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Theology and Science

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Subjectivist – observing and

objective – participant perspectives on
the world: Kant, aquinas and quantum
mechanics
Roger P. Paul
Published online: 03 Aug 2006.

To cite this article: Roger P. Paul (2006) Subjectivist – observing and objective – participant
perspectives on the world: Kant, aquinas and quantum mechanics, Theology and Science, 4:2,
151-169, DOI: 10.1080/14746700600758887

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14746700600758887

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 Theology and Science, Vol. 4, No. 2, 2006

Subjectivist – Observing and Objective – Participant

Perspectives on the World: Kant, Aquinas
and Quantum Mechanics

ROGER P. PAUL

Abstract Theological thinking is influenced by perspectives on the relation of scientific knowledge

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to reality. Two paradigms for understanding the nature of human knowledge are considered in
relation to quantum mechanics: the subjective-observing perspective of Kant, and the objective-
participant perspective of Thomas Aquinas. I discuss whether quantum mechanics necessarily implies
a subject centered perspective on reality, and argue, with reference to d’Espagnat’s notion of veiled
reality, that quantum non-separability challenges this view. I then explore whether the objective-
participant perspective of Thomas Aquinas provides a more fruitful context for understanding
quantum mechanics. I discuss quantum measurement in terms of the transition from potentiality to
actuality, and knowledge as the latent intelligibility of the world realized. However, the negative
nature of our knowledge of quantum non-separability also challenges this perspective. Our theological
thinking in response to quantum knowledge must therefore proceed tentatively, balancing a via
positiva, with a via negativa.

Key words: Kant; Aquinas; Quantum mechanics; Non-separability; Objective–participant;

Subjectivist–observing

What is believed about the world and reality has fundamental implications for
theology. Thomas Aquinas stated:

They hold a plainly false opinion who say that in regard to the truth of religion it
does not matter what a person thinks about the creation as long as he or she has the
correct opinion concerning God. An error concerning the creation ends as false
thinking about God.1

Aquinas himself was an empiricist, with an Aristotelian preference for exploring

the world of material things, over against the Platonic Ideal, upon which so much
Christian theology has been constructed. Whereas for Aquinas there was no
question about the reality of the world investigated by science, in the light of
quantum mechanics the very nature of reality is brought into question. The issue
for us is not so much whether we construct theology on the truth or falsehood
concerning scientific knowledge, but on the perspective we have on the relation of
that knowledge to reality.

ISSN 1474-6700 print/ISSN 1474-6719 online/06/020151-19

ª 2006 Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences
DOI: 10.1080/14746700600758887
 152 Theology and Science

Over the last century, quantum mechanics has challenged common sense
notions of reality. Although there have been attempts to rescue physical realism
within quantum mechanics, for example, Bohm’s2 hidden variable approach, or
Everett’s3 relative state theory, d’Espagnat has argued that a return to near or
naı̈ve physical realism, where there is a direct correspondence between our
perceptions of the world and physical reality, is now impossible in view of this
challenge. As he remarks in a rather understated way:

Physical realism is an ideal from which we remain distant. Indeed, a comparison

with conditions that ruled in the past suggest that we are more distant from it than
our predecessors thought they were a century ago.4

If physical realism is distant, what status does our scientific knowledge have? Is
it possible to continue to trust that scientific knowledge relates to an objective
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world, however mysteriously or indirectly? Alternatively, do we have to conclude

that all knowledge, including scientific knowledge, is intrinsically subjective?
What we come to believe about knowledge of the world will affect not simply our
thinking about the nature of God, but the way we think about God. Fergus Kerr
O. P.5 contrasts two paradigms for understanding the nature of human
knowledge, which are relevant in considering these questions. Both paradigms
regard knowledge as involving an interaction between the knower and the
known, but they each have a distinct perspective. He calls these two perspectives
the subjective-observing perspective, epitomized by Descartes and Kant and the
objective-participant perspective of Thomas Aquinas.
In the subjective-observing perspective, the observing subject has priority over
and above what is observed. Observations are themselves the images, impressions
and sense data, which are located in the mind of the subject and which do not
therefore give us a direct knowledge of the object. Skepticism about what it is
possible to know about the world, including its very existence independent of our
own minds, is the environment for the subjectivism of Descartes,6 which forced
him to adopt a view of the subjective mind as self-evidently existing in contrast to
the world, which can only be known through the perceptions of the mind. As long
as I am a self-conscious thinking being, I can be said to exist. The world of images,
impressions, and sense data is apprehended and located in the self, which is the
privileged subject of knowledge.
Kant wrote of a Copernican revolution in philosophy.7 Pre-Copernican
philosophy assumes the existence of the world of objects, ‘‘to which all our know-
ledge must conform.’’8 He attempted to deduce a priori intuitions and categories
of thought that give form to our sense impressions. Conscious experience
arises out of the structuring of these sense impressions by the thinking subject.
‘‘Objects,’’ after the Copernican revolution, ‘‘must conform to our knowledge.’’9 The
Copernican revolution thus changes the primary focus from the object to the subject.
In contrast to post enlightenment skepticism, scholastic philosophy takes the view
that the world of things and objects has priority over the self-conscious thinking
subject. This objective-participant perspective is exemplified in the philosophy
of Thomas Aquinas, who explicitly rejects the idea that science, or know-
ledge, has, as its primary object, subjective sense impressions or representations.
 Kant, Aquinas and Quantum Mechanics 153

Rather, the world, in its irreducible act of existence, impinges on the mind and
awakens our capacity to understand it. Objects in the world are the primary source of
structure and significance, with which the mind engages in the act of knowing. Here
we move away from the idea that the mind structures reality, to a partnership in
which the intellect draws out the intelligibility of the world.
Kerr asks whether the subjective-observing perspective is really the best way to
understand the basis of our knowledge. I explore this question particularly with
regard to quantum mechanics, which I suggest is something of a test case. I set out
first to explore whether quantum mechanics necessarily implies the skeptical,
subject centered attitude to the world of the subjectivist-observing perspective,
and suggest that there are difficulties in reconciling quantum non-separability
within Kant’s Copernican Revolution. In the light of these difficulties, I first
discuss d’Espagnat’s notion of veiled reality and then ask whether in fact the
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objective-participant perspective of Thomas Aquinas provides a more fruitful

context in which to understand quantum mechanics and the subtlety of scientific
knowledge.

