Pandaemonium Part 8

So, having waited nine billion years for Earth to form, then held off another four and a half billion for his chosen species to fully evolve, He blows his wad early by sending down his messiah during the Bronze Age? If he wanted us to believe in Him and to live by His Word, couldn't He have hung on another infinitesimal couple of millennia and sent his miracle-working superhero amba.s.sador in the age of broadcast media and other verifiable means of record, instead of staking thirteen and a half billion years' work on the reliability of a few goat-herders in an insignificant backwater of a primitive civilisation?

'By the power of the Holy Spirit, 'He was born of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.'

Yeah, that seems to happen a lot with G.o.ds. The Greek myths are full of it: lonely virgin out on the hillside, gets impregnated by an, ahem, 'G.o.d', to explain why she's up the stick and there's no father in sight. Tracy O'Keefe should have tried that one when she had her wean in fourth year: It was a G.o.d that did it. He appeared on the hillside (or the Gleniston golf course, anyway), with a halo (okay, a gold hoop through one ear), and he cast a spell on her (got her fuelled up with Buckfast), then vanished back to his realm (ran off to boast to all his mates).

'For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate . . .'

Welease Wodewick! Welease Woger!

'He suffered death and was buried.

On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures . . .'

Because those things never never get rewritten after the fact. get rewritten after the fact.

'We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life.

Who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

With the Father and the Son he is wors.h.i.+pped and glorified.'

Wait a sec, didn't you say just a minute ago that you believed in one G.o.d? You've now listed three. 'Ah, but that's a Blessed Mystery.'

'We believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic Church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

We look for the resurrection of the dead . . .'

No we don't, surely. Not if we've seen any George Romero movies.

'And the life of the world to come.'

This will be world version 2.2, then, world 1.1 having presumably failed four and a half billion years of beta?

'Amen.'

Amen indeed.

V General McCormack glances up restlessly at the row of clocks on the wall. They are all set to different time zones, each bearing two extra designations supplementary to its military one, as a courtesy to the other const.i.tuencies represented at the facility. The one showing local time thus reads London, GMT and Zulu, but by any name, it demonstrates inarguably that the meeting should have started five minutes ago. Not long in Tullian's world, but to a military mind, surely an aeon.

They are in the Command Room, which on three sides could be the interior of any military building in the world, but from the fourth is an elevated perspective upon why right now it's more important than any of the rest. A vast single pane of specially developed reinforced Plexiglas affords a view of live rock adorned with pipes, cables, vents, dials and LEDs, plunging forty feet to the observation platform, then thirty more to the floor of what has been christened the Cathedral. The nickname had been a harmless irreverence that in retrospect now looked like an odiously mordant perversion. Down below, sustained by this vast steel, plastic, copper and fibregla.s.s respiratory system, and nurtured by billions of dollars' worth of research and technology, lies the greatest folly since the Tower of Babel.

The magnitude of its hubris has latterly been appreciated by the other men around the room, but the difference between Tullian and his military counterparts is that he is the only one to understand that the threat presented is not merely to man's future on this Earth, but to his ultimate fate in the life beyond.

McCormack may be visibly agitated, but Tullian, while concealing it better, is on tenterhooks.

'My a.r.s.e is making b.u.t.tons,' he recalls a joyously and unapologetically coa.r.s.e Irish colleague once remarking as they awaited the outcome of a vote. The issue at stake had meant more to Cardinal Daly and thus Tullian had regarded it as merely a colourfully crude remark. Here, today, he appreciates how close to the literal it was.

People imagined that military battles only took place in fields of mud and rubble-strewn landscapes. In truth, wars could be won and lost around oak tables like the one he was seated at right now. After four decades a priest, he was used to decisions being in the gift of superiors; and just as accustomed to decisions being in the gift of another estate. In both arenas, the arts of judicious lobbying and subtle persuasion could always tip the scales, and though he had found that the volatile factors of arrogance and caprice were less p.r.o.nounced when it came to the military, one could never rule out a change in the wind, so he was taking nothing for granted when the stakes were this high.

McCormack looks at the bank of clocks again. 'G.o.dd.a.m.n it,' he grumbles. 'Where in the h.e.l.l is Steinmeyer? If that sonofab.i.t.c.h can't be a.s.sed turning up to hear it from the horse's mouth, then he can't complain if he just ends up reading the news in his email.'

