Stuart A. Kauffman, the founding director of the Institute for Biocomplexity and Informatics and a professor at the Univ. of Calgary, became a leader in the areas of self-organization and complexity, at the Santa Fe Institute in the 1990s and is the author of 3 other books in these areas.

Emergence of complexity is the key concept of this comprehensive book. After first describing the idea behind reductionism, he emphatically states that reductionism (which is a powerful tool in much of physics) is inadequate. (He fails to mention that holism is well recognized in physics where increasing complexity requires emergence of new ideas and variables that are not needed at the level of particle interactions.) In his preface he states: “In this book I will demonstrate the inadequacy of reductionism.” He also states: “Emergence is therefore a major part of the new scientific worldview.” Most physical scientists would agree with both statements. But Kauffman goes further: “If no natural law suffices to describe the evolution of the biosphere, of the technological evolution, of human history, what replaces it? In its place is a wondrous radical creativity without a supernatural Creator.” … “One view of God is that God is our chosen name for ceaseless creativity in the natural universe, biosphere, and human cultures.” (Einstein would have agreed.)

Stuart A. Kauffman discusses in depth the emergence of life, agency, value, meaning, order, and the mind as evolutionary processes resulting from the “wondrous radical creativity” inherent in nature, as well as the evolution of the economy, culture and ethics – all without a supernatural Creator. Since he never talks about the beginning of the universe, he isn’t a deist. (Deism claims only an initial creation by God whereas Kauffman has ceaseless creativity as an ongoing process.) He ends his Preface with “I believe we can reinvent the sacred. We can invent a global ethic, in a shared space, safe to all of us, with one view of God as the natural creativity in the universe.”

Two reviewers’ praises are very strong. Philosopher and theologian Philip Clayton (book 158): “Reinventing the Sacred is a tour de force and a brilliant manifesto for a new emergence-based scientific worldview. But science alone will never be enough: humanity must also invent new categories of the sacred that speak to this naturalistic age. Stuart Kauffman courageously challenges fundamentalist pretensions on both sides, seeking to mold a new partnership of science and religious values…an epoch-making book.” Theoretical physicist and atheist Lee Smolin: “Philip Kauffman has written a wonderful book, as optimistic as it is provocative. He proposes a new scientific world view that not only incorporates reductionism but goes beyond it to a vision of a self-constructed and continuously creative universe which can be understood and revered, but not always predicted. Knowledge and wisdom are different aspects of our humanity in Kauffman’s universe.” As much as I enjoyed his ideas, I didn’t enjoy his writing style; with frequent repetitions of earlier points, it reminds me of a seminar series, for which repetitions (such as “this can’t be reduced to physics”) are needed – but they aren’t in a book. Nevertheless, I give it a high recommendation.