Quantum events as registered phenomena

In his reply to Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen,10 Bohr11 affirms that the rules of
quantum theory should be applied consistently and rigorously to every aspect of
the process of measurement. Not only the quantum system to be measured, but
also the measuring apparatus with its choice of setting to measure a specific
observable, and the observer are in a state of superposition until a measurement is
actually made. Bohr states that in quantum mechanics we cannot speak intelligibly
about a reality that is independent of the observation, and argues for the necessity
of a radical revision of classical concepts in relation to quantum mechanics.
According to Bohr, quantum mechanics does not refer to elements of a physical
reality, but to physical phenomena, which have more to do with the perceptions,
including the results of experiments, that go to make up the data of experience.
Commenting on Einstein’s argument that quantum mechanics is an incomplete
description of reality, he wrote that we are ‘‘not dealing with an incomplete
description characterized by an arbitrary picking out of different elements of
physical reality at the cost of sacrificing other elements, but with a rational
discrimination between essentially different experimental arrangements and
procedures.’’12
Bohr often made the point that ‘‘no elementary phenomenon is a phenomenon
until it is a registered phenomenon.’’13 In other words, knowledge of quantum
systems is limited to the determinate results of measurement, those registered
phenomena that occur in the interaction between the system to be measured and
the observer. To ask what happens to the quantum system between observations
is futile, we just cannot know, except insofar as the wave function provides a set of
probabilities for the value of a chosen observation. It seems that as for Kant the
world of objects as they appear to the observer consists of appearances, so what
we know of the quantum world is the registered phenomena of observations.
 154 Theology and Science

It is, however, unclear what Bohr meant by registered phenomena. In one sense,
the process that Bohr was referring to is precisely the transition from a state of
superposition to a determinate state, often referred to as the collapse of the wave
function, which occurs when a quantum system interacts with a macro-system.
A measuring device records the outcome of such an interaction in a way that can
be read, perhaps on a photographic film or as the click of a Geiger counter. The
point here is whether Bohr considered the record of the measuring device itself as
the registered phenomenon. If this is the case, then the result is not dependent on
the perceptions of a conscious observer, but is entirely a physical event. Yet Bohr
also seemed to consider that the whole system ultimately includes the conscious
observer. Indeed, Schrödinger14 stated this explicitly in his cat paradox, where the
cat would appear to be in a state of superposition until the box was opened and
the observer recorded a determinate state in consciousness. Schrödinger could
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trace a chain of events in the making of a measurement, which necessarily led to

the consciousness of the observer. To regard a registered phenomenon as a purely
physical event is to break this chain at an arbitrary link. The conscious observer
must be involved both at the beginning and at the end of a measurement: at the
beginning in setting up an apparatus to make a particular measurement of an
observable, and at the end in not only recording the result, but also interpreting it.
A radical and original development of Bohr’s thesis was proposed by Wheeler15
in his notion of ‘‘It-From-Bit.’’ He draws out the analogy between the ways a
computer works and the binary information—the ‘‘bits’’ of information—gained in
the process of measurement of the quantum system as the answers to the questions
that are posed to it. The main difference between the two is the predictability of a
computer compared to the stochasticity of quantum measurement. However,
Wheeler suggests, ‘‘It is not unreasonable to imagine that information sits at the
core of physics, just as it sits at the core of a computer . . . . The universe and all that
it contains (‘it’) may arise form the myriad yes-no choices of measurement
(the ‘bits’).’’16
Wheeler’s preferred example in explaining his idea of ‘‘It-from-Bit’’ is the
delayed choice experiment.17 He cites the example of quasar 0957 þ 561 A,B,18
which was once thought to be two distinct objects, but are now thought to be one
object producing two images because of a gravitational lens effect due to a galaxy
situated between the quasar and earth. What is actually recorded in observing the
quasar depends on the choice of the way the observation is carried out. Light from
the quasar may be registered after it has passed through the half-silvered mirror,
when it has a 50% chance of being reflected and 50% chance of being transmitted.
If the relative phasing of the light waves on each path is arranged accordingly,
destructive interference will prevent one of the detectors from registering any
photons, and constructive interference will result in the other detector registering
them all. In this case, photon will be in a superposition of traveling on the two
paths either side of the galaxy. If, however, the half-silvered mirror is not included
in the experimental set-up, there will be no interference and both detectors may
register photons, which we may infer will have traveled on either one side of the
galaxy or on the other side, and two objects are observed. The light from the
quasar would have taken many thousands of years to reach the earth, and our
 Kant, Aquinas and Quantum Mechanics 155

decision as to how to measure the light, whether it was through a half-silvered

mirror or not, would be made as the photon has nearly completed its journey.
The choice of which measurement is made determines what can be said about
the pathway of the light photons, whether one has traveled by one path or both
paths. The observer, Wheeler maintains, is inescapably involved in bringing about
that which is observed. Until that moment, it cannot be said to be a phenomenon
at all. If a different observation is made a different phenomenon occurs, and
‘‘we have come no closer to penetrating to the untouchable interior of the
phenomenon.’’19
Wheeler regards reality as a self-excited circuit, in which the crucial link is what
he calls observer-participancy, the registering of phenomena in irreversible acts of
observation, in which the observer is a co-creator in constructing reality. The
billions of registered phenomena created by observer-participancy are the ‘‘bits’’
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of information out of which we construct the objects of our world. Wheeler wrote:

What we call reality consists of a few iron posts of observation between which we
fill in by an elaborate papier mâché construction of imagination and theory.20