'He'll be here, sir,' urges Havelock anxiously, always Steinmeyer's advocate, even if Steinmeyer lacked the vision to notice this. The physicist had become so entrenched in his siege mentality that he saw enemies all around him and no longer had the sense to recognise who his allies were.

Tullian, despite his caution, can't help but feel relief seep in as he listens to McCormack's words. Hear it it, read the news the news. This isn't a meeting, it's an announcement, and there's only one announcement it could be.

He thanks G.o.d and with this thought immediately feels his relief turn to a different kind of anxiety, that which always accompanies getting what you had prayed for: a vertiginous uncertainty as to whether G.o.d was acting in approval of your desire, or granting your wishes in order to teach you a difficult lesson. In either case, it marked the onset of a great and testing task. When your prayers were answered, it was not a resolution, but a beginning: G.o.d was not taking matters into His own hands, but placing greater trust in your own. Even an act of G.o.d can be futile if the will of man is weak in response. Thus Tullian endures a burden of expectation underpinned by the driving, hollow fear of what it would feel like to fail.

I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth . . .

Cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnas.h.i.+ng of teeth.

'I swear, Havelock,' McCormack begins, prompting Colonel Havelock to get to his feet and move towards the door, perhaps intending to retrieve Steinmeyer personally. His intentions are rendered moot as the professor finally makes his appearance, with the fraught and agitated air of a man who doesn't believe he can spare even seconds for anything not immediately pertinent to his own agenda. Unfortunately for him, this is likely to prove more than merely an unwelcome distraction.

Steinmeyer looks as frantic as he does exhausted. Tullian guesses he has barely slept in a week, sustaining himself on caffeine and energy bars, relegating rest to the status of unaffordable luxury. Like Tullian, he must know what's coming; must have known it for days, which is why he has lashed himself to the mast and clung to the helm before time runs out.

Tullian feels for him, quite achingly so. Steinmeyer is a pa.s.sionate, driven man, whom he admires for qualities he sincerely aspires towards in himself. His desire is pure, his dedication is absolute and he has no thought for base rewards: not for glory nor riches, only for knowledge and truth. He has foregone both renown and remuneration, guided in his choices only by what will afford him the greatest opportunity to pursue his work, and cares not for posterity, wis.h.i.+ng simply to bequeath a legacy that may be built upon by those unknown who will one day follow him. Tullian wishes that in his church there were but a dozen cardinals of whom he could say as much.

However, the one quality Tullian can lay claim to that Steinmeyer lacks is the humility of knowing when something greater than your own pa.s.sion should be deferred to, regardless of how altruistic you believe that pa.s.sion to be. Steinmeyer has lost perspective through a process that began with his own selflessness - a difficult lesson that many a priest has learned the hard way - discounting the cost to himself of his work as of no regard. At the end of that path, unfortunately, lies a dark place where to further one's work, any any cost becomes a necessary price, no matter what may be wrought in its extraction. cost becomes a necessary price, no matter what may be wrought in its extraction.

Steinmeyer was lost in that place, consumed by a quest, as Marlowe put it in Faustus, 'to practise more than heavenly power permits'.

He stands at the edge of the table for a moment, as though hopeful that he can pay his scant regard to the meeting and then swiftly be on his way again. General McCormack gestures to a chair, the strain on his patience vented with a sigh.

'You better have a seat,' Havelock urges. 'This is important.'

Steinmeyer casts an arch glance towards Tullian, the implication of which is unmistakable: if the cardinal is involved, then as far as he is concerned, it clearly isn't isn't important. important.

The suffering physicist is consumed with anger to the point that it must be shrivelling his soul. Tullian has tried tirelessly to reach out to him, even just to help him talk through his grievances, but he's balled up too tight to accept any olive branches. His entrenched position is that he refuses to recognise any legitimacy to Tullian's presence here at all, regarding it as an affront to his scientific principles. Tullian can sympathise: he respects the boundaries between their respective domains, but it is for this reason that he deeply wishes he did did have no business here, and that Steinmeyer's att.i.tude was merely impolite. Unfortunately, the reality is that under the current circ.u.mstances, his obduracy is reckless, and worst of all, unscientific. have no business here, and that Steinmeyer's att.i.tude was merely impolite. Unfortunately, the reality is that under the current circ.u.mstances, his obduracy is reckless, and worst of all, unscientific.

