The far reaches of theoretical physics

[Re. String Theory] Imagine that I give you a chair, while explaining that the legs are still missing, and that the seat, back and armrest will perhaps be delivered soon; whatever I did give you, can I still call it a chair?

Gerard ’t Hooft

String theorists do not make predictions, they make excuses.

Richard Feynman

(This is also from my Commonplace Book.)

I'm preparing a presentation for my coreligionists in our Adult Sunday School class, about the first clause of the Apostles' Creed. I have no quarrel with physics and physicists. They have, with the aid of our marvelous deep space surveillance technology, learned a great deal about the universe within which we, on Earth, are in infinitesimally small speck. But while I am on board with the Big Bang theory, I believe that theoretical physics breaks down as it approaches the infinite. Perhaps mocking String Theory is shooting fish in a barrel, but for we who believe in the existence of a Creator, it is . . . diverting, to say the least.