Searching for the God Particle

CERN, Switzerland (CNN) – Scientists Wednesday applauded as one of the most ambitious experiments ever conceived got successfully underway, with protons being fired around a 27-kilometer (17-mile) tunnel deep beneath the border of France and Switzerland in an attempt to unlock the secrets of the universe.

The Large Hadron Collider – a $9 billion particle accelerator designed to simulate conditions of the Big Bang that created the physical Universe – was switched on at 0732 GMT to cheers and applause from experts gathered to witness the event. … In the coming months, the collider is expected to begin smashing particles into each other by sending two beams of protons around the tunnel in opposite directions.

[Experts] say the experiment has the potential to confirm theories that physicists have been working on for decades, including the possible existence of extra dimensions. They also hope to find a theoretical particle called the Higgs boson – sometimes referred to as the "God particle," which has never been detected, but would help explain why matter has mass.

The collider will recreate the conditions of less than a millionth of a second after the Big Bang, when there was a hot "soup" of tiny particles called quarks and gluons, to look at how the universe evolved, said John Harris, U.S. coordinator for ALICE, a huge detector specialized to analyze that question. …

A few questions occur to me. First, if there even was a “Big Bang,” how did the matter and conditions come to exist for such an event to occur? To say “it was simply there,” as some scientists contend, does not suffice. Something cannot come to be from nothing. Only the existence of a divine creator who is outside the laws of nature – aka God – could be the “first cause,” i.e., the beginning of the universe.

Second, if there was a Big Bang and it was orchestrated by God, can we can really understand how it worked? Can man actually recreate the conditions of the universe "less than a millionth of a second after the Big Bang"? How can we be sure that what the Large Hadron Collider tells us is how it really was?

The Bible simply says God spoke and things came into being. With God being God and all, I’m inclined to believe that His spoken word carries considerable weight, so that scenario is entirely reasonable to me. Whether it occurred via a Big Bang is irrelevant. What I’ve learned is that God wants me to know Him personally, and He has made that possible through the death and resurrection of His Son, if I will just believe it and submit my life to Him as Lord.

In Romans 11:33, the writer, Paul, proclaims, “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable His judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!" Paul then refers back to Isaiah Chapter 40, where the prophet asked some pretty pointed questions:

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand,
or with the breadth of His hand marked off the heavens?
Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket,
or weighed the mountains on the scales
and the hills in a balance?

Who has understood the mind of the Lord,
or instructed Him as his counselor?

Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten Him,
and who taught Him the right way?
Who was it that taught Him knowledge
or showed Him the path of understanding? (vv. 12-14)

And later:
Lift your eyes and look to the heavens:
Who created all these?
He who brings out the starry host one by one,
and calls them each by name.
Because of His great power and mighty strength,
not one of them is missing. (v. 26)

When men build an incredibly complex and expensive machine and talk of trying to discover a “God particle,” I sort of wonder if God is looking on all this and chuckling to himself.