© 1996 Byron Belitsos
© 1996 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
Be it fact or metaphor, the sense that the cosmos has a center is a primal intuition of humankind. Myths in numerous cultures depict this Center as the source of creation. Scientific observation in the Newtonian tradition also evokes the notion of a centered universe; Newton’s theory of universal gravitation pictures all objects as falling toward, or rotating around, various centers. Even the singularity theorem in modern cosmology provides a metaphor of a center-point of absolute cosmic unity from which space-time and matter-energy unfold.
Many of the postulates of contemporary science, if considered from a theological perspective, call forth the notion of a universal source and center from which the primal wholeness of the universe takes on its characteristic of unity.
Many of the postulates of contemporary science, if considered from a theological perspective, call forth the notion of a universal source and center from which the primal wholeness of the universe takes on its characteristic of unity. In other words, if the universe is truly One, if it arises from a single mathematical “point” that is ancestral to gravity, space-time, and mass-energy, wouldn’t this imply that it must have some central theological and cosmological characteristic around which this source-point is unified and organized? To understand the universe in such a holistic manner requires a blend of philosophical theology and scientific cosmology — of truth and facts. This stereoscopic depth-vision portrays God as the source and center of both the physical and spiritual universes; it projects a God of physical fact and philosophic truth — a cosmically theocentric universe. In the article which follows, we should like to present evidence for what I call a cosmo-theocentric model of the universe. This dual concept of a divine center serves as a cosmic porthole, if you will, between fact and truth. The notion of a Cosmic Center also provides a point of contact — a causal nexus — for God’s action in the natural world and a primary support for a new cosmological theology.
Our understanding of the universe has progressed from geocentrism through heliocentrism to a vastly enlarged view of the cosmos. We can see clusters of galaxies that appear to rotate around a so-called Great Attractor that is 300 million light years away — and beyond that, an even Greater Attractor. The recent discovery of the so-called Great Wall in both the northern and southern skies gives evidence of a remarkable large-scale structure, of an inexplicable lumpiness of galactic matter. It also confirms that galaxies are distributed in space like a disk — a Supergalactic Plane. Even at these unbelievable distances in the cosmos, scientists are finding overwhelming evidence of symmetry and emergent order at all levels of the organization of matter. Cosmic powers of self-organization are on display from the quantum level to the level of galaxy clusters. What kind of structure will we find at the final level?
Based on new observations of deepest space, astrophysics may well be on the verge of a breakthrough that opens the possibility of a Final Attractor. The most disconcerting revelations in recent years is the discovery of a large-scale sideways motion of galactic structures that is in competition with the outward movement of the “Hubble flow” which may provide the explanation for the baffling large-scale structures. This new data is so far “almost impossible to reconcile with any known model of the universe.”[1] And recently, large-scale motions of almost unimaginable proportions have been discovered. “If it’s right, the implications are horrendous,” says Joel R. Pollack at the University of California at Santa Cruz concerning these new observations reported in mid-1994. “It means all of the ideas are wrong.” [2]
The astronomical search for greater and greater attractors continues. This progression suggests that there may be a Final Attractor-a universal center of gravity of the whole universe. Such a Final Center would be capable of drawing all the galaxies of space — all the Great Attractors of all galaxy clusters — in grand rotation around itself.
Beyond the converging implications of astrophysics, the great historian of religion, Mircea Eliade, noted that a “symbolism of the center” is pervasive in myths and rituals throughout all cultures and times:
Every microcosm, every inhabited region, has what may be called a “Centre;” that is to say, a place that is sacred above all. It is there, in that Centre, that the sacred manifests itself in its totality…[The] symbolism of a Mountain, a Tree or a Column situated at the Centre of the World is extremely widely distributed. [3]
In cultures that have a conception of three cosmic regions some equivalent of heaven, earth, and hell — the “centre,” or axis munde as Eliade sometimes calls it — provides the point of intersection of those regions. Like Jacob’s ladder in the Old Testament, the hierophany allows a breakthrough to other planes of existence by virtue of its access to the center of all things and beings. Eliade points out, however, that such a Centre was not envisioned with the single, “secular,” geometrical implications that it has to the Western scientific mind. For each microcosm there may be several such Centres.
