FROM GOD TO INFINITY, OR HOW SCIENCE RAIDED RELIGION'S PATENT ON MYSTERY

Recent efforts by theologians to align their discipline with empirical science have become outdated. Just as theologians reached a tentative agreement with secular thinking, the concepts of mystery once guarded by religious thinkers have been taken up by cosmological models in the new physics. This paper examines revolutionary developments in quantum physics over the last decade, pointing to an imminent convergence between scientific and religious concepts within a larger framework called synholism, derived from Friedrich von Weizsäcker. It also explores theoretical implications of hypotheses in high-energy physics such as cosmic consciousness and multiple universes.

Study at a glance

Abstract

The efforts of theologians in the last few decades to adapt their discipline to the methodological constraints of the “empirical sciences” have become obsolete. Just as many theologians have reached a tentative rapproachment with the “secular” mentality, the elements of mystery hitherto shepherded by religious thinkers have been appropriated in the cosmological models of the “new physics.” The paper explores revolutionary developments over the last ten years within quantum physics. It points to an imminent convergence between scientific and religious concepts within a larger framework of speculation termed synholism (from Friedrich von Weizsácher), and examines theoretical implications of such hypotheses in high‐energy physics as a “cosmic consciousness” and “multiple universes.”