Registered phenomena and Kantian epistemology

To what extent does the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics,

originating with Bohr and developed by John Wheeler, among others, reflect a
Kantian epistemology, which puts the subjective observer at centre stage?
Kant21 makes a fundamental distinction between ‘‘things as they are in
themselves’’ or noumena that are independent of any observation and beyond the
knowledge of an observer, and ‘‘things as they appear’’ to the conscious observer,
or phenomena. All our knowledge and conscious experience is made up of
appearances. The things in themselves are beyond our knowledge, or transcendent.
According to Kant,22 the very structure of knowledge derives from the subject.
Space and time are forms of intuition located in the subject’s faculty of sensibility,
and do not, therefore, exist independently of the subject. What seems to be implied
here is that space and time are neither sense impressions nor concepts, but are the
structure of all our sense impressions. Time is the way in which mental states are
organized in experience, and space refers to how we relate to the world of objects
as they appear outside ourselves. However, it is only objects as they appear to the
observer, that can be located in space and time, and that which is located in
space and time can have no existence except as appearances. Therefore, things in
themselves exist transcendentally beyond space and time. The whole world,
existing in space and time, is a world of appearances, conforming to the structure
of our faculty of sensibility and known in terms of a priori categories of thought.
Kant’s subjective epistemology gives a dynamic, interactive account of knowl-
edge. A phenomenon is not merely a sense impression, which in itself has no
knowledge content, and does not add to the body of subjective experience. In a
similar way, the a priori categories of thought do not provide any knowledge of the
world. Knowledge is created when sense impressions are transmuted by the forms
of intuition so that they can be placed in space and time, and thus in experience,
 156 Theology and Science

and when they are structured in terms of the categories of thought. Knowledge is
then wholly and exclusively subjective, because there can be no knowledge of a
thing without sense impressions, nor can it be independent of the structure that the
subject brings to the matter.
If knowledge of a thing must always be within the a priori structures of thought,
what sort of relationship do these phenomena have with things in themselves?
James van Cleve23 discusses this important question in terms of the double-aspect
and double-object views. A double aspect view regards appearances and the thing
in itself as two aspects of the same reality. It has been suggested, for example, that
the thing in itself is viewed as having intrinsic properties, which do not
communicate to an observer, while an appearance of the same reality is
experienced in terms of those properties that are to do with the way that reality
relates to other things. One of the difficulties of this interpretation is that it leads to
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contradictory statements about one and the same thing. For example, the thing in
itself is not located in space, while the appearance is located in space. An
alternative view is to consider both the thing in itself and the appearance as objects
of different types, a double-object view. The problem of this view is that it implies
dualism. In order to overcome these difficulties, van Cleve suggests the notion of
appearances as virtual objects, that is to say, they are a sort of fiction constructed
out of the sense impressions of the observer. In one sense to speak of a virtual
object is just shorthand for referring to a complex myriad of sense impressions, but
in another these constituent sense impressions can be seen as constituting a
supervenient entity.
Wheeler’s ‘‘It-From-Bit’’ thesis seems to relate to van Cleve’s notion of
appearances as virtual objects. However, this interpretation of Kant raises a
central difficulty. If an appearance is a virtual object, in what sense is the thing in
itself an object, and how, if at all, do the two types of object interact? Van Cleve
seems to suggest that since a virtual object can be defined in terms of its
constituent sense impressions, the thing in itself is the only real object, albeit
unknowable. Kant seemed to allow for the fact that through our sense impressions
we have an awareness of something that is beyond our control as subjects and
impinges on our faculty of sensibility. The thing in itself is a general answer to the
question ‘‘Why do I have that particular sense impression, rather than another?’’
However, here the difficulty is how a thing in itself, which is outside space, time,
causality, and so on, can give rise to sense impressions, which are perceived in
space and time. If we can speak of the thing in itself causing sense impressions,
then we have to think of a cause that is structured neither in time nor space, nor of
the same nature as the effect that follows.

The challenge of non-separability

The discussion so far suggests that quantum mechanics may be accommodated

within a Kantian framework. The thing in itself may then be thought to
correspond to a quantum system, which remains undisturbed. No questions have
as yet been asked of it and it has, therefore, given no answers. It does not exist for
 Kant, Aquinas and Quantum Mechanics 157

the observer until it interacts with a measuring device and an observation is made.
The observation itself, not the quantum system, then may correspond to the thing
as it appears to the observer, conforming to the essentially classical framework in
which we are able to apprehend determinate objects.
However, there is a difficulty with this accommodation, which emerges in
relation to a number of issues arising out of quantum mechanics. Here, I propose
to focus on the issues raised by quantum non-separability, but similar questions
are posed by the more general measurement problem. So for example, in a
classical system, it is in principle possible to measure all properties of system
simultaneously, but in a quantum system, non-commutative observables are
mutually incompatible. Measuring one observable excludes the possibility of
measuring another. Is this partial knowledge of quantum systems an epistemo-
logical or an ontological problem? Is our partial knowledge a consequence of
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quantum mechanics being a partial theory, or must we be content with a picture of

reality that appears so different from our classical perspective? The measurement
problem raises these fundamental questions, but the experimental detection of
quantum non-separability throws up a particular challenge.
The argument that quantum mechanics violates the principle of separability as
originally put forward by Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen (EPR)24 was intended to
support the notion of an independent, objective reality, fundamental to which is
the principle of separability. A simple statement of this principle might be as
follows:

In two spatially distant systems, a measurement on one system does not depend on
a measurement on the other.25

This implies, for example, that there is no possibility of an instantaneous

influence of one system on another that is spatially distant, and that therefore
measurements can be regarded as local. This principle is assumed in both classical
and relativistic mechanics and it was regarded by Einstein as one of the
cornerstones of physics. As Bell26 observed, what irritated Einstein so much about
quantum mechanics was not so much its indeterminism as its implied violation of
the principle of separability.
EPR27 clearly perceived that there is a contradiction between certain implica-
tions of quantum mechanics and the principle of separability. They used the
example of two systems, S1 and S2, which had interacted at a certain time and
become entangled, and had subsequently became spatially distant. They argued
that a measurement of the position of S1 would also give the position of S2.
If subsequently, the momentum of S1 were also measured, the momentum of S2
would also be known. They argued that either the principle of separability held
and it ought, therefore, to be possible for both the position and momentum of S2 to
be known determinately because S2 was spatially separate from and, therefore, not
dependant on measurements on S1; or, as quantum mechanics predicts through
the principle of complementarity, the measurement of a second complementary
observable (momentum) on S1, not only renders the first measured observable
(position) indeterminate on S1, but also renders the position of S2 indeterminate.
In the former case, S2 can be thought of as having intrinsic values of momentum
 158 Theology and Science

and position, which even if not known, can be said to be elements of reality,
whereas in the latter case intrinsic values are not allowed.