Traditionally, Christianity has always had a problem envisioning a geographic location of heaven; it was vaguely described as “up there” or “where God is.” From what point in the cosmos did God initiate the causal chain of existence? And how can God be both transcendent and immanent? For post-modern men and women these questions and answers tend to become language games. Modern relativity theory has given us further reason to reject the notion of a divine center. Einstein has shown conclusively that space cannot have a discrete center in the sense of Euclidian geometry. You cannot go in a straight line to the center of space-time; there is no absolute reference point in space-time.
Topologically, if there is a center of the cosmos in any sense other than metaphor, it must be located wholly outside of space-time as such. A centered cosmos must be dimensional beyond the four dimensions of Einstein’s space-time. Perhaps this extra-dimensional center is “the dwelling place of God.” Such a concept would also match the mythical symbolism of the “Centre” outlined by Eliade, where the body of knowledge of sacred things that constitutes a sacred center comes from outside of profane (secular) space.
Topologically, if there is a center of the cosmos in any sense other than metaphor, it must be located wholly outside of space-time as such. A centered cosmos must be dimensional beyond the four dimensions of Einstein’s space-time. Perhaps this extra-dimensional center is “the dwelling place of God.”
A unique blend of such paradoxical concepts is offered by The Urantia Book to which we now turn. The Urantia Book presents both the fact and the truth of a universe center. It reveals that a singular, factual, “heavenly,” Cosmic Center exists; this holy center is fully outside of space-time, and yet is paradoxically inside the natural universe as its absolute gravitational center and, amazingly, as the very “nucleus” of each quantum unit. It is therefore a “fact” of the fifth dimension, if you will, and yet an omnicentric “truth” in Einstein’s four-dimensional space-time.
In the Divine Comedy Dante sings of the poet who travels through hell and purgatory, and is eventually granted permission to ascend to the empyrean. His guide through the heavenly spheres is Beatrice. In the highest heaven, the poet is finally brought face to face with the Trinity, where the poet sees the nine orders of angels in the form of nine circles, spinning around the brilliant point of God’s light at the very center. Standing in utter loneliness before the divine luminosity, and gazing at its holy center, he observes that God’s light becomes three concentric circles shining as if a halo around His countenance.
Within its depthless clarity of substance
I saw the Great Light shine into three circles
In three clear colors bound in one same space. [4]
In one uncharacteristically poetic passage The Urantia Book represents the Trinity in a comparable way, as symbolized by concentric spheres: “The personal presence of the Universal Father is immediately surrounded by the personal presence of the Eternal Son, while they are both invested by the unspeakable glory of the Infinite Spirit.” (UB 11:1.1)
In The Urantia Book, God as Father is analogous to Dante’s “Great Light that shines into three circles.” The Father is “logically” primal — and central — in relation to the co-equal Mother-Son and Infinite Spirit. (The Urantia Book even presents the symbol of the Trinity as three concentric circles, azure in color.)
The Father is primal in relation to the Trinity, and he is also the “First Source and Center” of all other things and beings, whereas the Son and the Spirit are designated as the “Second Source and Center” and “Third Source and Center” respectively. The Primal Father has many phases of manifestation. In one phase, the Father is the source and center of the physical cosmos, by virtue of being the First Cause of its universal gravitational and energy center. This great center is called “Paradise;” The Urantia Book appropriates the multivalent term “paradise” from the scriptural and artistic traditions of Christianity and gives it a very different, modern twist.
God is the source of Paradise — what The Urantia Book calls the eternal, central, motionless “Isle of Paradise,” or “Eternal Isle.” Paradise is “from eternity;” it is actually causeless. But The Urantia Book uses the language of causation as a “philosophic concession…to the time-bound, space-fettered, finite mind of man, to the impossibility of creature comprehension of eternity existences…” (UB 0:3.23)
The Isle of Paradise is absolutely unique in the cosmos. It is the truly holy center of the universe of universes: “Paradise is the center of the force-energy activation of the cosmos — the universe position of the First Source and Center…” (UB 104:4.26) Amazingly, while it is both “physical”-a “central material object” — yet it is also a time-space transcendent body composed of an “absolute” material found nowhere else:
The eternal Isle is composed of a single form of materialization-stationary systems of reality. This literal substance of Paradise is a homogeneous organization of space potency not to be found elsewhere in all the wide universe of universes. It has received many names in different universes, and… [we] have long since named it absolutum. This Paradise source material is neither dead nor alive; it is the original nonspiritual expression of the First Source and Center; it is Paradise, and Paradise is without duplicate.
