The New Cosmic Story

Inside Our Awakening Universe

By: John F. Haught

Narrated by: Chris Andrew Ciulla

A foremost thinker on science and religion argues that an adequate understanding of cosmic history requires attention to the emergence of interiority, including religious aspiration

Over the past two centuries scientific advances have made it clear that the universe is a story still unfolding. In this thought-provoking book, John F. Haught considers the deeper implications of this discovery. He contends that many others who have written books on life and the universe - including Stephen Hawking, Stephen Jay Gould, and Richard Dawkins - have overlooked a crucial aspect of cosmic history: the drama of life's awakening to interiority and religious awareness. Science may illuminate the outside story of the universe, but a full telling of the cosmic story cannot ignore the inside development that interiority represents.

Haught addresses two primary questions: what does the arrival of religion tell us about the universe, and what does our understanding of the cosmos as an unfinished drama tell us about religion? The history of religion may be ambiguous and sometimes even barbarous, he asserts, but its role in the story of cosmic emergence and awakening must be taken into account.

Jacket image by Evan Dalen, Stocksy United

©2017 Yale University (P)2017 Audible, Inc.

Wonderfully delicious!

This is a superb contribution to Big History, another gem from Haught, & a great text for those seeking to shake off the grip of reductive materialism.

deeply satisfying

reconciles Transcendence with evolution in a way that was startling for this former YE creationist

Articulates a compelling vision of reality

This was a beautiful articulation of a vision of reality I think is not only increasingly viable and largely true, but quite beautiful. The reductive naturalism Haught terms archaeonomy, as exemplified by the New Atheists, is rightly dying out, and the vision presented here I think has much to recommend it in contrast either to this or new religious fundamentalisms cropping up in reaction to the former view and liberalism's breakdown (I recommend John Milbank and David Bentley Hart for companion authors here, though the process theology and philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead is closest in kind I don't think it sufficiently takes account of the thick narrative givenness of our cultural inheritence and culture's inextricability from religion. As a Catholic along with the author, Haught's book at times could be perhaps criticized from a Christian perspective for not acknowledging the radical novelty of the incarnation in human and cosmic history, itself an exemplification of the newness of greater being during the cosmic unfolding of an infinished universe he so often (rightly) prounounces, but it is possible he is understandably attempting to reach a more widespread (and skeptical, scientific) audience by not emphasizing his own (presumed) religious commitments. That said, while he is perhaps less harsh on traditional religious worldviews (termed analogy here) which downplay the significance of the cosmos and temporality in favor of escape to an eternal present, I think his critiques of reductive naturalism hit harder, and his own anticipatory model would benefit from mutual sharpening, dialogue and integration with the best metaphysics of theology today (John Milbank's work, again I think would be a great partner as unlike many theologians he does affirm the value of time and creative novelty). It is a great critique of the more gnostic, dualist and escapist variants of traditional religious worldviews (esp those that deny evolution for instance), however, which trivialize the natural world, downplay or demybit's own interiority and our own developmental embeddednessnwithin the unfolding cosmos, and can I think imply an avoidance of genuine ecological awareness or ethics. Overall, while repetitive in hitting home the same points in each chapter which frames a different religious topic, the points are worthy of reflective engagement, and there is much beauty, goodness and truth here, and more thatnis pointed to.