The "God" Particle

The Higgs Boson has ignited a great deal of debate between atheists and theists. The controversy in no small part was started by the particles nickname, "the God particle" and has been reinforced by statements made by Michio Kaku and Lawrence Krauss. In this article; http://www.chron.com/life/houston-belief/article/God-particle-discovery-ignites-debate-over-3720855.php Lawrence Krauss states, "If we can describe the laws of nature back to the beginning of time without any supernatural shenanigans, it becomes clear that you don't need God.” I’m not certain this is the case. Take the example of a car; we can explain how all the parts fit together, what its composed of, and how it functions but even given all that information we cannot explain where the car came from. For that you need an mechanic and/or an engineer. So one type of explanation does not negate the other. But for the moment lets assume that science can and will give every type of explanation needed to give a complete explanation of the universe, would this eliminate the need for God? Yes, but its important to distinguish this from the question of whether or not God exists. God could still exist but he simply didn’t create the universe. Granted if this were the case the theist would be in a tricky position, as the case for God’s existence would be considerably weakened. But more to the point does the Higgs Boson work towards eliminating God as an explanation of the universe? Hardly, the Higgs simply puts another piece in the puzzle about how the universe works. The Higgs field interacts with various particles, causing them to have mass and move slower than light. The Higgs Boson is a particle which is “emitted” so to speak from this field.[1] Thus if the Higgs exists, it poses no more a threat to the theist than the electro-magnetic force.


Michio Kaku, however, seems to disagree. He states that the Higgs “sparked” the Big Bang, and that because of this religious explanations for how the universe came to exist are rendered obsolete [2]. This seems partially true, but from my research it seems that what the Higgs really does is allow mass to exist at the Big Bang. Thus without the Higgs no particles today would have mass, there would be no galaxies, no stars, and no atoms [1]. But what I cannot find is any article which suggests that the Higgs explains why there was a singularity and why it expanded in the first place. So if I understand what Michio is talking about correctly, then he is completely misunderstanding how causation works. Explaining what happened at the Big Bang is a far cry from explaining what caused it, just as explaining the order in which parts were put together to form a car doesn’t explain how those parts got there. If I am misunderstanding, perhaps someone can correct me, if not, I would recommend Kaku and Krauss take a class in the basics of logic and/or an introduction to the philosophy of causality.


For more commentary on this topic see; http://www.reasonablefaith.org/higgs-boson-discovered
1) http://www.forbes.com/sites/allenstjohn/2012/07/09/the-higgs-boson-what-you-should-know-about-what-it-is-and-what-it-does/2/
2) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304141204577508622617259052.html