IngentaConnect A Religious Interpretation of Emergence: Creativity as God

Author: Kaufman, Gordon D.¹

Source: Zygon, Volume 42, Number 4, December 2007 , pp. 915-928(14)

Abstract:

Thinking of God today as creativity (instead of as The Creator) enables us to bring theological values and meanings into significant connection with modern cosmological and evolutionary thinking. This conception connects our understanding of God with today's ideas of the Big Bang; cosmic and biological evolution; the evolutionary emergence of novel complex realities from simpler realities, and the irreducibility of these complex realities to their simpler origins; and so on. It eliminates anthropomorphism and anthropocentrism from the conception of God, thus overcoming one of the major reasons for the implausibility of God-talk in today's world—here viewed as a highly dynamic reality (not an essentially stable structure), with God regarded as the ongoing creativity in this world. This mystery of creativity—God—manifest throughout the universe is quite awe-inspiring, calling forth emotions of gratitude, love, peace, fear, and hope, and a sense of the profound meaningfulness of human existence in the world—issues with which faith in God usually has been associated. It is appropriate, therefore, to think of God today as precisely this magnificent panorama of creativity with which our universe and our lives confront us.

Keywords: anthropocentric; anthropomorphic; Big Bang; complexity theory; create/creativity; creativity1; creativity2; creativity3; Creator; emergence; emergence theory; evolution; faith; God; imagination; imaginative construction; mystery; new/novel; religious; science; serendipitous creativity; symbol; symbol system; universe

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9744.2007.00880.x

Affiliations: 1: Mallinckrodt Professor of Divinity Emeritus at Harvard University Divinity School, 45 Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138;, Email: gordon_kaufman@harvard.edu.

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