5/13/15

I recently finished Karen Armstrong's A History of God (which I really enjoyed) and have started on Paul Knitter's Without Buddha I Could not be a Christian. On the way to work this morning, something Knitter wrote got my imagination going. On p. 17, he compares the Buddhist concept of inter-being and the non-duality of samsara and nirvana to Karl Rahner's description of "the supernatural existential," which Knitter summarizes as Rahner's claim that "our human condition is not just 'human' or purely natural because from the first moment of creation humanity is infused and animated by the grace of God's very presence. In other words, the 'Natural' is really the 'Supernatural!'"

As I was walking and reflecting on what that meant, it got me thinking of people like Isaac Newton, Spinoza, and the Faylasufs, who sought an understanding of God through the study of natural science, which in turn got me thinking about God and how modern scientific ideas about the world tend to have little room for a transcendent sort of consciousness (God?) that's "over all and through all and in all" (Eph 4:6).

Today, many scientists have a purely materialistic worldview, viewing all phenomena as being composed of matter, with consciousness being the result of material interactions. Consciousness, while not strictly material itself, is believed by many to be an emergent property of the brain and its various biochemical and physiological processes. Instead of an immaterial phenomenon, consciousness is seen as a network of sorts emerging from all these physical connections and interactions, and some recent studies do seem to support the idea that, as per one abstract, "awareness is associated with truly global changes in the brain’s functional connectivity."

But what about Rahner's 'supernatural existential?' Or Knitter's idea that, "With the word 'God' we're trying to get at an activity that is going on everywhere rather than a Being that exists somewhere. God is much more an environment than a thing" (19-20)? I started thinking about the vastness of the universe, with its multitude of stars and galaxies and fundamental forces of nature, and found myself wondering if maybe the universe itself wasn't some kind of infinitely large, cosmic brain giving form to an infinitely reflective consciousness. Like the old hermetic saying "as above, so below," might the structure of the microcosm (human brain) be in accordance with the structure of the macrocosm (universe)?

Admittedly, it seems a little out-there; but after I got home and did a little googling, I was surprised to find that it may not be such a crazy idea after all. I stumbled onto one article from Live Science, for example, that opens with the line, "The universe may grow like a giant brain, according to a new computer simulation."

The article continues, "The results, published Nov.16 in the journal Nature's Scientific Reports, suggest that some undiscovered, fundamental laws may govern the growth of systems large and small, from the electrical firing between brain cells and growth of social networks to the expansion of galaxies," which brought to mind another line from the Emerald Tablet: "That which is below is like that which is above and that which is above is like that which is below to do the miracles of one only thing" (Isaac Newton trans.). Maybe we're made in God's image more than we realize.