SCIENCE - Universal Synthesis: Evolution's Unifying Principle

Discover the synergy between christianity and science: Because god is love, creation is gods gift. The gift is his word, thanks to which nature is capable of becoming itself.

Christianity knows from the life of Christ and biblical revelations that God is Love (e.g., ESV: John 2:16; ESV: 1 John 4:7-12; Papal encyclical “Deus Caritas Est” Pope Benedict XVl, Vatican 25. December 2005). In the Christmas event, God, the Son of God, became human. Jesus Christ. The mystery of the Incarnation, that God can be God in that which is not God but a human being, is at the center of Christianity.
Incarnation is also at the center of the relationship between God and Creation. Why? Because the Word of God, that is, God, is also the creative center of Creation, of that, which is essentially not God! “All things came to be through the Word, and without the Word, nothing came to be” (Jn 1, 3). Here is the crux to “understand” the origin of Creation from a Christian perspective: Because God gave his creative Word away to Creation (to the World, to the Universe, to Nature), Creation is free to become itself!

The View From Science:

Moving ever closer to truth, modern science uncovered that there is just one universal creative process, from the original explosion to the emergence of selfconsciousness in human beings. At the center of the creative process is the phenomenon of synthesis, that unification of diversity into unity brings forth novelty (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: “The Human Phenomenon,” Harper and Row, 1955, p. 268). Since Teilhard wrote this, science has gained significant insights into the nature of the creative process; it is not teleological (as Teilhard suggested) but historical.

Why?

Because cosmogenesis has no program but is probabilistic complexification through (historical!) sequential syntheses.
One crucial discovery by modern science is that this historical process of sequential syntheses started with the Big Bang explosion about 13.8 billion years ago. Out of the homogenous, smooth, undifferentiated plasma, spacetime emerged. Space and time opened the possibility of starting the creative process. The essence of this process is the sequential emergence of novelty through integrating elements previously united. From the basis of quantum physics to the elements listed in the periodic chart to the complex molecules from which life and later consciousness emerged, unities and wholes have properties that their parts do not have: Unifying diversity into unity is the ontological principle that creates new existence. Spacetime was likely the primordial emerging “structure" within the original explosion; it brought forth the space where the sequence of synthetic events could occur. Because the creative process builds new existence sequentially, reality is layered. Quantum physics (that I do not understand!) is the bottom layer constructed by the creative sequence. Somehow, the laws of Nature, gravity, the weak force (radioactivity), the strong force (holding atomic nuclei together), and electromagnetism split, most likely from a single force. The new level in which the classical laws of physics and chemistry apply emerged from this deep layer of interacting fields. One important insight of modern physics is that matter did not emerge from atoms but from interacting quantum fields (Görnitz, Thomas & Brigitte: The creative cosmos - spirit and matter from quantum information, Heidelberg, Spektrum, (2002, 2006, 2013).
This insight might help “understand” how matter emerged from energy, according to Einstein's formula E=mc².
This insight might help “understand” how matter emerged from energy, according to Einstein's formula E=mc². After a few hundred thousand years, the original fireball cooled enough for electrons to join with nuclei to form hydrogen and helium (Steven Weinberg: “The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe,” second edition 1993).
Out of immense gas clouds consisting of these first atoms, stars formed. In their nuclear furnaces, more complex elements emerged through the fusion of lighter atoms (William Fowler: “The Quest for the Origin of the Elements.” SCIENCE 23 Nov. 1984 Vol. 226, Issue 4677).
Some aging stars exploded and spread the product of syntheses into interstellar space. From such clouds, solar systems formed (https://universe.nasa.gov/stars/ planetary-systems/). Our solar system came into being this way, and thanks to the available energy, e.g., from the sun, the synthesis of novelty could take off on Earth. The synthesis of molecules laid the foundation for the next layer, the synthesis of the complex molecules from which life emerged (Stuart Kauffman: A World Beyond Physics: The Emergence and Evolution of Life).
The rules of Darwinian evolution took over at the level of reproducing organisms. Consciousness emerged from the interplay between changing environments and adapting increasingly complex life forms (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/ blog/finding-purpose/202010/the-evolutionary-origins-consciousness). Further information: Please see the sequence on youtube.com titled: “CLOSER TO TRUTH by Robert Lawrence Kuhn. 1993).