It appears to us that the First Source and Center has concentrated all absolute potential for cosmic reality in Paradise as a part of his technique of self-liberation from infinity limitations, as a means of making possible subinfinite, even time-space, creation. But it does not follow that Paradise is time-space limited just because the universe of universes discloses these qualities. Paradise exists without time and has no location in space. (UB 11:2.9-10) [Emphasis added]
Timeless and spaceless, Paradise is also, we are told, absolutely at rest and motionless. The Urantia Book has a great deal to say about the nature of space that is beyond the scope of this article. The concept of space is of course all-important in any cosmology. One amazing claim after another about cosmology emanates from The Urantia Book. Some of these are genuine predictions in the sense that they are verifiable or falsifiable by scientific observation. Perhaps the chief of these is that all extant galaxies are actually in procession around an absolute center of gravity. We have seen that recent astrophysical research on the “peculiar motion” of galaxies could lend itself to such a conclusion. This universal rotation around the Holy Center of Paradise is due to the fact that the eternal Isle “is the center and focal point of absolute material gravity.” (UB 11:8.2) [Emphasis added]
Intervening between observable galaxies and the Paradise Center is a central material creation, which The Urantia Book calls the central universe, or “Havona.” Out beyond the central universe are galaxies that rotate around the central universe in a counter-clockwise ellipse, which in turn is also rotating around Paradise. These are organized as seven massive galaxy clusters known as the “seven superuniverses.”
Your solar system and other worlds of time are not plunging headlong, without chart and compass, into unmapped space. The local universe to which your system belongs is pursuing a definite and well-understood counterclockwise course around the vast swing that encircles the central universe. This cosmic path is well charted and is just as thoroughly known to the superuniverse star observers as the orbits of the planets constituting your solar system are known to Urantia (our world) astronomers. (UB 15:1.2)
Scientists who have contemplated The Urantia Book have wrestled long with its controversial claim of a universe Center, around which all material creation rotates. It obviously flies in the face of a key principle of relativity, the contention that there is no unique physical reference frame in the universe, nothing motionless by which to measure other motions.
Yet there are many points of contact with modern cosmology. For example, Paradise as presented in The Urantia Book is not unlike the theoretic singularity of modern physics. In a sense, it is the ontologization of the singularity. Paradise is conceived as the “absolute” forerunner and source of matter-energy, gravity, and space. Is this all that unlike current notions that space-time and all other properties of the cosmos unfurled from some “point” outside of space-time? Yet the differences with today’s physics are manifold; Paradise — as the onto-singularity — is more than a mere mathematical construct. We are told that Paradise continues to exist — it exists “from eternity” and always will exist — even after the expansion of space-time from the theoretic singularity. Paradise is depicted as the center — the stationary nucleus — of all matter-energy, the absolute source of gravity, and the focal point of space. It’s rather a different entity than Milton’s lost Paradise, or the garden Paradise of Genesis, or Hawking’s Big Bang singularity!
Scientists who have contemplated The Urantia Book have wrestled long with its controversial claim of a universe Center, around which all material creation rotates. It obviously flies in the face of a key principle of relativity, the contention that there is no unique physical reference frame in the universe, nothing motionless by which to measure other motions.
God is portrayed in The Urantia Book as the Source and Center of both spiritual reality and the material universe. God is factually resident at the center of the cosmos: “The absolute personality of Deity exists on…Paradise.” (UB 0:3.13) “The Universal Father is cosmically focalized, spiritually personalized, and geographically resident at this center of the universe of universes.” (UB 11:1.2) Energy and spirit, fact and truth-all things divergent in the time-space universes — become one in the presence of the Father on Paradise.
