Deus Absconditus - The Hidden God

Deus Absconditus presents a radical natural-scientific account of why God is hidden from human beings. Neurophysiologist Michael M. Nikoletseas argues that before asking whether God exists, we must examine the cognitive instrument asking the question: the human brain.Every instrument has limits of scale, resolution, and sampling. The brain is no exception. It is a biological structure shaped by evolution to detect a restricted range of events necessary for survival-not to apprehend reality in its entirety. Drawing on neuroscience, comparative biology, and the theory of integrative levels, Nikoletseas considers the relationship between receptors, neurons, neuronal assemblies, brains, and conscious organisms. A component at a lower level cannot comprehend the larger conscious system in which it participates. The book extends this relation beyond the human organism: humanity may itself belong to a higher-order cognitive system that it is biologically incapable of perceiving or conceptualizing.Divine hiddenness is therefore not treated merely as an act of concealment. It becomes a structural consequence of the relationship between different levels of consciousness.Nikoletseas develops this argument through a close examination of biblical passages in English and Greek and through a critical engagement with Plato, Parmenides, Eriugena, Nicholas of Cusa, Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, Bacon, and Heidegger. The inquiry culminates in a distinction between God azeuktos-primordial, uncoupled Being-and God syzeuktos, a coupled and evolving higher-order consciousness emerging from the organized physical universe.This God does not stand outside nature as its completed creator. God syzeuktos depends upon the systems beneath it, develops as the universe unfolds, and may possess forms of consciousness, intelligence, personality, and will vastly exceeding human comprehension. The result challenges conventional assumptions about omniscience, transcendence, divine intervention, and the separation of God from creation.Neither an ontological proof nor a work of conventional theology, Deus Absconditus is an original investigation into consciousness, emergence, scientific method, and the possibility that the parts of the universe participate in a greater mind they cannot directly know.

Pagina's: 98, Hardcover, Indy Pub