Fred and Todd used to debate theology and science. I stayed out of it because 1) their debates were so good, and 2) I’m an agnostic, a genuine one who genuinely reveres “maybe” in both science and my clinical work. I seek “big” answers but never trust this week’s insight.

Fred’s most recent letter triggered a shift in my thoughts.

I recently spent four or five years writing Rebellion and describing emergent processes in human conduct. That is, the patterns that we can observe in power laws, phase transitions, and oscillators also describe what we see in love and hatred, partnerships and war, and even our determination to live or to die. Yes, even suicide has its roots in connectivity or the lack of it!

It struck me – duh! – that the principles that are described in particle physics must also apply at a galactic level. Matter emerges from nothing, big things start as small things and through combination and recombination, expansion and collapse, growth appears.

Just “maybe” God is an emergent being, one that thinks, plans, and creates by processes identical to but more powerful than what we see in individual minds and nations.

Merry Christmas!