The real factual situation of the system S2 is independent of what is done with the
system S1, which is spatially separate from the former . . . one can escape only by
assuming that the measurement of S1 changes the real situation of S2, or by denying
the independent real situation as such to things which are spatially separate from
each other. Both alternatives appear to me entirely unacceptable.28

For EPR, the only conclusion was that quantum mechanics was incomplete, a
conclusion arising out of their realist viewpoint. They maintained that the
concepts of a scientific theory needed to respond and correspond to physical
reality: ‘‘These concepts are the means whereby we picture reality to ourselves.’’29
A physical theory is sufficiently complete, according to EPR, if ‘‘every element of
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physical reality has a counterpart in the physical theory . . . . If without disturbing

a system, we can predict with certainty the value of a physical quantity, then there
exists an element of reality corresponding to this physical quantity.’’30
The mainstream in quantum physics tended to accept Bohr’s response to
Einstein31 affirming that the rules of quantum theory should be applied
rigorously. His main point was that quantum mechanics is a theory about the
interaction of quantum states with the macro-world, and that the measuring
apparatus, the choice of setting, and the observer are all part of the whole situation
described by the theory. In making a measurement, an element in the quantum
system is re-formulated in terms of concepts in the macro-world, but
these concepts cannot be said to correspond in a meaningful way to any-
thing approximating the notion of the ‘‘quantum system in itself,’’ existing
independently of the observer. Necessarily, they relate to the experience of the
macro-world.
However, it is in response to the EPR Paradox and the attempt by D. Bohm32 to
develop a hidden variable reformulation of quantum mechanics that J. S. Bell33
wrote: ‘‘It is the possibility of a homogenous account of the world, which is for me
the chief motivation of the study of the so-called ‘hidden variable possibility.’’’ By
incorporating a term representing a hidden variable in an EPR type thought
experiment, Bell34 discovered the Bell-inequalities that have provided the
theoretical basis for experimental testing of the EPR Paradox. He argued that if
we assume the principle of separability and accept the conclusion that quantum
theory is incomplete, and then it is possible that there should be a function that
provides a complete description of the common source of two entangled systems.
The result of measuring one particle is then dependent on this function and on the
set up of its measuring device, and the result of measuring the other system
is dependent on the same function and the set up of its measuring device.
However, because the principle of separability is assumed to hold, the
measurement of each system is independent of the set up of the respective
measuring device of the other.
To explain Bells’ inequalities, I shall refer to Abner Shimony’s clear exposition35
in which he considers a source of light photons that emits two photons
simultaneously in opposite trajectories. The two photons are in an entangled
 Kant, Aquinas and Quantum Mechanics 159

state, described by a single wave function. In this situation, both photons are in a
superposition of being polarized in the vertical and horizontal axes. When
polarizing films are placed in the path of each photon, and are perfectly aligned in
either the vertical or the horizontal axis, then there is a 50% probability of each of
the photons being blocked by the films. There is furthermore a perfect correlation
between the blocking or transmitting of each of the pairs of photons in an
ensemble, so that if one photon is blocked, so is the other, and if one is transmitted
the other is also transmitted. If the axes of the two polarizing films are not aligned,
then there is only a partial correlation between the pairs of results in an ensemble.
Sometimes both photons are transmitted or blocked, but otherwise one is
transmitted and the other blocked. The proportion of correlated results depends
on the angle between the axes of polarization of the two polarizing films.
Bell’s inequalities turn on the expected correlation of results when the two
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polarizing films are not aligned. On the one hand, according to quantum
mechanics, the correlations are the consequence of the probabilities calculated
from the wave function for a particular variable. Whereas, on the other hand, if we
assume the principle of separability and also the existence of a hidden function
that determines the outcome of measurement of each of the variables, the
correlations are the result of a determinate process. Bell discovered that if perfect
correlation between results when the polarizing films are perfectly aligned is to be
maintained, the correlations predicted by quantum mechanics and by assuming
the principle of separability will be unequal.
Bell was, therefore, able to show that the expected correlations between
measurements on entangled systems of two particles arrived at by quantum
mechanics cannot be equal to the correlations between measurements on the two
particles assuming separability and, therefore, no influence or communication
other than at source. The theoretical basis for experimental testing of the EPR
argument was developed by Clauser, Horne, Holt, and Shimony.36 A number of
experimental tests37 of the so-called CHHS-Bell inequalities were attempted, but
perhaps the most convincing was that achieved by Aspect, Grangier, and Roger38
in 1982.
In this experiment, the common source emitted two photons in opposite
directions. Two switching devices, utilizing standing waves, generated by
ultrasound, in phials of water, could each direct a photon to one of two
polarization filters and photon detectors, each with a different setting. The
switches were operated when the photons were in flight, in order to exclude the
possible influence of one setting on the other prior to the production of the two
photons. The results of this beautifully designed experiment were consistent with
the predictions of quantum mechanics, and not with the assumption of
separability.
However, we must be careful about what the violation of separability actually
means. First, it must not be assumed to contradict the fundamental axiom of
special relativity, that information cannot be transmitted outside the light cone of a
frame of reference, implying that signals cannot travel at speeds greater than that
of light in vacuo. The reason for this conclusion is that the violation refers to
correlations between two systems. Two observers will each only have the results
 160 Theology and Science

