‘Many people do not believe God exists. They consider the universe is ruled by chance rather than providence.’ Liber revelationum compiled c. 1200 by Peter of Cornwall 

I was reading a great book about England’s thirteenth century ruler, King John recently, when the above quote by Peter of Cornwall struck me. It’s a great example of Christian thought. He believes that God is watching over us at all times and orchestrates every action within the universe. God cannot be responsible for a universe governed by random chance. Peter of Cornwall then, would have hated Harvey Dent, aka Two-Face, Batman’s nemesis, who used the toss of a coin to make all his decisions. For Peter, disorder, chaos and random chance signify a lack of control – a rudderless ship that surely cannot be the result of a divine hand.

Peter of Cornwall did not write with the benefit of modern science of course. He was a medieval scholar and prior of Holy Trinity Priory, not a contemporary physicist. To him, events and phenomena in the world around him would largely have been governed by the supernatural, not by science. So what do modern scholars say about chaos and chance? Is the world chaotic, or ordered and precise? Well, strangely it’s a bit of both. 

Firstly, there is a difference between randomness and chaos. Chaos theory states that within the apparent randomness of complex systems, there are underlying patterns, interconnection, feedback loops, repetition, fractals and self-organisation. What we think of as chaotic, such as the weather, fluid flow and even the toss of a coin, for example, are all events that can be determined by their initial conditions. (Sorry Harvey!)

This however, does not make them entirely predictable. There are too many variables and differences for that. What it means is that behaviour of complex systems follow patterns, even if they are too complex for us to fully calculate. Chaos theory has applications in mathematics, geology, biology, economics, politics, computer science, physics and so much more. If we assume that God would be capable of doing mathematics that is way beyond us, then we could also assume that He is capable of orchestrating even the most complex of chaotic events.

Confusingly, though things may not be chaotic, they are random, certainly in the quantum world. At the subatomic level, events have no hidden cause, or deeper explanation, and no way to predict them. Every effort and experiment to try to predict quantum particle behaviour has only reinforced the conclusion that, at the underlying quantum level, matter is random. 

It isn’t only at the quantum level where randomness exists though. Genetic mutations are also random, so is the nervous system, and neurons in your brain fire randomly. Randomness may be hard to find, but it is definitely there. Surely then, this disproves the existence of God. God cannot be responsible for imbuing the world with His divine providence, if things are beyond His control. 

But just hold on a moment. We only know what we know. A small minority of physicists argue that there may just be hidden variables in the quantum world we aren’t aware of and these variables determine the apparent random behaviour of particles. In this version of reality, everything in the universe – the past, present and future, are all predetermined; everything is known and done before it has happened, it’s simply that we can’t access it. 

This is a radical view however. Most physicists believe the subatomic world is purely random, even if the universe at the higher levels is more predictable. Does this then negate the existence of God? How can God be in control of such a random system? Well, far from being entirely chaotic, the randomness of quantum particles produces real-world, viable effects, and the randomness of firing neurons and genetic mutations make those systems what they are. In fact, the ability of genes to randomly mutate is what evolution is built around. If you were going to design a universe, randomness would be essential, because it is how you would create diversity and adaptability. In fact, when computer programmers design simulations, randomness is an essential feature, in order to create unpredictability and to model accuracy. 

In my mind, this creates a universe that God has purposely designed with randomness incorporated, in order to allow for diversity, autonomy and the personal freedom to choose our own actions. Maybe it is all predetermined, who knows? What is known is that Peter of Cornwall got it wrong. The universe can be ruled by chance and still be perfectly able to be under God’s guiding hand.