How did Paradise “arise” in eternity? In the “eternal past,” The Urantia Book discloses that the first transaction was what modern theologians might call God’s kenosis. Kenotic activity in this sense signifies God’s choice to self-limit his unqualified infinity. He accomplishes this by “absolutizing” the Son, the divine Other. The Eternal Son is the absolute of personality. Simultaneously with this stupendous transaction, God became first cause of the absolute of his non-spiritual selfhood. In this eternity-moment: Paradise flashed forth from the Father. In the final eternity-transaction, this duality is resolved perfectly in the “eternity-appearance” of the Infinite Spirit, the harmonizer and unifier of the absolutes of spirit (the Son) and matter (Paradise). Thus the Trinity, in The Urantia Book formulation, has an absolute non-spiritual co-ordinate — Paradise.
In a very important sense, Paradise is also the absolute paradox. Waxing paradoxical, The Urantia Book depicts Paradise as “the geographic center of infinity.” (UB 11:9.2) Elsewhere the text says: “The Isle of Paradise has a universe location but no position in space.” (UB 0:4.12) In another passage Paradise is depicted as the largest material body in the universe, yet it is outside of space and time. In other passages, we are told that Paradise is the nucleus both of the whole physical cosmos, and of each ultimate particle of the cosmos. Thus, the concept “Paradise” stands for a radical one-to-many, whole-part dynamic in the cosmos. Its dynamism of paradox is worthy of the famous “the one and the many” dialectic of Plato’s dialogue Parmenides, or Hegel’s dialectical method in his Logic.
But among the startling declarations about Paradise, perhaps the most outrageous is this statement: Paradise is the Source and Center of the whole cosmos by virtue of being its energy source and gravity center, but it also interpenetrates the cosmos at the smallest scale as the nucleus of each indivisible part.
But among the startling declarations about Paradise, perhaps the most outrageous is this statement: Paradise is the Source and Center of the whole cosmos by virtue of being its energy source and gravity center, but it also interpenetrates the cosmos at the smallest scale as the nucleus of each indivisible part. In other words, the claim is that Paradise is at one and the same time the nucleus of each ultimate material unit of the cosmos, and yet, is also the source and center of Infinity — the totality of the physical (and spiritual) cosmos! How is this conceivable? In the final analysis, it is humanly inconceivable and utterly paradoxical:
It is will-nigh impossible for human logic and finite reason to harmonize the concept of divine immanence, God within and a part of every individual, with the idea of God’s transcendence, the divine domination of the universe of universes. (UB 5:5.6) But never can a creature understand how it is that this unity becomes duality, triunity, and diversity yet while remaining an unqualified unity. (UB 115:3.3)
It turns out that Paradise is paradigmatic of a radical, holographic whole-part relation that pervades all levels of reality. This feature of Paradise allows us to conceive of a special form of panentheism, to be considered later. The whole-topart dynamics underlying The Urantia Book’s cosmology is paradoxical and holographic, following the contours of the Paradise-concept. Not surprisingly, its theology follows the same complex dualistic-unity pattern, and the result is a radically panentheistic teaching. From this point of view, the theology of The Urantia Book can be restated as “God is in each one and each one is in God.” In one summary statement, we are told that “the creature not only exists in God, but God also lives in the creature.” (UB 3:1.4) This is held to be one of the secrets of the mystery of divine transcendence and immanence, according to The Urantia Book. It is also a central principle of the cosmo-theocentric model of the universe presented here.
Does contemporary theological cosmology or natural theology in any way ratify these claims? As a vehicle to get at this question, we will next consider existing theories that support the notion of the universe as “in” God. After this, we will turn the cosmic tables and look at ways in which today’s science-theology dialogue conceives of God as in each and every part of the universe.
Given the triumphs of modern science, one wonders what is left for God to do that is not already determined by natural law or self-organizing natural processes. But if we are to build a robust theological cosmology, a place must be created for “divine action in the world” which does not unduly contradict or override causal relationships shown by science to be intrinsic to the natural order, yet does not fall into the pantheistic fallacy of identifying these natural laws and processes as God.
