“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” — Matthew 24:35
There was a time when we thought that the world was made of stuff, matter, that is. During school we were taught that everything at its most basic level is made of atoms. Solid. That’s what we see.
The desk was solid. The wall was solid. Wood feels strong. My mother’s coffee mug was definitely solid (especially when it hit the floor and didn’t break).
I grew up thinking the world was solid. You put a glass on the table, it stays there. You press a key on your laptop, it presses back. You tap your phone screen and you feel the glass pushing against your finger. That’s just how things work. Or so I thought.
School taught me a bit of chemistry and physics, but it was YouTube that seriously surprised me. Feynman, Brian Greene, Al-Khalili, Rovelli, Carroll, and a dozen of other physicists tearing up my mental picture of the universe.
And the shocker is that these physicists say that nothing is truly solid. No thing is solid. Shocking, really, to know that the table you’re leaning on is mostly empty space.
Wait, What Do You Mean “Not Solid”?
Sounds like science fiction. If nothing’s solid, how am I sitting on this swivel chair?
Physicists aren’t saying matter doesn’t exist. They’re just saying our picture of matter is outdated. It’s not tiny billiard balls jammed together. Atoms are mostly empty space, and the ‘pieces’ inside aren’t little solid marbles at all—they’re more like weird ripples and fields.
Electrons aren’t little dots circling like planets. They’re probability clouds, regions where an electron is likely to be found. Protons and neutrons aren’t solid chunks either but bundles of vibrating energy fields.
Now to picture this. If an atom were the size of a football stadium, the nucleus would be the size of a fly in the middle, and the electrons would be like gnats buzzing near the stands.
And even that nucleus isn’t solid. What we call solidity is the result of forces. Forces, quantum rules like the Pauli exclusion principle. This rule says two electrons can’t sit in the same place with the same state.
Another force is electromagnetic repulsion that prevent particles from overlapping. Chairs don’t dissolve when you sit in them, but what you feel pushing back isn’t solid matter. It is the invisible rule doing their job.
LEGO Bricks You Can’t Touch
This is where the Quantum LEGO idea comes back. If atoms aren’t solid, then what are we actually touching?
Electromagnetic fields. The invisible force rules that keep particles in place and make them act as if they’re solid.
It’s like LEGO bricks that look solid from afar. But come in closer, and you’d see they’re really just little bumps, holes, and gaps that happen to fit together. They’re not held by glue. They click because of the way they’re made to connect.
In the same way, the world around us isn’t stuck together by stuff. It’s held in place by invisible forces and rules. They’re the built-in instructions the universe has been following since the very beginning.
The Bible Saw This Coming
The Bible never describes reality as self-existent stuff. It talks about the world being upheld by God’s Word.
“He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” — Colossians 1:17
“The Son is… sustaining all things by his powerful word.” — Hebrews 1:3
The writers of the New Testament weren’t teaching particle physics. But their belief that reality is maintained moment by moment by God’s Word resonates with what modern physics shows. What seems solid is in fact dependent, relational, and held together by invisible forces.
John Wheeler’s Big Hint
Physicist John Wheeler famously said:
“No phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon.”
In strict physics, Wheeler was speaking about quantum measurement. It’s when something tiny in the quantum world stops being many options and settles into one outcome as soon as we look at it.
Wheeler saw that reality doesn’t simply sit there, finished and static. It comes into being through interaction. Scripture says reality comes into being through a Word. A spoken act that calls forth what did not exist.
I’m not saying Wheeler proved Genesis. I am saying his insight rhymes with it.
If Nothing Is Solid, Then Everything Is Spoken
Now if reality’s foundation isn’t solid matter, then the real foundation must be something deeper.
Not matter. Not even energy.
But instruction. Code. Word.
The LEGO set of creation wasn’t poured out of a bag of plastic bricks. It was spoken into being. And it holds together because the Builder sustains all things by His powerful word.
So yes, the day physics admitted nothing is solid, it wasn’t discovering something new, it was only catching up to what Scripture had been saying all along.