A compelling and sweeping argument that complexity theory can build a bridge between science and religion
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.
Choice “Kauffman, an outstanding thinker who has devoted much reflection to complexity theory, offers some insightful perspectives on the physical world in
Reinventing the Sacred…. This is an interesting book that will generate much discussion.”
Houston Chronicle
“Kauffman’s book is a rigorous intellectual quest not only to find the sacred in nature but to remove the taint of atheism from science.”
Scientific American
“[Kauffman’s] provocative argument for a different understanding of God is compelling.”
Science
“[Reinventing the Sacred] sparkles from every angle as its author gallops through the relevant science, philosophy, economics, history, ethics, poetry and – well, we had better use the word because Kauffman does: religion…. Bringing science and religion together globally in the way that Kauffman wishes is not going to be easy – as other ecumenical movements have repeatedly found – but it is necessary.”
Library Journal
“[Kauffman] offers a fresh angle in the ongoing debates concerning creationism, intelligent design, and evolution.”
Publishers Weekly
“Provocative…. Kauffman raises important questions about the self-organizing potential of natural systems that deserve serious consideration.”
Brian Goodwin, Co-author of Signs of Life: How Complexity Pervades Biology
“This brilliantly-argued book takes science into novel territory with clarity and conviction, and in Kauffman’s inimitable style it challenges some scientific taboos. With this book a new biology is emerging, and with it a new culture.”
Owen Flanagan, Author of The Really Hard Problem
“Stuart Kauffman is the new Spinoza. Reinventing the Sacred is a pedagogical tour de force as well as an uplifting metaphysics for the 21st century.”
Gordon D. Kaufman, Mallinckrodt Professor of Divinity, Emeritus, Harvard University
“This is a brilliant, new, comprehensive, scientific world-picture, and it deserves a wide reading in the educated public.”
Philip Clayton, Author of Mind and Emergence
“Reinventing the Sacred is a tour de force and a brilliant manifesto for a new emergence-based scientific worldview. But science alone will never be enough; humanity must also invent new categories of the sacred that speak to this naturalistic age. Stuart Kauffman courageously challenges fundamentalist pretensions on both sides, seeking to mold a new partnership of science and religious values...an epoch-making book.”
Kenneth Arrow, Nobel Laureate in Economics
“Stuart Kauffman has long studied the nature of complexity in biological systems. His new book shows in a startling way the power of these ideas in our understanding of ourselves and how we relate to the world around us. The sense of agency and of values, seemingly banished by the scientific viewpoint, are restored and enriched by a fuller perception of science deriving from biology as well as physics. Any reader’s views will be dramatically altered.”
Lee Smolin, Author of The Trouble with Physics
“Stuart Kauffman has written a wonderful book, as optimistic as it is provocative. He proposes a new scientific world view that not only incorporates reductionism, but goes beyond it to a vision of a self-constructed and continuously creative universe which can be understood and revered, but not always predicted. Knowledge and wisdom are different aspects of our humanity in Kauffman's universe.”
Shift Magazine
“Well-written and rigorously argued…. For this meaningful contribution to the quest for an era of sustainability, atheists and believers alike should be most grateful.”
