Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion
by: Stuart Kauffman
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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.
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.
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: 
- Reinventing the Wheel
I greatly enjoyed this book and its wide, yet shallow conversations regarding evolution, quantum mechanics, ethics, reductionism and the origin of life. All of the topics discussed are in my favorite pile so I couldn't help but like the book.
However, in today's world of growing atheism and the trend among the remaining believers for syncretism, I was hoping the goal of the book was to fall off the fence on one side or the other.The author certainly leaned toward the side of atheism ... Read More
Rating: - Kauffman Paints the Reductionist into a Tight Corner
Any new book by Stuart Kauffman, the well-known theoretical biologist, complexity theorist, and important Santa Fe Institute member, will be eagerly anticipated by all those interested in broadening their conception of modern science. Through his decades-long work on complexity theory and self-organizing systems, Kauffman has been one of the pioneers in applying complexity theory to biological systems, showing as a result that the biosphere unquestionably has genuine emergent properties, not reducible ... Read More
Rating: 
- God ?
I haven't actually read this yet, but I know from his previous writings that it will more than likely be a pretty balanced framework providing some very basic answers for more than most other 'theories'.
Rating: - REINVENTING THE SACRED: A VIEW OF SCIENCE, REASON, AND RELIGION BY STUART A. KAUFFMAN
Stuart A. Kauffman is the founding director for Biocomplexity and Informatics, is a professor at the University of Calgary, and is the author of The Origins of Order and At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity.In his new book, Reinventing the Sacred: A View of Science, Reason, and Religion, he attempts to create a natural linkage between science and religion, or at least between science and spirituality.On the one side there is religion and the idea that ... Read More
Rating: - Spinoza reloaded
OK, but... Well, Spinoza told the same in the XVIIs... God is Nature, he told, and demonstrated that with solid arguments.
- Reinventing the WheelI greatly enjoyed this book and its wide, yet shallow conversations regarding evolution, quantum mechanics, ethics, reductionism and the origin of life. All of the topics discussed are in my favorite pile so I couldn't help but like the book.
However, in today's world of growing atheism and the trend among the remaining believers for syncretism, I was hoping the goal of the book was to fall off the fence on one side or the other.The author certainly leaned toward the side of atheism ... Read More
- Kauffman Paints the Reductionist into a Tight CornerAny new book by Stuart Kauffman, the well-known theoretical biologist, complexity theorist, and important Santa Fe Institute member, will be eagerly anticipated by all those interested in broadening their conception of modern science. Through his decades-long work on complexity theory and self-organizing systems, Kauffman has been one of the pioneers in applying complexity theory to biological systems, showing as a result that the biosphere unquestionably has genuine emergent properties, not reducible ... Read More
- God ?I haven't actually read this yet, but I know from his previous writings that it will more than likely be a pretty balanced framework providing some very basic answers for more than most other 'theories'.
- REINVENTING THE SACRED: A VIEW OF SCIENCE, REASON, AND RELIGION BY STUART A. KAUFFMANStuart A. Kauffman is the founding director for Biocomplexity and Informatics, is a professor at the University of Calgary, and is the author of The Origins of Order and At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity.In his new book, Reinventing the Sacred: A View of Science, Reason, and Religion, he attempts to create a natural linkage between science and religion, or at least between science and spirituality.On the one side there is religion and the idea that ... Read More
- Spinoza reloadedOK, but... Well, Spinoza told the same in the XVIIs... God is Nature, he told, and demonstrated that with solid arguments.
