Science and Ultimate Reality

by Wesley J. Wildman

Science and Ultimate Reality is about the constraints that the natural sciences place on theological theories of ultimate reality. The natural-theology ideal of scientific information about nature directly entailing some degree of knowledge about ultimate reality has struggled in recent centuries, despite its modest revival in Intelligent Design theory. The complete independence of theology and the sciences in regard to models of ultimate reality seems equally mistaken. This book defends a constraint-without-determination view of the relationship between fundamental physics and fundamental biology, on the one hand, and theological interpretations of ultimate reality, on the other. It demonstrates that multidisciplinary approaches to such basic questions in metaphysics and theology are necessary and fruitful. Wesley Wildman advances a constructive theological argument, revisiting basic issues at the junction of science, philosophy, and religion with a view to seeing if science can support a more adequate idea of ultimate reality. The conclusion points out that the antecedents of this religious naturalist Ground-of-Being view have classical standing within ancient philosophical and theological traditions in West Asian, South Asian, and East Asian cultural contexts. It argues that a Ground-of-Being account of ultimate reality in a religious naturalist metaphysical framework has great promise for theologians and religious philosophers working closely and compatibly with the natural sciences.

224 pages, Hardcover

Published December 31, 2023

About the author

Wesley J. Wildman was raised in a quiet corner of Australia, fell in love with universities, and became a professor in the United States. Dr. Wildman has been writing about philosophy, religion, and spirituality for thirty years. He is Professor of Philosophy, Theology, and Ethics and of Computing and Data Sciences at Boston University, as well as Professor II in the Institute for Global Development and Planning at the University of Agder in Norway. He is also executive director of Just Horizons Alliance and Chief Scientist of the Center for Mind and Culture, a nonprofit organization dedicated to non-partisan research on such complex social problems as social integration of immigrants and refugees, religious self-radicalization, spiraling suicide rates, and illegal child trafficking. Dr. Wildman is a well-published nonfiction writer, with titles such as Spirit Tech: The Brave New World of Consciousness Hacking and Enlightenment Engineering (with Kate Stockly; St. Martin’s Press, 2021) and Effing the Ineffable: Existential Mumblings at the Limits of Language (SUNY Press, 2018). The Winding Way Home (Wildhouse Publications, 2023), is his first novel.