IRAS @ 60 and the Future of Religion and Science

A GOD THAT COULD BE REAL IN THE NEW SCIENTIFIC UNIVERSE

with Karl E. Peters, “The ‘Ghosts’ of IRAS Past and the Changing Cultural Context of Religion and Science”; Michael Ruse, “Why I Am an Accommodationist and Proud of It”; Nancy Ellen Abrams, “A God That Could Be Real in the New Scientific Universe”; Whitney Bauman, “Religion, Science, and Globalization: Beyond Comparative Approaches”; Zainal Abidin Bagir, “The ‘Relation’ between Science and Religion in the Pluralistic Landscape of Today's World”; Sarah E. Fredericks and Lea F. Schweitz, “Scholars, Amateurs, and Artists as Partners for the Future of Religion and Science”; and Willem B. Drees, “From Authority to Authenticity: IRAS and Zygon in New Contexts.”

We are living at the dawn of the first truly scientific picture of the universe‐as‐a‐whole, yet people are still dragging along prescientific ideas about God that cannot be true and are even meaningless (e.g., omniscience) in the universe we now know we live in. This makes it impossible to have a coherent big picture of the modern world that includes God. But we don't have to accept an impossible God or else no God. We can have a real God if we redefine God in light of knowledge no one ever had before. The key question is, “Could anything actually exist in the scientific universe that is worthy of the name, God?” My answer is yes: God is an “emergent phenomenon,” as real as the global economy or the government or the worldwide web, which are all emergent phenomena. But God arose from something deeper: the complex interactions of all humanity's aspirations. An emerging God has enormous implications.