The deistic God of the European Enlightenment is dualistically separate from the world, and acts only as an ex nihilo creator. Deists of those days and on up to Steven Hawking conceive of a God who sets in place the world’s “initial conditions” and laws of operation, and then retires from the cosmic stage of action. But this is unsatisfactory if we are to conceive of God as relational, as lovingly and actively involved with his creation and his creatures. The Christian theological tradition known as creatio continua addresses this richer notion of God’s ongoing engagement with his world following the creation ex nihilo. Creatio continua seems especially relevant in the light of the modern understanding of the universe as dynamic, unfinished, indeterminate, and in a state of emergence. Creatio continua suggests the presence and immanence of God at the heart of nature. [5]
The deistic God of the European Enlightenment is dualistically separate from the world, and acts only as an ex nihilo creator. Deists of those days and on up to Steven Hawking conceive of a God who sets in place the world’s “initial conditions” and laws of operation, and then retires from the cosmic stage of action.
What sorts of models have been suggested for understanding continuing creation? In Biblical Christianity, God is totally transcendent and yet immanent in his creation in mysterious ways: “Thou dost cause the grass to grow for cattle and the plants for man to cultivate. When thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created; and thou renewest the face of the ground.” (Psalm 104:14 & 104:30). And as wholly transcendent to his creation, God is capable of contravening natural processes in extraordinary divine acts such as the sending of manna to the Hebrews, or in the birth and resurrection and healing miracles of Jesus. Thomistic metaphysics offers the somewhat more sophisticated notion of a First Cause which acts instrumentally through secondary causes both in nature and in human activity.
The rise of earth sciences, evolutionary biology, and thermodynamics in the 19th century and Einsteinian cosmology in the twentieth has opened a new avenue for understanding creatio continua.
A growing number of theologians now stress the dynamics, indeterminacy, and novelty of nature (including human nature) as critical loci of God’s participation in the universe. In this perspective God is continuously creating the world anew, guiding and urging mankind toward fulfillment and consummation in the Spirit. [6]
It is in this connection that an entirely novel concept of causality has come into being. For several hundred years, reductionistic Western science has carried forth its project of attempting to predict the macroscopic states of natural systems through an exclusive attention to the understanding of their parts. But this method assumes a linear relationship of causality between parts and the behavior of the whole. We now know that there are a myriad of complex, non-linear natural phenomena that do not yield their secrets to such a reductionist program. These systems exhibit a striking characteristic of non-reducible hierarchical ordering. And these complex, chaotic and “dissipative” phenomena are inherently unpredictable, though deterministic. Anew model of causality is therefore required. Numerous scientific disciplines (as diverse as meteorology and neuro-immunology) have found it necessary to adopt a holistic, “downward,” or top-down model of causality. In many cases, this new holism simply replaces reductionistic “bottom up” explanations; in others, it complements them.
For several hundred years, reductionistic Western science has carried forth its project of attempting to predict the macroscopic states of natural systems through an exclusive attention to the understanding of their parts. But this method assumes a linear relationship of causality between parts and the behavior of the whole. We now know that there are a myriad of complex, non-linear natural phenomena that do not yield their secrets to such a reductionist program.
One notable attempt to inscribe such complex systems into a new cosmological theology is that of scientist and theologian Arthur Peacocke. He has proposed a model of God’s action in the world in which a transcendent God influences the system-as-a-whole of complex systems, constraining the total system in ways that determine the behavior of the parts toward whatever ends God purposes. In other words, the general state of the total world-system is influenced by God so that its holistic state becomes a “top-down” causative factor on the subsystems that comprise it. The divine causal influence comes from outside the system, as it were; therefore God’s “shaping” activity can be accomplished without contravening the natural laws of the systems. Peacocke directly compares this causal action of God to our understanding of how the total brain state determines bodily activity:
My suggestion is that a combination of the notion of top-down causation from the integrated unitive mind/brain state to human bodily action… with the recognition of the unity of the human mind/brain/body event…together provide a fruitful clue or model for illuminating how we might think of God’s interaction with the world…In this model, God would be regarded as exerting continuously top-down causative influences on the world-as-a-whole in a way analogous to that whereby we in our thinking can exert effects on our bodies in a top-down manner. [7]
Our thinking directly influences our bodies toward implementing our intentions. This according to Peacocke is roughly analogous to the way God interacts with the world. The key difference is that the “I” of personal subjectivity by definition does not transcend our bodies ontologically, whereas God’s subjectivity by definition does transcend the natural world. It is notable that Peacocke speaks of God’s personal agency in terms of “centering” influence:
When we act as personal agents, there is a unitive, unifying, centering constraint on the activity of our human bodies… God is here being conceived [also] as a unifying, unitive, and centering influence on events in the world. [8] [Emphasis added]
For Peacocke, the world is “in” God; God transcends nature, but acts upon it as a centering, unifying influence-and in some sense is its center. With this in mind, how can we conceive of God as being somehow “in” each part of the cosmos while yet fully transcendent in some manner perhaps resembling Peacocke’s model?
