Awe-Filled Wonder: The Interface of Science and Spirituality (Madeleva Lecture in Spirituality)

We live in extraordinary times of transformation when the growth in human knowledge and the expansion of consciousness have reached unparalleled proportions and are affecting the totality of our self understanding, of our worldview and the religions that have flowered there. The purpose of Awe-filled Wonder is to deepen our understanding of the impact that recent discoveries of science are having on our God-quest. The book hopes to stimulate thought, to encourage dialogue, to open up long needed questions--to legitimate them and explore where and how they have arisen. All human longing for the Ultimate is rooted in the context of the time in which it arises. It formulates its vision out of the language and symbols of its age in order to present a time-relevant approach to that which, nevertheless and at all times--in spite of all our striving, will remain holy Mystery.

Part One of the book identifies the implosion of our dualistic ways of understanding and interpreting reality and of naming our God. It explores the recent discoveries in the scientific community that have directly impacted this implosion and, in the light of the changes these invite in our understanding of reality, suggests the need for new religious metaphors and symbols.

Part Two of the book concretely engages the new. The author invites the reader to let go of a God image "above" or "beyond" us and to embrace one that experiences "presence," at-onement, the flow of Love as the energy that courses through the universe rather than "acting on it" from above.