When I studied classical and statistical thermodynamics as a graduate student in the department of chemistry at Fordham University, I had it drilled through my head that the universe consisted of two moieties: matter and energy. One could be converted into the other, first expressed mathematically by Einstein in his famous equation, E=MC2, but neither could be created nor destroyed. It was assumed they were always present, in one form or the other, existing as the fundamental building blocks for all that composes the physical realm.

But the cover story on the August issue of Scientific American challenges that hypothesis. "Information in the Holographic Universe," by Jacob D. Bekenstein, examines the current theory proposed by John A. Wheeler of Princeton University that the foundation for the physical world is information. Energy and matter are merely incidentals.

Beckenstein explains, "The robot at the automobile factory is supplied with metal and plastic but can make nothing useful without copious instructions telling it which part to weld to what and so on. A ribosome in a cell in your body is supplied with amino acid building blocks and is powered by energy released by the conversion of ATP to ADP, but it can synthesize no proteins without the information brought to it from the DNA in the cell's nucleus. Likewise, a century of developments in physics has taught us that information is a crucial player in physical systems and processes."

I'll leave it to the Stephen W. Hawkings of the world to grasp all of the nuances of quantum physics contained in the article. What impressed me was the author's sweeping statement that "the answers [to Wheeler's theory] might be important clues to the ultimate theory of reality."

The apostle John waded into these same waters centuries earlier when he proposed that it was indeed information that existed before matter and energy. The first six words of his Gospel declare: "In the beginning was the Word."

The New Testament was written in Greek, a more precise language than English. When John chose the word Logos, translated as word in English, it was with a divine purpose in mind.

Strong's Book of Greek and Hebrew defines logos as "something said (including the thought); by implication a topic (subject of discourse), also reasoning (the mental faculty) or motive; by extension, a computation; specifically (with the article in John) the Divine Expression (i.e. Christ)."

The Wycliffe Bible Commentary explains that Logos is a word with Old Testament roots and "includes the concepts of wisdom, power, and a special relation to God. It was widely used, too, by philosophers to express such ideas as reason and mediation between God and the world."

This is hardly the first time cosmologists have inadvertently stumbled into a millennia-old biblical truth in their quest to explain the origin of the universe.

In an April 26, 2002 Wall Street Journal article, science editor Sharon Begley reported that some cosmologists have given up on the Big Bang. Instead, they proposed a "bouncing universe" that started from "a random blip [that] got things rolling, creating an infinitesimal bit of space-time from nothingness."

That theory has a familiar ring to it. The writer of Genesis declared: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void…" Theologians explain these verses describe the creation of the cosmos ex nihilo-from "nothingness."

That modern cosmological theories point to God should come as no surprise. God is capable of withstanding the most intense scrutiny from the scientific community. The sixteenth-century scientist Francis Bacon wrote, "A little science estranges a man from God. A lot of science brings him back."

John continues his Gospel exposition of the Logos, writing, "…the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God…And the Word became flesh." In so doing, he identifies God as the source of all information and Christ as its embodiment.

Even this truth resonates with the Scientific American article. Beckenstein concludes when a final theory [on the origin of the cosmos] is "concerned not with fields, not even with spacetime, but rather with information, the vision of information as the stuff the world is made of will have found a worthy embodiment."

"Real Answers™" furnished courtesy of The Amy Foundation Internet Syndicate. To contact the author or The Amy Foundation, write or E-mail to: P. O. Box 16091, Lansing, MI 48901-6091; amyfoundtn@aol.com. Visit our website at www.amyfound.org.