'We're shutting it down,' McCormack says, before Steinmeyer's back has. .h.i.t the leather of the chair. 'There, Colonel Havelock told you it was important,' he adds with unnecessary spite, perhaps in retaliation for being made to wait.

Steinmeyer all but gags on the news, and while he searches for his voice, McCormack presses the point home.

'You can spare me the histrionics, Professor. This can't be coming as a surprise.'

Steinmeyer's nostrils flare as he fights to control his rage. Tullian feels his own pulse increase in the fear that the professor will do something rash, as they are surrounded by strong and dangerous men, most of whom are only marginally less tired and overwrought than Steinmeyer.

'Lucius,' Havelock implores, 'we appreciate you're gonna be angry, but don't go burning any bridges here.'

There is silence for a long few seconds, then Steinmeyer speaks.

'It's no surprise, General,' he concedes, though his tone implies that this is the only concession he's about to make. 'I realised you had suffered a terminal failure of nerve back on day one of the anomaly, when instead of ma.s.sively expanding the scientific roster, you called in the chaplain. After that, it was only a matter of time.'

'Failure of nerve?' McCormack responds. He's very slow to anger, a difficult man to upset, but there is a growing exasperation to his demeanour that began long, long before this meeting commenced. 'You have no idea where your debts lie, Professor. It's only because of me that you were allowed to keep this freak show running. I'm the one who has kept the Pentagon in the dark about just how far off the reservation you've taken us here, and I may yet get handed my a.s.s for it.'

'Well I'd sure hate this epoch-making scientific discovery to have a deleterious effect on your career, General.'

'It's not my career I'm concerned about. There will be no shortage of wars for men like me to fight if we don't put a lid on this thing. It's potentially the biggest powderkeg this planet has ever seen.'

'Which is why you shouldn't be "putting a lid on it". You should be escalating this operation: there ought to be ten times the number of scientists down here in order to understand what we've discovered. Instead you sent half the science staff away after the anomaly appeared because you didn't want them to see anything they might tell somebody about. We've made a discovery that could change our understanding of the nature of the universe, that could provide the primer for the Unified Theory, and since then all we've had down here looking into it is a skeleton staff. Opportunities like this need men of courage, General. It's all right to feel awe, but can't you dial down the fear? You're all so scared.'

'd.a.m.n right we're scared,' the General thunders, slapping the table with the heel of his palm and knocking over two bottles of mineral water at the far end. 'Scared of more than it would even occur to you to imagine. A lot of people are scared, people who have greater responsibilities than compiling equations or separating quarks and gluons. When I say powderkeg, you think I'm only talking about what's coming through the looking gla.s.s. I mean, did you ever notice, over the past few years, maybe the odd time you lifted your head up from the particle accelerators, that there are one or two folks out there in the world who tend to get a little bit exercised over the subject of religion? So don't you see how the ramifications of our little science project might just make every government on the planet a teensy bit nervous?'

'We can't halt our quest to further our understanding on account of the superst.i.tious fools who wish to wallow in ignorance. Knowledge is the antidote to superst.i.tion, General.'

'Yeah, Professor, it would work like that, because people would read the fine print and sift through the scientific interpretations, wouldn't they? Jesus Christ, man, can you imagine what kind of hysterical apocalyptic s.h.i.+t would be unleashed upon the world if just one of those things got out, or if people even just started hearing rumours rumours about what we've found here?' about what we've found here?'

'We don't know know what we've found here,' Steinmeyer replies furiously, his bloodshot, caffeine-strung eyes bulging in his indignation. 'Finding out what we've discovered is the point of the exercise. It's called science.' what we've found here,' Steinmeyer replies furiously, his bloodshot, caffeine-strung eyes bulging in his indignation. 'Finding out what we've discovered is the point of the exercise. It's called science.'

'No, Steinmeyer, this has turned into something way beyond G.o.dd.a.m.n science, and you're too intoxicated by it to admit you're out of your depth. You came here looking for the fabled graviton. You even warned me that if you could merge gravity with the other three forces, it might warp the fabric of s.p.a.ce-time and create a miniature black hole. But you ain't telling me you were expecting any of this this s.h.i.+t.' s.h.i.+t.'