Many proposals have been advanced in recent years for explaining how quantum indeterminacy provides an opening for divine action in the world, for a genuine creatio continua. Among these, I have found the model advanced by theologian and philosopher of science Nancey Murphy to be the most compelling. As a balance to top-down models of divine causality, it provides a most serviceable approach to the notion that God is “in” each part of the cosmos.
We saw earlier that the Newtonian reductionistic model of reality melted away in the realization that most natural systems are complex, that is, non-reducibly hierarchical, and, in the case of chaotic systems, inherently unpredictable yet determinate. Nancey Murphy grants that “going to the top”-Peacocke’s top-down causation or whole-part constraint model — is the right move if we are to understand how God might influence such hierarchies. But another move is possible; Murphy shows how the “bottom-most level”-i.e., quantum events understood as ontologically indeterminate — allows for a “bottom-up” model of divine causation which is yet radically distinct from Newtonian reductionism. In fact, Murphy suggests that “we turn to a bottom-up account as the most plausible supplement to Peacocke’s top-down approach.” [9]
Unlike chaotic systems, quantum events are both unpredictable (though governed by probability equations), and indeterminate. Following most physicists, Murphy chooses to see them as ontologically indeterminate. But how does one interpret the real meaning of ontological indeterminacy in quantum events? Murphy eliminates from consideration (1) the pantheistic option that explains quantum events as somehow “self-caused,” (2) the nihilistic option that quantum events are totally random and undetermined, and, finally, (3) Einstein’s preferred option which holds that hidden variables are somehow at work. What remains? The only option left, amazingly, is “divine determination [of quantum events]…To put it crudely, God is the hidden variable.” Murphy calls this, boldly, “God’s bottom-up causation.” God can manipulate initial conditions at the quantum level, producing effects at higher levels as God chooses. [10]
We now have a locus for creatio continua. The upshot of Murphy’s analysis is clear. God is “in” each and all parts of his creation, indeed at the scale of individual quantum events. How does God act within electrons in ways that are consistent with what we call natural law? “God acts within the regime of law by actualizing, at chosen times, one or another of the built-in potentialities of each subatomic entity.”11 Nancey Murphy provides a bottom-up model that allows the participation of a transcendent God in each and every part of his creation.
Comparable forms of top-down and bottom-up divine action are embedded in The Urantia Book’s concept of Paradise. First, God acts on the physical cosmos through its Paradise Universal Center: “As a physical controller in the material universe of universes, the First Source and Center functions in the patterns of the eternal Isle of Paradise, and through this absolute gravity center the eternal God exercises cosmic overcontrol of the physical level…throughout the universe of universes.” (UB 1:2.10) This is the general mode of the top-down action of God in the physical cosmos. And there are many other forms of top-down causality emanating through Paradise-acting via numerous intermediate agencies — presented in The Urantia Book.
