God & the New Metaphysics

For those individuals who consider themselves to be en route, that is, to be on a philosophical or theological journey as opposed to already having arrived at a resolution to their cosmic-scale issues, this investigation may prove helpful. God and the New Metaphysics examines metaphysical and cosmological proposals for an alternate vision of reality. The title of this work is a deliberate play on physicist Paul Davies' volume, God and the New Physics. The difference is that whereas his approach is a scientific one, this study comes to the subject of God and cosmology from a philosophical and theological angle, while at the same time remaining sensitive to scientific concerns. The origin of the universe remains a scientific mystery, but once it was under way, additional mysteries surface. There is a gap in our understanding, presently at least, between the world of chemistry and the onset of biology. How life arose from non-life has not been resolved. Then there is also a gap between biology and psychology, namely how an entire host of metaphysical categories arose, or at least the alleged realities to which they point. These include mind, soul, spirit, consciousness, self-consciousness, awareness, and self-awareness. Mysterious too is not only how the world began but how it will end. While the current analysis cannot hope to unravel these mysteries once and for all, it engages the thought of some of those who begin to disentangle us from the metaphysical knots in which we have tied ourselves. In sequential order it will consult the work of Alfred North Whitehead, James Lovelock, Rupert Sheldrake, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, David Bohm, and sample the thought of several others for the insights they can bestow.