'Well I sure as h.e.l.l wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition. This was a scientific operation-'

'It is is - and always was - a - and always was - a military military operation,' McCormack reminds him. operation,' McCormack reminds him.

'Quite, and yet you've handed the reins to the Vatican's spook patrol.'

Tullian doesn't rise to the bait, though he did have to bite back a fleeting desire to say: 'No one expects the Spanish Inquisition.' Much as humour could, in his experience, be entrusted to defuse certain situations, this wasn't one of them. Steinmeyer's anger was driven by the awareness that he had already lost this battle; it would only blow itself out once he felt he had made his point, so attempting to make light of the situation would be counterproductive.

'Instead of research and a.n.a.lysis,' Steinmeyer continues, 'we've got crucifixes and exorcisms. We're at the frontier of a new scientific age and your response is to deploy methods from the twelfth century.'

'You unleashed f.u.c.king demons demons, for Christ's sake,' McCormack blasts back. 'It's the clearest case of Eminent Domain I've ever witnessed, and I brought in Cardinal Tullian because we had moved into territory where he's the expert, not you.'

'Oh, spare me me the histrionics. None of us knows what we've "unleashed", because Cardinal Torquemada here won't let my people near the ent.i.ties, at least not until after he's finished slicing and dicing.' the histrionics. None of us knows what we've "unleashed", because Cardinal Torquemada here won't let my people near the ent.i.ties, at least not until after he's finished slicing and dicing.'

'Professor, with respect - which you seem disinclined to show anybody else - it's my strong opinion that what's p.i.s.sing you off is not that I brought in Cardinal Tullian, but that since I did, the emerging evidence has been vindicating my judgment more than it has yours. The Cardinal is the leading-'

At this, Tullian raises a hand both to stay the General's defence of him and to indicate that he would speak for himself.

Steinmeyer already looks like he's not listening; or at least that he wishes to convey that he won't be. He stops short of putting his fingers in his ears and singing 'lalalala', but the intention is equally clear. Tullian responds by directing his words unavoidably towards him.

'I can only apologise to you, Professor, for intrusions and enc.u.mbrances that must seem as insulting as they do frustrating. If it's any consolation, I am, in fact, frequently embarra.s.sed by the respective positions we find ourselves in. I am as awed and as respectful as anyone of your abilities and achievements, and I wish, I sincerely wish that I had nothing to offer here but my admiration. I am a greater student of physics than you might a.s.sume: I read your paper on superstrings and the unification of forces back in 1994, and followed your publications until you dropped off the radar. Having discovered what you are working on and encountered you here in the flesh, it would therefore have been my considerable honour to defer to your expertise - were it not that I do know, exactly, what you have brought forth I do know, exactly, what you have brought forth. It is not a distinction I relish, but the truth is that I am the expert in the field your work has brought all of us into, and the body of knowledge I draw upon is not only thousands of years older than yours, but thousands of years older than even the church I represent.'

Tullian looks into Steinmeyer's eyes and sees a weary kind of scorn, the arrogant certainty that he had nothing to learn from parties he perceived to be at worst, enemies, and at best, obstacles. It's easy for him to recognise, as it's like looking through a mirror in time and seeing his own face reflected. Tullian had been just as arrogantly dismissive once too, before he came to learn that he couldn't afford to be. His task and his talent lay in reaching out to people, understanding them so that he could make them understand him. The tiny fragments that helped you piece together the greater truths could often be hidden in the least likely places, therefore there was nothing you could confidently overlook.

If only Steinmeyer knew how similar they both were, how much they had in common, and the extent to which they were striving towards the same truth. Like the physicist, Tullian had also dropped off the radar just as his star seemed on the rise, fading from view to undertake work that the outside world might never learn about. Having once been tipped to become one of the most pre-eminent churchmen in North America, he had been called to the Vatican in the late 1980s and promptly vanished from public life, never returning to an American diocese.

In truth, when he was summoned to the Vatican in 1988 and told he was being replaced as Bishop of Watercross, he feared it was a means of rebuke, especially when he discovered his new a.s.signment.

