In nature a purpose is constantly observed in all the actions of any living thing. It eats to sustain life; it mates to maintain the species; flowers produce pollen for the bees; the bees pollinate the flowers so that they can multiply. Even in the inert material world purpose is clearly present. The clouds produce rain, and evaporation produces the clouds. Likewise for the minerals that constitute the soil. The ultimate explanation of reality is, then, the answer to the question as to why it is that this particular matter has this particular form, that is why it was brought into being, and what purpose it plays in creation. If, then, there is a “God-particle”, an ultimate explanation of reality, it truly is the final cause and not the Higgs boson.
It is characteristic of the modern atheistic scientist that he refuses to look at anything beyond the material cause. Why would he fall into such an absurdity as to deny the other three causes of the reality that he studies and measures? Why would he be so lacking in logic as to fail to see that the true richness and beauty of God`s creation exist in the explanations as to what something is, how it comes about and why? There is no other explanation than that of a radical prejudice, a presupposition that underlies all that he studies, namely that there is no God. Consequently, he refuses the perfect order of the universe, with its coordination of purpose, that is of final causality, amongst all of God`s creatures. He refuses the evidence of the senses that God exists, and that is the reason, the only reason and the full reason why he proposes a theory of evolution, evacuating every cause but the material cause, and giving to this material cause the power to give a nature to things, to make things happen, and to make them happen for a reason. The only reason, then, why he proposes that the Higgs boson is a God-particle is that he has substituted the material cause for God; he has made a God of matter; he has fallen into the most radical and insane idolatry imaginable.
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.