of one ensemble of measurements, and that is insufficient to calculate any

correlation. In order to do that, the two observers would have to exchange
information after a series of measurements have been performed.39
It has been pointed out by David Albert40 that if a formalism can be constructed
on the lines of Bohmian mechanics, that includes a variable that can be shown to
act simultaneously at a distance, and thus capable of determining the correlation
between results, then a contradiction with special relativity would be entailed.
There would then be a reversal of status between the two theories. The completed
quantum theory would describe reality, whereas relativity would have an
instrumentalist interpretation. While this may not be inconsistent, it does not
progress the situation, unless a new completed quantum theory can generate
predictions that are testable by experiment.
Non-separability has fundamental implications for the way in which quantum
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states and their measurements are interpreted. Bohr41 put forward the idea that
phenomena arising from the interaction of entangled states with observers
who are spatially separated are connected in some way. Bohr would deny that
this is a causal connection in which an actual physical change takes place in one
part of the system when a measurement is made in another part, but this
connectivity does suggest that quantum mechanics, through the notion of
entangled, non-separable states, reveals a holistic view of the world of human
experience.
Quantum non-separability also questions the Kantian view that knowledge
must conform to a priori forms of intuition and categories of thought. I suggest
here that the principle of separability is implied in Kantian intuitions of space and
time. We picture to ourselves things in space as being separate from each other,
and as having no instantaneous effect on each other. Our concept of causation
requires that the effect should temporally follow the cause. In the sense that
objects in themselves exist in a way that transcends space and time, the principle
of separability does not apply to them. However, its violation is something that
we do know: it has been empirically tested, and is therefore a phenomenon that
does not conform to our subjective a priori forms of intuition. The violation of
the principle of separability gives us knowledge that is not conformed to our
subjective cognitive faculties. Quantum non-separability implies that even if our
cognitive faculties structure the way we perceive things, our knowledge may
reach beyond cognition and that things in themselves are in fact self-revealing.
There is an irreducible issue concerning quantum non-separability: that our
spatial intuition seems to have reached its limits, not epistemologically, but in
making sense of new empirical data. As d’Espagnat42 points out, it is impossible to
say anything more about the meaning of non-separability than that it is a violation
of separability. It is knowledge of a negative kind.

D’Espagnat’s Veiled reality

William Stoeger S. J.43 argues that it is important to believe that quantum theory
does tell us something about the nature of the quantum world as it really is, and
 Kant, Aquinas and Quantum Mechanics 161

that as our knowledge is challenged or reinforced by experimental evidence, that

belief becomes more nuanced and sophisticated. d’Espagnat discusses this
question in terms of veiled reality,44 which lies beyond the world of phenomena,
and is not directly knowable in the same way as empirical reality, nor is it
completely and radically unknowable. The importance of knowledge of a negative
kind is seen in the process of the limitation or break down of concepts being
revealed in the light of experimental falsification, which leads to a greater degree
of open-mindedness. In this respect, d’Espagnat suggests that, however fruitful
the assumptions of scientific materialism have been, the discoveries of quantum
mechanics, of indeterminism and non-separability, for example, show that these
assumptions are not absolutes. Therefore, they show it is scientifically legitimate
to explore other ideas, which have been rejected by the dominance of these
assumptions, and which may reflect more fully the complex, multi-layered, and
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holistic nature of empirical reality.

In d’Espagnat’s view, reality includes both the empirical reality of our
experience and the veiled reality that is knowable only partially and then in a
negative way in the boundary conditions between the two. This outlook
suggests a dynamic within the complex that is called reality. Here d’Espagnat
seems to be allowing there to be some correspondence between empirical reality
and veiled reality that suggests some notion of causality.45 For d’Espagnat, the
notion of causality deriving from the Humean principle that a cause must be of
the same category as its effect does restrict the definition in such a way that the
need for explanation remains unsatisfied, especially with respect to the relation
between veiled and empirical reality. By definition, such a restricted definition of
cause can only relate phenomena occurring in empirical reality, and cannot
be extended to causes within a veiled reality, giving rise to effects observable
as phenomena. He suggests, therefore, that the notion of final causes,
justifiably excluded from the classical physics of empirical reality, may be
applied within the context of relating veiled reality to phenomena in empirical
reality.

Thomas Aquinas—the dynamic of being

One senses that d’Espagnat in his notions of ‘‘veiled’’ and ‘‘empirical’’ reality, is
struggling for a unified conception of the world that is true to the challenge of
quantum mechanics, and especially non-separability and the participation
of the observer in constructing the phenomenon that arise on measurement,
but that he is still confined within the dilemmas of post-enlightenment
philosophy. When we move into the objective-participant perspective of Thomas
Aquinas, not only does the language change, it is also like walking in a different
landscape.
Aquinas is very much an empiricist. We are aware of the existence of
things because we rub up against them, deal with them, work on them, and
perceive them through our senses. For Aquinas, something exists because it
has being, but that is not to say that being is a property of a thing that exists.
 162 Theology and Science

Davies46 suggests that being (esse) means an ‘‘act of being or existence,’’ or as

Maurer puts it:

Being as act of existence is not a state, it is an act; it is not static nor a definable object
of conception. So Being is a dynamic impulse, energy, act.47

What then is the nature of being as described by Aquinas? For Aquinas, the
being of a thing arises out of the union of its form and matter. The form is what
makes a thing actual, as Aquinas wrote ‘‘form causes actual existence.’’ Aquinas
refers here to two types of form, substantial and accidental, and there is a
significant difference between the two. Substantial forms are what make things
what they are in themselves, or what in union with matter makes the essence of a
thing. If the substantial form of a thing changes then the thing becomes something
else. A union of a substantial form and matter produces a subject. Accidental
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forms, on the other hand, are those properties or characteristics of something that
if they change do not change the essence of the thing. Whereas substantial forms
relate to matter, accidental forms relate to subjects.
It would misrepresent Aquinas to understand being as static, and to regard
substances having being as inert, isolated and self-enclosed objects. For Aquinas,
being is dynamic. Doing, in the sense of action and activity, naturally follows
existence, and existence is manifested and fulfilled in doing. So God, who is pure
being, rather than static and self-enclosed, is self-manifesting, self-communicating
to the world, and that by the outgoing act of self-sharing enables all that exists to
participate in being, and so causes them to be. In a similar way, things that exist
express and realize their being through action and relation. According to Kerr, his
picture of the world is of a ‘‘constant reassembling network of transactions, beings
becoming in their transactions’’ and that ‘‘it is perfectly natural to think of (even
rocks) as intrinsically and spontaneously self-communicating, self-revealing
entities, and thus as substances always in relation.’’48
According to Aquinas, for a thing to be is to participate mutually in the being of
other things, and ultimately in the being of God. Dynamic relationship is the very
nature of existing, even for inanimate things. In this view, the principle of
separability appears to be an over-simplification of the way things are. The way
quantum mechanics treats entangled systems by ascribing one unified wave
function to the whole, as we have seen, leads to the notion of non-separability.
One part of an entangled system cannot be treated separately without influencing
all the other parts. The working of quantum mechanics and specifically the
violation of the principle of separability intimates a holistic, interconnected view
of the world that relates to the rich, subtle, dynamic relational, self-communicating
universe of Thomas Aquinas.

