God after Einstein: What’s Really Going On in the Universe?

This is an extraordinary book, a book of hope about the world, about human history and the history of the cosmos. It's also a difficult book to summarize, but I'll try. Professor Haught is doing very important work of reinterpreting Christianity in light of the findings of modern science. He is a theologian but also has a deep knowledge of physics. God After Einstein is in a way an extended meditation on Einstein's religious beliefs, Einstein's Theory of Relativity, and the Nicene Creed. If this sounds like heavy stuff, well, it is. But Professor Haught writes so clearly and explains his main points so well that a person like me can understand it even though I am not a scientist or a theologian.Haught's discussion of Einstein's religious beliefs is fascinating. I knew more about Einstein's physics than I did his religious beliefs although I had seen a few of Einstein's most famous quotes about God and religion. Einstein's God was not a personal God who was interested in human affairs or the unfolding of time. As Haught explains, Einstein's God was Spinoza's God. (Spinoza was a pantheist). Einstein's God was the timeless mystery that gave order to the cosmos. The key word here is timeless. Einstein believed that our sensation of the passage of time was an illusion. But, as Professor Haught points out, the Theory of General Relativity binds time to matter. Time is an integral part of reality. Furthermore, the science of thermodynamics has demonstrated that time is irreversible; it is always moving toward the future and cannot do otherwise. Time is very real, although Einstein was enchanted by eternity.As for religion, Christianity insists on the importance of time. The God of Abraham and Jesus is very much involved in the history of the universe. The Nicene Creed affirms that the Christian hope is one that looks forward to the "life of the world to come." Christianity is not about looking forward to an escape from time into an eternal heaven, although Haught certainly does not argue against a belief in an "afterlife." Haught stresses that Christianity is a religion of hope. It looks forward to the fulfillment of time. However, Christianity in the late Classical Age and the Middle Ages was deeply influenced by a Platonic view of eternity as the ultimate reality, which meant that our universe was ultimately rather pointless. Christian Platonism (my term, not Haught's) did not deny that the world was important in some ways, but our world in time was important only analogously to the ultimate reality, which is eternal.Haught stresses that the universe is a dramatic, unfolding story in time. Its meaning will develop in time, not in eternity. Haught describes his theology as anticipatory. God is not-yet. The universe is a story that is only just beginning. The universe is 13.8 billion years old, which sounds incomprehensible, but it will last for hundreds of billions of years. The universe is still very young. We do not yet know the meaning of the universe or exactly who God is because the story is just beginning. Intelligent life appeared only moments ago from a universal perspective. As Haught stresses over and over, we must be patient. We must allow the story to unfold, and we can trust that the story will be the victory of right over wrong because God is a God of time and change and drama, not a remote, changeless God, eternally indifferent to the fate of the universe. On the contrary, from the very beginning, from the calling of Abraham to God's dramatic entry into time in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, biblical faith has always been based on a belief that history has meaning. Our history and the history of the universe have meaning, but the story has just begun. The meaning is not-yet. We must be patient and live with hope.Haught describes three basic approaches to the meaning of time: the archaeonomic, the analogical and the anticipatory. The archaeonomic approach is basically that of scientific materialism. It is the world view of many scientists and philosophers and is essentially nihilistic. The archaeonomic view of time looks backwards. The universe began as a lifeless lump of particles, mindless and meaningless. Somehow these particles created conscious beings, but to the scientific materialist the emergence of consciousness was merely an accident. What is really real is the mindless lump of stuff at the Big Bang. It's a story "told by an idiot--full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Haught brilliantly points out the fatal flaw in the archaeonomic position: the scientists who believe that mindless matter is the ultimate reality nevertheless believe that their minds can be trusted to perceive the meaning of the universe. But if mindless matter is the stuff that makes up the materialist's mind, why should we trust those minds? Implicitly, even the scientific materialist believes that there is more to the story of the universe than mindless matter. At any rate, the archaeonomic view of the future is utterly despairing. The universe will die and take mind, consciousness, morality, and art into a meaningless abyss of everlasting nothingness. One wonders, if scientific materialists truly believe in the pointlessness of the universe, why do they bother to study it and write about it?Then there is the analogical view of time, discussed briefly above. Many, perhaps most Christians are in this camp. For them, ultimate meaning is in eternity, in an eternal now, where past, present, and future exist in the mind of God. There is no drama to this universe, no point to the passage of time. To the people who seek for meaning only in the eternal now of God, time is more or less pointless. The universe is a story that was told in its entirety at the very beginning.Professor Haught endorses the anticipatory view of time. He looks to the future where God is waiting for us. Time, in his view, is dramatic, an unfolding of a great story. How will the story end? Well, that's where patience and hope come in. The story is just beginning, but we can face the future with hope because God waits for us, as the Nicene Creed affirms, in the life of the world to come.I loved this book. It is a book of hope, based not on a rejection of science, but, on the contrary, fully consistent with the findings of science. Haught did not write this book to bash scientists and to cheerlead for religion. On the contrary, he has the deepest respect for the findings of science because it has revealed a universe that is a remarkable, unfolding drama. The pessimism of scientific materialism is based on a backwards view of time--reality is the mindless lump of particles that exploded at the Big Bang, and consciousness is merely an accident. But the story so far contradicts that point of view. The universe has created beings who feel, think, love, hope, and strive to understand. The universe is a drama, and to understand it, one must look forward, not backwards as the materialists do.This is one of the most positive, optimistic books I've ever read. It's inspiring. Haught is a pioneer in the endeavor to interpret religion in light of what science has revealed. In this respect, he has similarities to process philosophers like A.N. Whitehead and theologians like PIerre Teilhard de Chardin. God After Einstein is part of an important, ongoing conversation between theology and science. It's also mind-blowing fun.

