God is Real

Summary of the Book: A GOD THAT COULD BE REAL- SPIRITUALITY, SCIENCE, AND THE FUTURE OF OUR PLANET

Most of us still believe of the Biblical perspective of the world. We people commonly rely on the idea of God by a traditional manner, allowing ourselves to much immerse to what the teachings of the Church inculcates us, separating the scientific lens of seeing the world and its origin and then conclude that God is the sole creator of all that exists in this vast universe.

Nancy Ellen Abrams started her point to the prevalent issue concerning women in the society. How the world would discredit and treated women lesser than men. Without recognizing the major contributions of women in the development of the societal dynamism. This led Nancy to focus on the continuous inquiry of knowing the most popular issue of all times – the Existence of God and how the universe came into reality. For Nancy, 30 years ago, she believes that God was indeed a fiction. Her personal hold clings on the Cosmological perspective. It was way back then when her husband - a scientist had a thorough scientific investigation of the galaxies and able to discover that there were billions of galaxies made of stars. This discovery led to the premise that “you can’t know what can of the universe”, there are so many things hidden from the naked eyes that even the lens of the highly advance telescopic devise could not be of use.

Furthermore, Nancy expresses that the Big Bang theory seems far away of what this new discovery would present to humanity. This can be part of the unrestricted drive of human inquiry to know the realities that possibly exists, though it is at the tip of the whole truth of what is the reality. Modern scientists of today gave their whole being of unlocking the mysterious reality outside the parameter of the world. This enable the team of Nancy’s husband to further study on what these billions of galaxies can offer. This brings the quests of these scientists of the new discovery that even brightens the minds of the scientific explorations for many decades.

The discovery is centered on the reality that galaxies are made of atoms and these atoms are just a minute of the whole reality. For Nancy, 95% of the universe is made of the two newly discovered phenomenon. The Dark Matter and Dark Energy, these two are competing to each other in absorbing the tiny particles of galaxies in the universe. Only those beacons of light that we see are usually called the Galaxies. She added, below of these beacons of light lies the Dark Matter. Moreover, all is hidden in the Dark Matter and it is invisible to the eyes. This led to the group of scientists to predict the possible reality of these two compelling realities. The result of its stiff competition to each other resulted to the emerging realities. This directs Nancy to think that God is just a fiction and an intelligent Being did not create the universe. But this notion never re-route her to totally conclude that there’s no God at all. As a result, she contemplated of the existence of the “Super Power” but as far as her will and desire would want, still she could hardly arrive to what she expects for and even led her to misery but later on to the positive angle of reality, this brought her to the turning point of her life.

For her passionate desire of knowing the “Super Power”, she now started to listen and inter-act to people who have the faith of what she is looking for. This allows her to reach the point of understanding and even catering the reality of God. Her bases are the following:

1.     Acting as if God is real, then everything will open more possibilities. This allows her to create the idea of the “Scientific Concept of the Emergence”, that in everything there comes to a point that there’s unified dynamism of all that exists. Nancy cited the Ants, they don’t see but they only follow their way of living. The Ant colony for her is the “Emergent phenomena” which produces complex inter-actions of all its members. On similar ways, emergence is the source of the universe. It even digs down to the question if the universe is real or not. But with the proposition of the idea of the Emergence phenomenon, this would give sense that it just works and operates on its unified complexities.

2.     God as an Emergent phenomenon. The book presents the origin and the role of God as the person who took good care of the rest of the species in the world. In relation to humanity, this notion is reconciled to the reality of Aspiration. With aspiration, we are driven to be better, to love better, to possess better. Our aspirations shape us to be better persons. This is what Nancy believes that “God is endlessly emerging from the staggering complexity of all humanity’s aspirations, Inter-actions across time”. This would mean that everything that drives or ignites passion led all human beings to awe. These aspirations generated to interpret concepts like justice, love, and mercy. The search of the truth is an aspiration, same with the search of God. Thus, the “Emerging God did not create the Universe, but God created the Meaning of the Universe”.

3.     The concept of Spirituality. Nancy defined spirituality, as a personal experience of the connections to what to believe truly exists. She elaborated that if we cling to the obsolete image of God, then there’s a need for us to create a new concept of God that can be beyond in the physical realms. The concept of God must be coherent and acceptable to all. She describes this God as “a planetary phenomenon” that bridges the universe and humanity. This God for her can only be known through prayer that allows us to be aware of His divine presence.

4.     The new concept of God is directed to the reality that the Super Power Being be connected in every single individual of this universe. This concept for Nancy enables us to acknowledge the significant/intimate connections between God and humanity. The active involvement of God to the continuous development of all that exists on earth and that it provides a radical transformation to all the Creation.

5.     Nancy Abrams finally set the final stretch of her work and speaks about how God came to reality. Her notion centers to the “emerging God of the becoming.. the future depends on how we recognize the truth about the identity of God.