The dynamic of knowing

If the world has priority in the process of understanding, objects in the

world can be thought of as impinging or coming to the understanding mind.
For Aquinas, the mind’s active principle of intelligence49 is the potency of
 Kant, Aquinas and Quantum Mechanics 163

the mind to understand the world and all that is. Correspondingly, the world
and all that is, is potentially intelligible. This is not to say that the objects of
the world are intelligible in themselves, or in contrast, that they are utterly
meaningless and lacking in significance. Lonergan50 gives the example of a
beautifully produced book but written in a totally unknown language. While we
may appreciate the book, and realize that it is a thing of great significance and
meaning, it is hardly intelligible to us. For it to become intelligible, I need to be
able to read it.
In the act of knowing, the object activates the intellectual power of the mind. It
is when the two, the active object, and the dynamic intellectual power of the mind
are brought together and interact, that the intelligibility of the world is realized in
the act of being understood:
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The intelligent in act and the intelligible in act are identical . . . Our intellectual
capacities actualized are the world’s intelligibility realized.51

The act of understanding52 involves the mind drawing out or abstracting the
form from the object so that it becomes what Aquinas calls an intelligible species.
This process of abstraction may proceed through the mind comparing and
contrasting the object with the intelligible species that already inform the mind. It
is not therefore necessarily an original act in every instance.
When Aquinas speaks of that which is abstracted from the objects of the world
by the operation of the mind’s intellectual powers, he is referring to the forms of
those objects that are separated, by that intellectual act, from matter.53 That is not
to say that the form exists in the same way as when it is conjoined to matter, but
that it becomes realized in an intelligible species of the intellect. Aquinas insists on
the notion that our access to the world is direct; it is not mediated by
representations that bridge the gap between the world and our thoughts. When
an object is known or made intelligible, it is a case of the mind actually knowing
and understanding its form, because the form is realized as an intelligible species
in the mind, while the (prime) matter remains unintelligible. In the act of knowing,
the object of thought activates the power of the mind and the mind reveals the
significance of the object or perhaps more accurately, enables the significance of
the object to be realized; it is brought more clearly into the light. The process of
knowing is thus an active collaboration between the known and the knower, as
Aquinas writes:

Knower and known are one principle of activity in as much as one reality
results from them both, namely the mind in act. I say that one reality results, for
here in mind is conjoined to thing understood whether immediately or though a
likeness.54

Kerr55 makes the point that in a subjectivist orientation it is assumed that in the
act of knowing the objects of our knowledge are untouched and unaffected. By
contrast, for Aquinas, the act of knowing not only has a bearing on the knower,
but also, by making the object intelligible it is helping to fulfill its purpose. Its
status is changed though its participation in the knower.
 164 Theology and Science

From Aquinas’ objective – participant perspective, scientific method can be

seen as a conversation between the object of enquiry and the questioning of
the mind, aided by mathematics and experiment, rather than as a confrontation
between the structured mind and the unstructured empirical world, or as an
instrument for manipulating the world. Thus, the description of setting up an
apparatus to make a measurement of a quantum system as a question posed by
the mind to the object through the apparatus can be understood as a
dynamic interaction between object and participant that catches the spirit of
this reading of Aquinas. This interpretation of Aquinas has features that connect
to the Popperian view that science progresses through conjecture, refutation,
counter-conjecture.56
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It-from-bit and intelligibility

Wheeler’s notion of the self-excited, participatory universe has aspects that

correspond to Aquinas. The billions of bits of information that are gained in acts of
observation are read and made intelligible by the enquiring mind. Intelligibility
can thus be thought of as emerging out of the interaction between the observer
and the observed. However, Wheeler goes further and suggests in his notion of
‘‘It-From-Bit,’’ that the object itself emerges out of the synthesis of all the bits
of information that come to us. He constructs reality out of the iron posts of bits
of information without any particular reference to an objective reality to which the
information refers. The model of the universe as a self-excited circuit attempts to
solve the question of origins by avoiding any notion of a ‘‘stack of turtles.’’ Neither
observations nor information nor the physical events giving rise to observations
have priority.
For Aquinas, that we know something exists is the result of our having to do
with its outgoing act of being, but knowing what it is comes by a process in which
its substantial form is made intelligible by abstracting, comparing and articulating
it out of empirical evidence. The evidence that we actually have are observations
about its properties, or accidental forms. The substantial forms that are the
intelligible species of thought and articulated in words can be understood as
emerging out of our apprehension of accidental forms, in a way that is analogous
to Wheeler’s notion of ‘‘It-From-Bit,’’ but the difference is that for Aquinas, being
is prior to emergence, whereas for Wheeler it is itself an emergent quality.

Quantum events—from potentiality to actuality

Reflecting on the relationship between the wave function and observables in

quantum mechanics, Heisenberg57 made the connection between Aristotelian
potentialities (potentia) and the wave function in a superposition of eigenstates.
d’Espagnat58 remarks that ‘‘he (Heisenberg) seems to have considered that if you
wish to talk of things in themselves the natural language for doing so is the
quantum state, viewed as some sort of synthesis of actualities and potentialities,’’
 Kant, Aquinas and Quantum Mechanics 165