A science graduate who had been pegged a moderniser and - whisper it - a liberal, he had occasionally piqued the dismay of traditionalists by giving voice to his embarra.s.sment at the more primitive superst.i.tions that attended the Church in some of its less culturally developed outposts. Most senior clergy he had spoken to shared his opinion that the veneration of tacky statues, particularly in Latin countries, didn't reflect well upon the Church at large, not least because it was uncomfortably close to idolatry, but there seemed an unspoken rule that voicing this to the laity was somehow disloyal. Doing so earned him a degree of suspicion in certain quarters, which was partly his intention, because it was a debate that he wanted the Church to have. Unfortunately, having such a debate was regarded as providing a spectacle for the entertainment of the Church's enemies, and thus he garnered no takers until he upped the stakes by publicly admitting to a general scepticism over Marian apparitions. He did not say outright that he didn't believe in them, but he did express that he considered it significant that the recipients of these visitations, and those of poltergeist, tended to be p.u.b.escent girls, undergoing a confusing and emotionally unstable time in their lives. (Contrary to some reports, it was not he who also drew the comparison between Lourdes and Fatima and the Salem witch trials: that was an academic who appeared on a discussion panel with him at a seminar held, as fate would have it, in in Salem; but nonetheless, Tullian's failure to contradict him was noted.) Salem; but nonetheless, Tullian's failure to contradict him was noted.) The ensuing correspondence in American Catholic journals was joined by no less a figure than Archbishop Francis O'Hara of Chicago, speaking as a representative of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the church body responsible for appraising the veracity of such miraculous visions. The Archbishop accused Tullian of 'grudging awe and wonder', of 'forgetting that G.o.d does not owe man any proof', and signed off by telling him that 'conditional faith is not faith at all'.

Tullian did not grudge awe nor wonder, and his faith in neither G.o.d nor the Church itself was conditional. It was absolute. To quote Father Benedict Groeschel, a priest with a doctorate in psychology from Columbia: 'True belief is a decision. It's also a gift. Accept the gift and you will make the decision.'

One didn't have faith in in Christianity: faith Christianity: faith was was Christianity. O'Hara was correct: faith was absolute or it was nothing at all. Belief was both its own justification and its own reward. Thus it was embarra.s.sing to suggest that G.o.d should be handing down vulgar trinkets in the form of mystical signs or miraculous interventions, and for His church to be offering theological bread and circuses. Equally, the practice of science and the quest for knowledge, for facts, was not a search for reasons to believe. Christianity. O'Hara was correct: faith was absolute or it was nothing at all. Belief was both its own justification and its own reward. Thus it was embarra.s.sing to suggest that G.o.d should be handing down vulgar trinkets in the form of mystical signs or miraculous interventions, and for His church to be offering theological bread and circuses. Equally, the practice of science and the quest for knowledge, for facts, was not a search for reasons to believe. Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe: John 20:29.

If you needed to feel wonder, wasn't Jesus enough? If you wished to thrill with awe at the presence of G.o.d, wasn't His creation enough? This world, this universe? Tullian loved science - physics in particular - not because it offered proof, but because when you already had faith, then in science lay a deeper appreciation of both the hand and the mind of G.o.d.

There was a fas.h.i.+on for offering cosmological reasons to suggest that the insignificance of our tiny planet vanis.h.i.+ngly reduced the likelihood of a divine purpose behind our existence here. This argument could be distilled down to: 's.p.a.ce is much bigger than we thought it was a few centuries back, so the smaller we get in the big picture, the less likely it is that there's a G.o.d.'

In fact - and these most certainly were facts - the sheer unlikelihood of us being here at all, on this tiny little sphere, orbiting a minuscule star, in a minor planetary system two thirds of the way out from the centre of just one of a hundred billion galaxies, demonstrated entirely the opposite.

There was life on Earth because it was situated just the right distance from the sun in what was known as the 'Goldilocks zone' of the solar system: not too hot and not too cold, protected from asteroids by the gravity of Jupiter, and orbited by a moon just large enough to stabilise the planet's climate for the hundreds of millions of years necessary for DNA to develop. Our solar system itself was in the Goldilocks zone of the galaxy: far enough from the radiation field spewing from the vast black hole at its heart; close enough to the centre to allow the higher elements to form.

All of this, coupled with the infinitesimally precise fine-tuning of the laws of cosmological and subatomic physics that allowed the universe to exist at all, was a source of awe and wonder at G.o.d's glory that dazzlingly outshone every other miracle, never mind every tacky Third World shrine.

All of this Tullian expressed in an impa.s.sioned and heartfelt letter to the archbishop that humbly sought to correct his misapprehensions, and though it succeeded in doing so, it unwittingly altered the course of his own fate.

