Customer Reviews

In The Beginning...Creativity

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For religious people a challenge is to bridge their belief in God with scientific explanations of the world. There is a huge need for a new understanding of God that bridges these viewpoints, but there are few books by theologians that resolve the debate. Gordon Kaufman is Professor Emeritus at the Harvard Divinity School. His book is the first that makes a big step forward on this issue. Starting with the notion offered in the Bible of God as Creator he offers a proposal of God as "creativity". Creativity as a mystery that somehow was involved in the initial coming into being of the universe, in evolutionary processes, and in human symbolic creativity. With this modern understanding of God we can reflect on life in new ways. This framework means that God is only partly directed to human welfare. The larger part is directed to the power of the universe, and on earth to the balance of nature. Thinking of God as creativity implies that God can produce novel things from unknown causes as has happened in evolution. This framework is a scholarly step forward towards resolving the faith-science debate. It provides a framework where God is not Protestant, Jew or Muslim. And it plants protection of the environment as a foundation of moral life. Kaufman wants people to continue with their religious traditions, but with a bigger understanding of God. He is following the same theme Albert Einstein described in his writings on religion. And Kaufman's proposal complements the religious naturalist proposals of Ursula Goodenough. I liked this book because it gave me a workable understanding of God that allows me to reflect on where God-driven creativity is going on, and how individuals and societies can do better supporting divine creativities.

The seller's description said "brand new but the book is bent and torn a little at the binding." A more realistic description would be "brand new but a truck ran over it destroying and ripping the book's spine, rendering the book unreadable." The packaging was in good shape; the book was sent in this condition. Very dissatisfied. I will never purchase from this vendor again.