An Emergent God

I am enjoying the ideas put forth by Nancy Ellen Abrams in her book A God That Could Be Real:  Spirituality, Science, and the Future of Our Planet.   You can hear the podcast on the Religion For Life podcast page or the KBOO podcast page.  

1. God is an emergent reality.
2. God did not exist before human beings existed.   
3. God emerged from the human mind and cultural evolution. 
4. New realities emerge from simpler components.  "No atom of my body is alive yet I am alive."
5. God is the emergent reality of humankind's aspirations to be something more than we are.
6. Thus God is real.  (As real as you and me, the economy and democracy). 

I have been enjoying this idea, playing with it, even trying it out in sermons.   I thought of the late Walter Wink who might have been on a similar path.  I always have liked this quote about prayer from his book Engaging the Powers.  It has more significance with an emergent God:

Prayer is rattling God’s cage and waking God up and setting God free and giving this famished God water and this starved God food and cutting the ropes off God’s hands and the manacles off God’s feet and washing the caked sweat from God’s eyes and then watching God swell with life and vitality and energy and following God wherever God goes. . ., p. 303