Mind and Emergence

Is it true that the universe evolves through an ever-expanding series of levels from quantum states to consciousness? Philip Clayton introduces the non-expert to emergence theory, one of the most revolutionary claims to be made about the natural world in recent years, and its significance for religion. Emergence is based on the recognition that the world continually produces new patterns, new structures, and new types of causal forces. Clayton discusses whether a transcendent force is luring the natural world toward higher forms of existence, or whether basic forces in the natural world are producing ever more complex phenomena, including the life of the mind and the ideas of spirit and of God (immanent emergence). He then offers a reformulation of Christian theology that brings it more in line with the new emergence-based understanding of the natural world.