Less than a year later, he received his summons - to come to Rome and work for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

He interpreted it initially as a chastis.e.m.e.nt. He had always feared that his stance on Marian apparitions would come back to bite him. However, in an organisation as Byzantine as the Church, you never knew whose path you might have crossed, nor even the agenda you had become a part of. Thus such a rea.s.signment could be a punishment intended to rein in an upstart, but just as easily it could be a lesson handed down by a senior figure who nonetheless agreed with you, but still thought you needed to learn greater humility. This would never be made explicit, however, as the lesson of the latter often required the belief that one was undergoing the former.

To this end, he was given several months of bureaucratic busywork: immersing him in the finest details of the Congregation's undertakings, methodology, reports and even expense procedures, until debates, seminars, science journals and his beloved Watercross Cathedral back in Ma.s.sachusetts all became a sepia-tinted memory as he began to believe he had been banished to some kind of ecclesiastical gulag. Then, one stifling August afternoon, Archbishop O'Hara appeared unannounced, handed him return flight tickets to Paraguay, and finally revealed to him the real reason he had been called to the Congregation.

'One is coming who is mightier than I,' O'Hara said. 'He will thoroughly purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.'

Tullian was to become the primary filter through which all reported miracles, visions and apparitions had to pa.s.s before further consideration by the CDF. His remit, as the Congregation's Chief Scientific Adviser, was to investigate objectively but sensitively, then compile reports on his findings, which would be pa.s.sed on for further consideration - or not, as the case frequently turned out.

He flew back and forth across the world, investigating weeping and even bleeding statues, glowing paintings, spontaneously occurring images of Jesus and (more frequently) the Virgin. He spoke to sometimes sincere, sometimes frightened, sometimes confused, sometimes conspicuously attention-seeking witnesses. He uncovered frauds and cranks, disclosing inventive uses of chemistry to effect miracles involving paintings and statuary, and on several occasions ensured that certain 'visionaries' subsequently received the medical and psychiatric help of which they were in genuine need. He exposed the human hands behind most of the 'spontaneously occurring' images, learned how frequently the outline shape of the Madonna and Child resulted when two conjoined branches were removed from a tree, and discovered just how subjective one's interpretation of any image could be once the beholder had decided what they wanted wanted to see within it. to see within it.

Of course, it didn't necessarily mean that these investigations ended with his report. His findings were sometimes 'taken under advis.e.m.e.nt' and a second investigator dispatched, to look into the matter further 'with a fresh pair of eyes'. The first time this happened, leading ultimately to the verification of a vision in Chile, he entertained the unworthy notion that part of the reason he had been appointed was that it added authenticity if the CDF could say that its most sceptical scientific investigator had examined the case (omitting, of course, what the sceptical scientific investigator's report actually said). However, this cynical thought failed to factor in the question of who, in that case, he thought the CDF were trying to convince. Though his sequestration had been revealed as an instance of head-hunting rather than punishment, he came to understand that humbly gaining a new perspective upon the realm of miracles and their perception within the Church was, perhaps purposely, part of the result.

Naturally, it often came down to politics or other such sensitivities: a localised boost to religious devotion could be both timely and expedient in a world increasingly beset by secular influences. The Church had many enemies, and Tullian came to accept that there were greater evils than an overzealous local priest exciting his paris.h.i.+oners' fervour with an old statue and some creative use of phosphorus. Sometimes, however, people simply needed hope. Even if the shot in the arm was synthetic, the hope it gave was not itself false. Sometimes, belief in something false was like a temporary bridge to support pilgrims on the journey towards greater, true faith.

And very occasionally, he did encounter something that defied explanation and that made him tremble in recognition of a power greater than man's. Unfortunately, as he was to discover, that power would not always be a higher one.

By 1999, his continuing interest in physics had led him on to the emerging attempts to reconcile the Newtonian with quantum mechanics, most promisingly in the form of string theory, with its implications for the existence of six higher dimensions, albeit that these were imagined to be curled up smaller than an atom. Within this burgeoning field, the concept of membrane, or M theory, if true, had implications that were as exciting as they were disturbing; and in theological terms, had implications more profound than science had posed since Darwin.

