Can God exist within Science?

Can someone believe in both Science and grant the existence of the Almighty?

Many will say No, that science is about searching for truths untainted by supernatural considerations, and that's true. Science cannot allow itself to give up on searches for truth when they come up against a wall, and blame phenomena on the supernatural.

I have spent a large portion of my life trying to reconcile two competing concepts in my own mind: 1) That the quest for scientific truth is one of the most noble undertakings of humanity, and 2) that there must be something greater than ourselves.

There are two fundamental theories that have defined physics in the 20th century. I don't claim to be an expert, but I do read a lot, and have a basic understanding of them.

The first of these theories was first published in 1915 by the great Albert Einstein. That theory, the General Theory of Relativity, deals with the workings of the universe on the grandest of scales. It describes why the Earth stays in orbit around the Sun, how the Sun interacts with the rest of the Milky Way, the interactions of the Milky Way with the rest of the galaxies in the Local Group, the Virgo Supercluster, and the universe as a whole. It deals primarily with things that are large, more specifically massive.

The second great theory is that of Quantum Mechanics. While Relativity works phenomenally well at large distances, QM talks about the very small...scales that make atoms seem colossal. It describes in great detail how the most fundamental particles in the universe, from quarks to electrons to photons, interact with each other at the tiniest of distance scales.

The problem comes specifically when these two theories try and work at the same time. What happens when something is both very small and very massive? Well, in a word, the math breaks down and produces gibberish.

So, what we have is a realm that cannot be explained by science. This realm existed at the very beginning of the universe, and currently exists within singularities (aka black holes). That essentially means science cannot explain how the universe came into being.

There are certain fundamental constants of the universe that are absolutely critical to us having come to be in the universe. One example is the relative strength of the electromagnetic and gravitational forces. If the electromagnetic force was slightly stronger, stars would blow themselves apart, slightly weaker and collapsing gas clouds would keep collapsing without the ability to stabilize as stars. Either way, the universe would be a cold and dark place, and we humans would not be here to ponder about it. Some scientists invoke the "Anthropic Principle" for such issues, and exotic solutions like multiverses (infinite universes, each with slightly different properties). The Anthropic Principle, put simply, is that if the properties are pure chance, and that if they weren't as they are, we wouldn't be here to ask the questions. Every time I read or hear someone invoke the Anthropic Principle, I ask, which is more likely: a) Our universe is a highly unlikely chance that just occurred, or b) there is a Creator who "tuned the dials" of the Universe at the time of Creation?

Quantum mechanics also introduced the Uncertainty Principle. Put simply, Classical (pre-QM) theories held that if you knew the position and velocity of every particle in the universe at some point in time, you could theoretically calculate, with complete certainty, the entire history and future of the universe. The Uncertainty Principle tossed that concept on its head. It says that you cannot know information about various linked properties of a particle. For example, the more precisely you know the position of a particle, the less precisely you can measure it's velocity. That means that you cannot ever get the snapshot of the universe. Things like positions and velocities in QM are expressed not as definite properties, but as probabilities that only become definite only when they are measured. Many, many experiments have tried to overcome the Uncertainty Principle, and it has held up to everything.

How does all this relate to coexistence of science and God, consider this proposition. The various constants of the universe were set by God at the moment of creation. Rules of the universe were also set in such a way that nobody would ever be able to have complete knowledge, both through the Uncertainty Principle and the discontinuity between Relativity and QM. In addition, QM's reliance on probabilities rather than definite properties permits a Creator to, from time to time, make certain adjustments to the workings of the Universe without being noticeable (even if the odds of something happening are only 1%, they're still not zero!)