This book is an eye opener, a mindset changer. It has great value to Christians because it lights the path to new hope based on the integration of science and faith. It also has value to humanists of all beliefs because it explains the value of paying close attention to what is going on in the cosmos, which is the cradle of humanity.

Overall, I have to give this book two thumbs up, but several problems have arisen, including Heights inability to separate Einstein the man from the Einsteinian, the event, which is used to characterize the current state of scientific and intellectual development and distinguish it from the previous states of development, which could be characterized as the Newtonian and the Aristotelian. For those of you who would like to pursue what all of this entails, allow me to recommend the opening chapters of Physics by Isaac Asimov and Mathematics for the Millions by Lancelot Hogeboom. Another problem is terminology, specifically his use of the terms Archeonomic, Analogous and Anticipatory. Outside of this book, I cannot find a use for, reference to, nor definition of the word "Archeonomic". It does appear to correspond to the term Humean. Likewise, the term analogous, as I have understood it, explains that human understanding is based on comparison, that is, we know by comparing. Thus we speak of "... allow me to explain by analogy...". In the Bible, this was accomplished with the use of parables. Again, what we have here is a critique of what I was told was "Liberal Protestant Theology" which developed during the latter portion of the18th century and expanded through the 19th century and ended, as such, in the early portion of the 20th century, with the research and writings of Albert Einstein. This Theology was developed to its greatest extent by the likes of Kant and Hegel. Therefore, instead of "Analogous", it would be better to refer to the "Kantian", or "Hegelian". Proper terminology might allow for lesser confusion, and on many points in this book, I was confused, or to say the least, found Heights arguments confusing.

Dr. Haught's work is thought provoking, clearly stated, and expansive. The subjective story of the universe, emerging in its development of complexity, cannot be told by objective measurement. Haught convincingly portraits the god of Einstein and Spinoza as an objective truth which cannot be discovered. Rather, its the subjective story of emergence in which we must find meaning, allowing objective science to frame the narrative.

For those who consider themselves "little picture/big picture" thinkers because they are aware that as we live our daily lives, what we think, say and do "little picture" things shapes and affects the "big picture" of our collective future on Mother Earth. I call this "coming to consciousness." In spite of some parts of the book being "over my head" a bit, I found great comfort and inspiration in a number of quotes. ". . . theology is the quest for reasons to hope in spite of the threats of meaninglessness, suffering and death," pp.7. Another: ". . . time is a courier of stories; and the essence of stories . . . is to carry meaning," pp. 17. "By passing on sacred stories from one generation to the next, religions have been able to tame the terrors of time and bring broad intelligibility to what would otherwise be frighteningly obscure," pp. 41. What I especially appreciated about this book is the author's inclusion of a "Summary" at the end of each chapter. Brilliant. The entire book is brilliant and one I will keep in my library.

Awakening to time’s movements by pointing to linguistic understanding of our contemporary influences. Very in-depth revelations for “ the way, the truth and the life” of the first born of many!!