and that ‘‘the transition from the potential to the actual must remain somewhat of
a mystery.’’
D’Espagnat regards potentialities as being the set of possible results of a
particular measurement made on the system using an apparatus set up in a
particular way, which can be compared to Schrödinger’s notion59 of the wave
function as an expectation catalogue relating to a particular observable of the
system. If we are to speak of the wave function in terms of potentialities, then
they are strictly potentialities of a subject, not of prime matter, and are therefore
actualized in accidental forms, not substantial forms. To say that a quantum
state exists is all that can be said of it in itself. Everything else about it that we
may be interested in can be expressed as a wave function of potentialities from
which its actuality is educed or drawn out from these latent potentialities on
measurement. The actuality that is educed is known in terms of accidental form,
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and it is this accidental form, which manifests its substantial form. The wave
function is not, therefore, the thing in itself, nor is it the prime matter, which is a
constituent of the thing, but is a catalogue of the potentialities of the thing
relating to a particular observable, or accidental form of the system. The
potentialities that are actualized in accidental forms on measurement then
correspond to the registered phenomena of Bohr and Wheeler, or the elements of
empirical reality of d’Espagnat.
Therefore, the potentialities that quantum mechanics define in the wave func-
tion are knowable because through measurement they become actualities.
Before the event of measurement, they cannot be thought of as existing, but
on measurement, becoming actual, and therefore, receiving accidental form, they
are capable of being known. Somewhere in the event of measurement can be
found, in d’Espagnat’s phrase, ‘‘the mysterious transition from the potential to
the actual.’’60
Wheeler61 refers to the act of measurement on a quantum system as being like
an act of creation in a co-constructing universe. However, we can express
quantum measurement in the language of Aquinas as an aspect of the process of
eduction of an accidental form that actualizes the potentiality of the wave
function. The potentialities available to the event of measurement are rigorously
defined by the application of the operator to the wave function; for example, only
eigen functions of the operator can become actualities. Thinking of measurement
in these terms leads us to understand the formulation of the question posed to the
quantum system by the settings of the apparatus as an aspect of the form that
actuates.

Concluding remarks

Quantum mechanics poses two problems for a subjectivist – observing perspec-

tive. The first is the problem of how the subjective mind that understands within
the framework of its self-referential categories of thought, can accommodate the
irreducible facts, such as the violation of the principle of separability, that present
themselves at the quantum level. The second is the problem posed by these
 166 Theology and Science

awkward facts: what is their origin, if one holds to a radical agnosticism

concerning things in themselves?
The complementary approach of the objective – participant perspective, based
on the interpretation of Thomas Aquinas as presented here, which accepts
the objective, albeit wholly dependant, being of the world, is not caught unaware
by its surprising nature. From this perspective, the world in all its subtlety and
mystery leaps out at us, as it were, and asks for the light of our intellect to make it
intelligible. In this respect, the world is self-communicating and self-revealing, and
there is nothing in it that cannot, be understood, at least in principle. Aquinas
expresses the view that God may be known in and through creatures, because
God cannot create anything that is contrary to the divine nature. Creation as a
whole is a sacred text: it is both sacred and sacramental, a sign of what otherwise
is invisible because it is full of the divine presence through participation in God’s
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being. He wrote:

Sacred writings are bound in two volumes—that of creation and that of the Holy
Scriptures.62

and

In this life, we know God insofar as we know the invisible things of God through
creatures, as it says in Romans, chapter 1. And thus every creature is for us like a
certain mirror. Because from the order, goodness, and magnitude that are caused by
God in things, we come to a knowledge of the divine wisdom and goodness and
eminence. And this knowledge we call a vision in a mirror.63

This via positiva, or affirmative way, leads us into the joy and delight of God’s
creativity. Yet, while it is possible to affirm that we have a deep knowledge of
creation through which we may approach the divine nature, the questions raised
by quantum mechanics suggest that our knowledge is limited, and that we must
be cautious in this affirmation. As d’Espagnat points out, the discovery of the
violation of the principle of separability is knowledge of a negative kind: we only
know that the reality of the quantum world does not conform to the principle of
separability.
For Aquinas, the via positiva is qualified by the via negativa, which introduces
the notion of the contingency of all theological statements. The classic text of
negative theology64 is that of Pseudo-Dionysius,65 which puts forward the notion
of the unknowability of God. All images, words, and concepts ultimately fail to
express God. The person who approaches near to this divine darkness has to let go
even of the most sublime of divine names, because God’s incomprehensibility is
so radical. For Aquinas, the acknowledgement of divine incomprehensibility
was fundamental to his approach and enabled him to explore the divine
mystery from many angles. Kerr remarks: ‘‘there is a loose-endedness in
[Thomas Aquinas’] constantly repeated discussions of finally unresolvable
problems.’’66
Our theological thinking takes place within a conditional framework by
acknowledging the ultimate and radical divine incomprehensibility. In the light of
quantum mechanics, a further level of conditionality is introduced: that of
 Kant, Aquinas and Quantum Mechanics 167

the negative nature of our knowledge of certain aspects of the quantum world. We
may learn from classical theology, which holds the via positiva in creative tension
with the via negativa, how to reconcile a sense of the objective reality of the world
with the limited and conditional nature of our knowledge.

