VII. Our Earthuman Ascent: A Major Evolutionary Transition in Twindividuality

6. Bilateral World Religions and Science

Ward, Keith. God: A Guide for the Perplexed. Oxford: Oneworld, 2002. In this engaging book, the British theologian surveys historical responses to the Divine, admits to present quandaries between a pessimistic materialism and human hopes, and offers glimpses of an innately purposive cosmos.

In short, this cosmos could be a product of blind necessity, in which human lives are a mere flicker in a process which is bound to end in oblivion, as energy drains away over billions of years. But the cosmos could also be an arena intended for the realization of created powers which will generate consciousness, desire, intention, purpose and value, perhaps on countless planetary systems over countless aeons. (251)

Wegter-McNelly, Kirk. The Entangled God: Divine Relationality and Quantum Physics. London: Routledge, 2011. This Boston University theologian could be seen as fulfilling a “relational” turn for this endeavor, which now is advised from Lee Smolin’s physics (2013) to child psychologies (Overton). Since prior views of Divine activity “out of nothing” (creation ex nihilo) to “plenitude” (emanation ex deo) now pale, maybe this feature from the depths of physical nature of how everything seems to cross connect might be a better way to express God’s constant but subtle creative involvement.

Quantum entanglement is a physical phenomenon that occurs when pairs of particles are generated or interact in ways such that the quantum state of each member must subsequently be described relative to each other. Quantum entanglement is a product of quantum superposition.

In The Entangled God, Kirk Wegter-McNelly addresses the age-old theological question of how God is present to the world by constructing a novel, scientifically informed account of the God–world relation. Drawing on recent scientific and philosophical work in "quantum entanglement," Wegter-McNelly develops the metaphor of "divine entanglement" to ground the relationality and freedom of physical process in the power of God’s relational being. The Entangled God makes a three-fold contribution to contemporary theological and religious discourse. First, it calls attention to the convergence of recent theology around the idea of "relationality." Second, it introduces theological and religious readers to the fascinating story of quantum entanglement. Third, it offers a robust "plerotic" alternative to kenotic accounts of God’s suffering presence in the world.

Welwood, John. Toward a Psychology of Awakening. Boston: Shambhala, 2000. A psychologist steeped in both Western and Eastern modes of encounter advises a curative balance and synthesis of individuation and liberation, engagement or release.

The new vision we are needing is one that brings together two different halves of our nature, which have been cultivated in different ways on opposites sides of the globe. While the traditional spiritual cultures of the East have specialized in illuminating the timeless, suprepersonal ground of being - the “heaven” side of human nature - Western psychology has focused on the earthly half - the personal and interpersonal. (xi)

The diametrically opposite notions of ego strength and egolessness epitomize the seminal difference between the psychologies of West and East. Western psychotherapy emphasizes the need for a strong ego….Eastern contemplative psychologies, by contrast regard the ego….as ultimately unreal and unnecessary. (35)

Wilber, Ken. The Marriage of Sense and Soul. New York: Random House, 1998. An attempt to reunite the primordial religious essence as distinguished by its Great Chain of Being from matter to Divine mind with a fragmented science which claims reality is nothing but flat, mindless matter. Wilber’s method is to prescribe a neural and cognitive evolution whereby the old scale would be temporalized as a “Great Nest.” Its levels now represent the stages of life’s passage from matter to sensations, perceptions, images and on to concepts and spirituality in humans.

Zajonc, Arthur, ed. The New Physics and Cosmology: Dialogues with the Dalai Lama. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. A collection from the luminous discussions at a Mind and Life Institute conference in Dharmasala, India. Scientists and scholars such as Tu Weiming, David Finkelstein, George Greenstein, Piet Hut, Arthur Zajonc, and Anton Zeilinger met with the Dalai Lama to discuss deep convergences between quantum and cosmic physics and the essence of Tibetan Buddhism.

Zaki Kirmani, M. and N. K. Singh, eds. Encyclopaedia of Islamic Science and Scientists. New Delhi: Global Vision Publishing House, 2005. A four volume work whose introduction stresses that any reduction of nature must be joined by and leavened with synthesis in order to express, as the Quran teaches, the seamless unity of Divine Creation.

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