The Holism of the New Physics and Its Openness to the Modern Sense of the ‘Religious’

Abstract

AbstractIt is a fact that there are a variety of models of science and models of religion. Both are productions of knowledge (about the real world and about religiosity) and, therefore, necessarily depend on previous epistemological models. The holistic model of science today represents the predominant, expanding trend that has facilitated new avenues of dialogue with religion. This model has overcome the dogmatisms of past centuries and leaves humankind installed before an enigmatic universe that imposes a metaphysical uncertainty. The final truth could be God, but it could also be a universe without God. In this uncertainty there are also normal people, ordinary people, who are neither philosophers nor scientists. How do these ‘universal people’ access God by spontaneous intuition? Each person, the ‘universal human’, accesses God despite God’s silence before the universe and before human suffering. But an interest in reaching the fullness of life moves them to trust God despite God’s remoteness and silence. They accept God by believing in a hidden and liberating God. This is the basic structure of the religiosity of the ‘universal human’, according to the existential variables that concur in all people. It is the ‘religious universal’ that is in the essence of all possible human religiosity that we could qualify as ‘universal religion’. This ‘universal religion’ allows us to understand the harmony of Christianity with the common religious background of all religions. The kenosis of God in creation and the kenosis of Jesus on the cross speak to us of a God who does not want to impose himself but rather to install us in the uncertainty of a universe created for freedom. The ‘universal religion’ and the ‘universal Christianity’ should be seen as the point of confluence and dialogue between the Christian religions and the Christian churches.KeywordsEnigmatic universeEpistemologyHidden godHolistic modelInter-Christian convergenceInter-religious convergenceKenosisMetaphysical uncertaintyModelsRealityReligionScienceScience-religion dialogueSilence of godUniversal religion