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Title details for Reinventing the Sacred by Stuart A Kauffman - Available

Reinventing the Sacred

A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion

by Stuart A Kauffman
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Consider the woven integrated complexity of a living cell after 3.8 billion years of evolution. Is it more awe-inspiring to suppose that a transcendent God fashioned the cell, or to consider that the living organism was created by the evolving biosphere? As the eminent complexity theorist Stuart Kauffman explains in this ambitious and groundbreaking new book, people who do not believe in God have largely lost their sense of the sacred and the deep human legitimacy of our inherited spirituality. For those who believe in a Creator God, no science will ever disprove that belief. In Reinventing the Sacred, Kauffman argues that the science of complexity provides a way to move beyond reductionist science to something new: a unified culture where we see God in the creativity of the universe, biosphere, and humanity. Kauffman explains that the ceaseless natural creativity of the world can be a profound source of meaning, wonder, and further grounding of our place in the universe. His theory carries with it a new ethic for an emerging civilization and a reinterpretation of the divine. He asserts that we are impelled by the imperative of life itself to live with faith and courage-and the fact that we do so is indeed sublime. Reinventing the Sacred will change the way we all think about the evolution of humanity, the universe, faith, and reason.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 10, 2008

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9780465012404

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9780465012404
      • File size: 632 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      March 31, 2008
      Kauffman, a complexity theorist at the University of Calgary, sets a huge task for himself in this provocative but difficult book: to find common ground between religion and science by redefining God as not a “supernatural Creator” but as “the natural creativity in the universe.” That creativity, says Kauffman, defies scientific assumptions that the biosphere’s evolution and human activity can be reduced to physics and are fully governed by natural laws. Kauffman (At Home in the Universe
      ) espouses emergence, the theory of how complex systems self-organize into entities that are far more than the sum of their parts. To bolster the idea of this “ceaselessly creative” and unpredictable nature, Kauffman draws examples from the biosphere, neurobiology and economics. His definition of God as “the fully natural, awesome, creativity that surrounds us” is unlikely to convince those with a more traditional take on religion. Similarly, Kauffman’s detailed discussions of quantum mechanics to explain emergence are apt to lose all but the most technically inclined readers. Nonetheless, Kauffman raises important questions about the self-organizing potential of natural systems that deserve serious consideration.

    • Library Journal

      June 15, 2008
      Kauffman (biological sciences, physics, & astronomy, Univ. of Calgary) strives to present as guiding principle of this work a view of the impersonal creativity inherent in nature as an attempt to combat any "necessity" of belief in a creator God. Through this perspective, he offers a fresh angle in the ongoing debates concerning creationism, intelligent design, and evolution. Unfortunately, he runs into the problem that afflicts most other books in the faith and science genre: specifically, he argues a position from one side of the issue without any knowledge of the positions of the other side. Kauffman understands the matters of science at workand raises some valid philosophical questionsbut he does not understand or adequately deal with issues of faith, theology, or spirituality. As a result, we are given a title that is not only misleading but also one whose utility is severely limited. For special collections only.Dann Wigner, Wayland Baptist Univ. Lib., Plainview, TX

      Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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