Thus, the book would recommend the essential concept of God that put meaning in our existence. For Nancy, she strongly suggests to “Find the God that suits for us, the God that lead us to the truth” and most importantly, the God that is real and emerging as present and actively inter-acting with humanity.

COULD ANYTHING ACTUALLY EXIST IN THE UNVERSE AS SCIENCE UNDERSTAND IT THAT IS WORTHY OF BEING CALLED GOD?

In our quest of finding the most reasonable way to attest the very existence of God, it has been a mystery for all of us on how all things in this world and even in the outer space had come to reality. We all know and sure enough that we are real and alive, to the extent we can even explore further what has given to us. This led both Religious and Scientific endeavor to extend more of the reality on how everything comes to existence since it all started from nothing. The search of the ultimate truth is still on the ongoing process of discoveries. In fact the two realities had ignited opposing views long time ago about the existence of God.

The Religious perspective took the first stand in teaching her belief system that God is the sole creator of heaven and of earth. For the Christians, God made all of His Creation within seven (7) days. He made humanity using His very own image and likeness. This belief system has established and formed out of the unwavering faith of humanity to God. This stand is greatly opposing to what the scientific reality would believe using the reliable information’s of data gatherings and advance scientific progress that can only be verifiable and quantifiable by the mere senses. For many scientists, only those factual informations are true and can be attested.

Furthermore, many scientists would have agreed that our existence was a result of so many theories about the universe particularly in our planet. Science would find it hard to reconcile the perspective presented by the religious thinkers that everything was made flourished through the divine initiative of God. Many scientific thinkers would challenge the religious ones to provide concrete ways of making their notion more verifiable and sensible, but since the position of the Church was deviant to those in the scientific field, it then resulted to division and misunderstanding since it was centered from the strong faith in the existence and interventions of God in human history.

There are also those believing scientists who played essential role in bridging the gap of the two groups. These are scientist who happened to be believers of God. They had presented an idea of putting God beyond any perspective of all Creation, the earth and outside its realm – the outer space. The famous Jesuit scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ had once fought for his stand, that science and religion are not opposing to each other but indeed in support and mutual relationship with one another. He believed that there’s indeed the real existence of the Supreme/Powerful Being/God who is responsible in the order, creativity, beauty and perfections of all the living and non-living beings.

For de Chardin, Creation story has been on its on-going process and even up to now; God is on His creative way for the continuous cycle of life and the significant participation and active-involvement of humanity as His co-creators. This led to some modern scientist who dedicated their lives in scientific explorations just to continue the significant discoveries that would enrich the totality of the existence of God.  

In the book of Nancy Ellen Abrams entitled “ A God that could be Real: Spirituality, Science and the Future of our Planet”, the bravest stand of the author as centered in the notion of God’s existence and of His Divine participation in the Creation Story of the universe. As an unbelieving scientist, Nancy would dedicate herself to arrive into the certainty, if the teachings of the Christians about God as the creator of everything were true and correct. This brought Nancy to conduct further investigations and she was lucky enough to collaborate with her husband’s team who had dedicated their lives for almost decades in continuous explorations just to have concrete explanations of God’s existence. In her book, she pointed out the dynamic discoveries outside the earth. From the existence of the billion of galaxies and to the new scientific stand that universe is not the most appropriate descriptions beyond but they had introduce the “multiverse” meaning the overlapping positioning of uncountable universe. Nancy also strongly believes that God wasn’t the creator of the universe. She explained the phenomenon that the existence of the universe was the result of the two competing energies: The Dark Matter and Dark Energy. For her, these two energies were responsible in all that has been in this universe. But her position does not limit her discoveries in the scientific perspective.

She also realized that these realities could also be associated to the real existence of the Supreme/Powerful Being that is responsible in adding meaning of the universe. This means that God was the one who put excitement, beauty, system and perfection to what has existed since then. She then concluded that this Supreme/Powerful Being could what the believers called God. This may be new to the religious groups and that can be a radical shift of their beliefs. But since, the Church of today is open to new discoveries and scientific discoveries, this can be acknowledged and subjected for more thorough investigations.

There are many theologians of today take this reality to be beneficial and can enrich the theological growth and development of the Church. For the aim of the author is to present the recent updates of what is explored outside the earth which would provide a greater perspectives. Nancy could strengthen the relationship of religion and science; faith can be enriched with the help of concrete scientific data informations.

This is the main point of the encyclical letter of Pope John Paul II “Fides et Ratio”, that our faith must be concretized with proper exercise of our peculiarity. Our reasoning must be guided by our strong faith with God for us to integrate the important contributions of science and religion.

Thus in this highly modernize world of today in which everything seems to be fast moving progress that at the blink of the eyes it all subject to change. Change is constant and beyond our control. The world of science and religion are now challenge by new discoveries but then what lies in common is the notion that all that exists is indeed in connection/relation with the “Super Being/God”.