In M theory, there were not ten but eleven dimensions, or 'branes', and rather than being minute, it was suggested that some of them might be infinite in extent. One hypothesis for the creation of the universe was that these higher branes were in an eternal process of stretching and contracting, moving between energy states, with their collisions giving rise to new universes. There was a soph.o.m.oric atheistic argument regarding the vastness of the universe and its abundance of s.p.a.ce supposedly making it absurd that Heaven and h.e.l.l might be accommodated somewhere else altogether. Tullian could imagine its proponents rejoicing at the notion of infinite new universes being created between the branes, when in truth this hypothesis only served to ill.u.s.trate the plausibility of higher and lower realms existing in completely separate dimensions to our own. It was hardly a new concept to those of faith. What really excited Tullian about the membrane hypothesis was that it finally got past Einstein's necessity for a beginning of time - of time itself being created, like s.p.a.ce and matter, in the big bang, with no such concept as time preceding it. M theory, while not fully implying a world without beginning as well as a world without end, did at least suggest the 13.7 billion years of our universe could be a mere blink in G.o.d's eye.

Truly head-spinning was that these other universes and higher dimensions, despite being infinite in size, might be less than an atom's width away.

One of the great questions facing physicists was why the force of gravity was so weak in comparison to the other three forces. The nuclear forces were strong enough to power suns and level cities. The strength of the electromagnetic force compared to gravity could be ill.u.s.trated by pitting a toy magnet from a Christmas cracker against the gravitational pull of the entire planet and seeing which one wins the tug of war over a paper clip.

Nonetheless, the gravitational pull of our (and every other) galaxy was far larger than its ma.s.s dictated according to Newton's laws, an effect attributed to the existence of dark matter, the invisible ent.i.ty that was hypothesised to account for up to ninety per cent of the universe's ma.s.s. However, according to M theory, gravity might in fact be as strong as the other forces, but appears weak in our three-brane world because some of it leaks into higher-dimensional s.p.a.ce - meaning dark matter might have a more astonis.h.i.+ng explanation than previously imagined. In M theory, because gravity was caused by the warpage of hypers.p.a.ce, as well as leaking from our three-brane world into a fifth dimension, it could also pa.s.s across universes across universes. A galaxy in a parallel universe would therefore be attracted across hypers.p.a.ce to a galaxy in our own. Thus the gravitational pull of our own galaxy measured stronger than Newtonian physics dictated because there was an invisible galaxy behind it, floating on a nearby brane.

As Tullian put it in a letter to the now Cardinal O'Hara in 2002, the ma.s.s represented by these 'shadow galaxies' could equally be something more familiar. Dark matter, the missing ma.s.s of the universe, could const.i.tute the traceable physical signature of the higher realm. Unfortunately, there was no reason why it couldn't also signify the physical presence of the lower one too.

Throughout modern Catholicism, there was all manner of half-c.o.c.ked pseudo-philosophical nonsense spouted by people who professed to believe in G.o.d and in an afterlife (which most were too gutlessly coy to call Heaven), but not in h.e.l.l, and most definitely not in Satan. Tullian would have to own up to his own historical equivocation on the matter, and his reluctance to let human individuals off the hook for their values and decisions by handing them such a get-out clause as the existence of an external, autonomous and omnipresent source of evil. Nor was he ever comfortable with the suggestion that G.o.d would condemn even the lowest of his human subjects to an eternity of suffering: the idea that something so base and fleeting as a human being could provoke an inexhaustible need for rest.i.tution from the Eternal and Almighty was sheer conceit on the part of man.

However, very few would argue with the idea that evil exists in chaos. That it is in man's efforts to free himself and his world from chaos that he frees himself also from evil. The universe started in chaos, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics dictated that it would end in chaos too: entropy always increases. Therefore, if G.o.d had given man the free will to shape his own fate, was it in man's power - was it, in fact, potentially mankind's fate - to somehow d.a.m.n himself? The existence of a darker realm, and of man's technological advancement towards being able to verifiably detect it, opened up some very dangerous possibilities. If man could detect it, he asked O'Hara in his letter, how long before he could access access it? it?

A consequence of this idea of gravity leaking between dimensions, as Tullian read in one paper, was that 'quantum gravitational - and other - effects may be observable at energies replicable within large particle colliders, rather than at the Planck energy (1019 billion electron volts), as previously believed'. billion electron volts), as previously believed'.

It was the 'and other' part that truly disquieted him.