And second, Paradise acts from the bottom-up through its fractal pieces, the ultimatons. We have seen previously that Paradise is non-spacial, and that “space exists relative to Paradise…Paradise exists at the focus of space.” (UB 105:3.4) Moreover, the physical presence of Paradise at the focus of space is manifest in space as the instantaneous grasp of gravity at the level of the ultimaton. (Again, we refer here to the form of gravity denominated as “absolute gravity.”) This means that the universal overcontrol of the First Source and Center extends to the quantum level of matter. And this is but one of the implications of the disclosure that each ultimaton has the Universe Center as its nucleus. According to mathematician Philip Calabrese, the claim that each ultimaton is upheld by Paradise gravity means that “presumably, this is the true strong force.” In this connection, Dr. Calabrese also suggests that the Paradise-concept may be the secret behind the phenomenon of nonlocality:
Contemporary quantum mechanics… is confronted nowa-days by experiments described as “non-local reality” phenomena… Perhaps the answer to this conundrum is not “non-local” reality, but rather “omni-local” reality, the omni-presence of Paradise…in and near space. [11]
In view of this speculation, an obvious area for further research is physicist David Bohm’s concept of an implicate order underlying quantum indeterminacy. Could it be that the true “hidden variable” behind ontological indeterminacy is the presence of Paradise?
Although the concept of Paradise presented in The Urantia Book is novel, this article shows that evolutionary thought has envisioned pieces and parts of this master cosmological concept.
A modern theological perspective on the Big Bang singularity would also locate it in “sacred space”; even the most materialistic cosmologist would agree that the point of origin of the universe must be outside of space-time.
From comparative mythology, we know that a “symbolism of the Centre” is universal in prescientific cultures: in mythical thought, where a Center arises, there sacred space is. The hierophany cannot originate from within profane, three-dimensional space. A modern theological perspective on the Big Bang singularity would also locate it in “sacred space”; even the most materialistic cosmologist would agree that the point of origin of the universe must be outside of space-time. But no cosmology that I know of claims that the singularity of physics plays a creatio continua role as universe source and center. And nothing in thermodynamics points to an ongoing Source that reverses the “entropy arrow of time” and exists outside of time.
We have seen that some of the disclosures of The Urantia Book about science could be falsifiable by observation. Perhaps most important is my claim that the large-scale streaming of galaxies toward “attractors” may be evidence of universal rotation around an absolute gravity center. And it is not unthinkable that experimental particle physics may disclose the existence of ultimatons — beyond the obvious heuristic function of that concept.
Finally, the cosmo-theocentric theology of The Urantia Book offers exciting support for the panentheistic perspectives now emerging in theology. The teachings that Paradise — the dwelling place of God — is also the nucleus of the smallest units of the cosmos, is not unlike Murphy’s argument that God is indeed the “hidden variable” behind quantum indeterminacy. God also acts through his holy center as transcendent to his universe, not unlike the top-down causality of Arthur Peacocke.
In the final analysis, the ultimate validation of the stereoscopic vision underlying cosmo-theocentrism is religious experience. It is here, in sacred space, that we recognize the fact that we are in God, just as we intuit the truth that God is the First Source and Center of each of his children and of our universe — indeed our Holy Center.
Byron has been a journalist and television producer and is presently a consultant in the telecommunications industry.
“Unraveling the Universe,” Time, March 6, 1995, p. ↩︎
Galaxies in Motion,” Chronicles of Higher Education, April 4, 1994. ↩︎
Mircea Eliade, Images and Symbols: Studies in Religious Symbolism, (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1969), pp. 39-40. ↩︎
Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy: Volume III: Paradise, trans. Mark Mussa, 33-115-17. ↩︎
Robert John Russell, “Cosmology, Creation, and Contingency,” in Cosmos as Creation, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989), p. 182. ↩︎
Ibid, p. 185 ↩︎
Arthur R. Peacocke, “God’s Interaction with the World: The Implications of Deterministic ‘Chaos’ and of Interconnected and Interdependent Complexity,” in Chaos and Complexity: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, (Berkeley: Center for Theology and Natural Sciences, 1995), p. 285 ↩︎
Ibid, p. ↩︎
Nancey Murphy, “Divine Action in the Natural Order: Buridan’s Ass and Schrodinger’s Cat,” in Chaos and Complexity: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, (Berkeley: Center for Theology and Natural Sciences, 1995), p. 339. ↩︎
Ibid, p. 342 ↩︎
Philip G. Calabrese, Ph. D. “The Kingdom of God and The Cosmology of The Urantia Book.” [A paper presented at Scientific Symposium III for Readers of The Urantia Book, Oklahoma City, OK, on July 5, 1994.] ↩︎