Endnotes

1 St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, II. 3, trans. Fathers of the English
Dominican Province (London: Burns, Oates and Washbourne, 1923).
2 D. Bohm, ‘‘A Suggested Interpretation of Quantum Theory in Terms of Hidden
Variables, Parts I and II,’’ Physical Review, 85 (1952): 166 – 193.
3 H. Everett, III, ‘‘Relative State Formulation of Quantum Mechanics: Thesis Submitted to
Princeton University March 1 1957,’’ in The Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum
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Mechanics, eds. B. S. DeWitt and N. Graham (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
1973); idem, ‘‘The Theory of the Universal Wave Function,’’ in The Many Worlds
Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, eds. DeWitt and Graham.
4 B. d’Espagnat, Reality and the Physicist (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
5 F. Kerr, After Aquinas (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), 26 – 28.
6 R. Descartes, Discourse on Method and the Meditations, trans. F. E. Sutcliffe (London:
Penguin, 1968), 102 – 112.
7 S. Gardner, Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason (London and New York: Routledge,
1999), 27 – 50; R. Scruton, Kant: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2001), 32 – 53; J. van Cleve, Problems from Kant (Oxford and New York: Oxford
University Press, 1999), 3 – 33.
8 I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 2nd ed., trans. N. Kemp Smith (New York: St Martin’s,
1965), Bxvi.
9 Ibid., 8: A343/B401.
10 A. Einstein, B. Podolsky, and N. Rosen, ‘‘Can the Quantum Mechanical Description of
Physical Reality be Complete?,’’ Physical Review, 47 (1935): 777 – 780.
11 N. Bohr, ‘‘Can the Quantum Mechanical Description of Physical Reality be Complete?’’
Physical Review, 48 (1935): 696 – 702.
12 Ibid., 11.
13 Quoted in J. A. Wheeler, ‘‘Law Without Law (1979 – 1981),’’ in Quantum Theory and
Measurement, eds. J. A. Wheeler and W. H. Zurek (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1983), 182 – 213.
14 E. Schrödinger, ‘‘The Present Situation in Quantum Mechanics (1935): A Translation of
Schrödinger’s Cat Paradox Paper,’’ trans. J. P. Trimmer, in Quantum Theory and
Measurement, 152 – 167.
15 J. A. Wheeler, At Home in the Universe (New York: AIP, 1994), 112 – 131, 23 – 46, 295 – 312;
R. P. Paul, ‘‘Relative State or It-from-Bit: God and Contrasting Interpretations of
Quantum Theory,’’ Science and Christian Belief, 17:2 (October 2005): 155 – 175.
16 J. A. Wheeler, Geons, Black Holes and Quantum Foam (New York: W. W. Norton and
Company, 2000).
17 Ibid., 16.
18 Wheeler, At Home in the Universe, 112 – 131.
19 Ibid., 18.
20 Ibid., 13.
21 R. Scruton, Kant: A Very Short Introduction.
22 Ibid., 21.
23 J. van Cleve, Problems from Kant.
24 Ibid., 10.
25 Ibid., 4: 88.
 168 Theology and Science

26 J. S. Bell, ‘‘Bertlmann’s Socks and the Nature of Reality,’’ Journal de Physique (1981):
41 – 61, printed in J. S. Bell, Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1993).
27 Ibid., 10.
28 Quoted in D. Howard, ‘‘Einstein on Locality and Separability,’’ Studies in History and
Philosophy of Science (1985): 171 – 201.
29 Ibid., 10.
30 Ibid., 10.
31 Ibid., 11.
32 Ibid., 2.
33 J. S. Bell, ‘‘Introduction to the Hidden-Variable Questions,’’ Foundations of Quantum
Mechanics (New York: Academic, 1971), 171 – 181, printed in Speakable and Unspeakable in
Quantum Mechanics.
34 J. S. Bell, ‘‘On the E-P-R Paradox,’’ Physics, 1 (1964): 195 – 200, printed in Speakable and
Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics.
35 A. Shimony, ‘‘The Reality of the Quantum World,’’ in Quantum Mechanics: Scientific
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Perspectives on Divine Action, eds. R. J. Russell, P. Clayton, K. Wegter-McNelly, and

J. Polkinghorne (Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory and Berkeley, Calif.: Center for
Theology and the Natural Sciences, 2001), 3 – 16.
36 Ibid., 35: 7.
37 R. Y. Chiao, ‘‘Quantum Nonlocalities: Experimental Evidence,’’ in Quantum Mechanics,
17 – 40.
38 A. Aspect, P. Grangier, and G. Roger, ‘‘Experimental Realization of Einstein-Podolsky-
Rosen-Bohm-Gedanken Experiment: A New Violation of Bell’s Inequalities,’’ Physical
Review Letters, 48 (1982): 91 – 94.
39 Ibid., 35.
40 D. Z. Albert, Quantum Mechanics and Experience (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1992).
41 Ibid., 26.
42 Ibid., 4.
43 W. R. Stoeger, ‘‘Epistemological and Ontological Issues Arising from Quantum Theory,’’
in Quantum Mechanics, 81 – 98.
44 Ibid., 4; B. d’Espagnat, Veiled Reality (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1995).
45 Ibid., 4: 208 – 210, 214 – 215.
46 B. Davies, Aquinas (London and New York: Continuum, 2002), 23 – 30.
47 St. Thomas Aquinas, On Being and Essence, trans. A. Maurer (Toronto: Pontifical Institute
of Medieval Studies, 1968).
48 Ibid., 5: 49.
49 E. Gilson, Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas (Cambridge: W. Heffer and Son Ltd., 1924),
189 – 212.
50 B. Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, 5th ed., eds. F. E. Crowe and
R. M. Doran (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992).
51 Ibid., 5: 27.
52 A. Kenny, ‘‘Intellect and Imagination in Aquinas,’’ in Aquinas: A Collection of Critical
Essays, ed. A. Kenny (London: MacMillan, 1969), 273 – 296.
53 Ibid., 46.
54 St. Thomas Aquinas, ‘‘Quaestiones Disputatae De Veritate,’’ in St. Thomas Aquinas
Philosophical Texts, trans. T. Gilby (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1951).
55 Ibid., 5.
56 K. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (London and
New York: Routledge, 2002).
57 W. Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy (London: Allen and Unwin, 1971).
58 B. d’Espagnat, Veiled Reality.
59 Ibid., 14.
 Kant, Aquinas and Quantum Mechanics 169

60 Ibid., 58.
61 Ibid., 18: 23 – 46.
62 St. Thomas Aquinas, ‘‘Sermons on the Two Precepts of Charity and the Ten Precepts of
the Law,’’ in Sheer Joy: Conversation with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality, ed.
M. Fox (New York: Tarcher/Putnam, 2003).
63 St. Thomas Aquinas, ‘‘Commentary on the Letter to the Corinthians,’’ in Sheer Joy, 73.
64 V. Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (London: James Clarke and Co.,
1957).
65 Dionysius the Areopagite, The Divine Names and the Mystical Theology, trans. C. E. Rolt
(London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1920).
66 Ibid., 5: 210.

Biographical Notes
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Roger P. Paul is Rector of Kirkby Stephen, Cumbria in the Anglican Diocese of

Carlisle, UK, and has been a Parish Priest for nearly 25 years. As well as degrees in
theology and social anthropology, he has a doctorate in Ecology (Open University,
UK, 1998). His most recent published article is ‘‘Relative State or It-from-Bit: God
and Contrasting Interpretations of Quantum Theory’’, Science and Christian Belief,
17:2 (October 2005): 155 – 175.