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God and the Big Bang: Discovering Harmony Between Science and Spirituality
God is not somewhere else, hidden from us; God is right here, hidden from us. We are part of something greater: a vast web of existence constantly expanding and evolving. When we gaze at the nighttime sky, we can ponder that we are made of elements forged within stars, out of particles born in the big bang . . . Beyond any star or galaxy we will ever identify lies the horizon of spacetime, fourteen billion light years away. But neither God nor the big bang is that far away. The big bang didn't happen somewhere out there, outside of us. Rather, we began inside the big bang; we now embody its primordial energy. The big bang has never stopped. -from Chapter 11 To discover the presence of God throughout the cosmos and in our everyday lives, Daniel C. Matt draws on both science and theology, both fact and belief, and both cosmology and Jewish mysticism, taking us on a deeply personal, thoughtful, and inspiring journey. This update of the award-winning first edition gives us a fresh look at the growing topic of science and spirituality, helps us find our place in the universe, and shows us how the universe is reflected in our very being.
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Published January 29, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
March 1, 2020
If I had read this book when it first came out, it would have been exciting to me. Even today, if you are only distantly familiar or not aware at all of kabbalistic concepts, Hasidic approaches to meditation and prayer, or Jewish Renewal attempts to lift up the living sparks of our tradition, you may feel the top of your head blowing off as you read this book. It is a way of being Jewish that’s different both from rule-following and role-rejecting. It is a spirituality that’s authentically ours.
For me, at this time, the book is old hat. I still learned enough from it to make it worth reading, but I felt uncomfortably close to echoing Dr. Johnson and saying that what’s original here is not good and what’s good is not original.
The piece about Jesus seems particularly dated after Amy-Jill Levine’s The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus.
The part about the Big Bang seems like a personal tic of the author’s that his publisher used as a marketing tool. It adds little to what he has to say. At moments, it verges in the antinomian, as in the chapter when he talks about the Torah ripening into a different set of laws the way that Newtonian physics has been found valid only under certain conditions and you need quantum mechanics to understand other orders of reality.
Taken too far, that metaphor could license any behavior (as Shabtai Zvi and his followers once showed). And taken within limits, it’s a strained way of finding authority for the imaginative reinterpretation of Judaism. We don’t need that legitimation. We can just be as bold as the rabbis of the Talmud once were!
So, I would like to recommend this book to the right audience, but I’m not sure who that audience is. Try it and see if it might be you.
For me, at this time, the book is old hat. I still learned enough from it to make it worth reading, but I felt uncomfortably close to echoing Dr. Johnson and saying that what’s original here is not good and what’s good is not original.
The piece about Jesus seems particularly dated after Amy-Jill Levine’s The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus.
The part about the Big Bang seems like a personal tic of the author’s that his publisher used as a marketing tool. It adds little to what he has to say. At moments, it verges in the antinomian, as in the chapter when he talks about the Torah ripening into a different set of laws the way that Newtonian physics has been found valid only under certain conditions and you need quantum mechanics to understand other orders of reality.
Taken too far, that metaphor could license any behavior (as Shabtai Zvi and his followers once showed). And taken within limits, it’s a strained way of finding authority for the imaginative reinterpretation of Judaism. We don’t need that legitimation. We can just be as bold as the rabbis of the Talmud once were!
So, I would like to recommend this book to the right audience, but I’m not sure who that audience is. Try it and see if it might be you.
February 11, 2021
I went into this expecting it to be a bit more harmonizing than it actually is. The book more or less takes the secular understanding of science and accepts it as fact. Then shows how these facts can display various aspects and characteristics of God. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, it does contradict what many conservative Christians would think. This could pose as a obstacle for some.
That said, if you approach this book with the understanding that the worldview of the author is not an evangelical worldview, and choose to try to read the book through an evangelical Christian worldview there is alot to get from the book in terms of how we can view, relate to, and understand our God based off the universe He created.
That said, if you approach this book with the understanding that the worldview of the author is not an evangelical worldview, and choose to try to read the book through an evangelical Christian worldview there is alot to get from the book in terms of how we can view, relate to, and understand our God based off the universe He created.
April 21, 2017
Danny Matt weaves together an amazing vision of science and belief without injury to either He shows amazing parallels in the Kabbalistic views of the origins of life and the Big Bang Theory But most importantly, he highlights that science no more answers the ultimate question than religion; What is our purpose? He suggests that seeking oneness with our universe is a like a gravitational force that is always pulling on us and it's how we bend with that force that dictates our happiness and fulfillment
May 5, 2014
Had surprisingly little to Do with the Big Bang
July 23, 2025
A Thoughtful Bridge Between Science and Spirituality!
Daniel C. Matt's God and the Big Bang: Discovering Harmony Between Science and Spirituality offers a compelling exploration of one of humanity's most enduring questions: how can scientific understanding coexist with spiritual belief? Matt, a renowned scholar of Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah, brings both intellectual rigor and spiritual wisdom to this complex dialogue.
The book's strength lies in Matt's ability to present cutting-edge cosmological theories alongside ancient mystical teachings without forcing artificial connections. He draws particularly from Kabbalistic thought, especially the concept of tzimtzum (divine contraction), to suggest ways that mystical insights might complement rather than contradict scientific discoveries about the universe's origins and structure.
Matt writes with clarity and accessibility, making complex concepts from both physics and mysticism understandable to general readers. His background as a translator of the Zohar brings authenticity to his mystical references, while his careful attention to scientific accuracy demonstrates genuine respect for empirical inquiry. The book avoids the trap of using science to "prove" religious beliefs or dismissing spirituality in favor of materialism.
What's particularly refreshing is Matt's intellectual honesty. He doesn't claim to have solved the science-religion debate, but rather offers thoughtful perspectives on how both ways of knowing might inform our understanding of existence. His exploration of consciousness, the nature of time, and the mystery of creation raises profound questions without providing pat answers.
The book occasionally feels repetitive in its central themes, and some readers may find Matt's focus on Jewish mysticism limiting if they're seeking broader interfaith perspectives. Additionally, those looking for either pure science or traditional religious doctrine may find the middle path frustrating.
However, for readers genuinely interested in thoughtful dialogue between scientific and spiritual worldviews, this book offers valuable insights. Matt demonstrates that it's possible to be both scientifically literate and spiritually engaged without intellectual compromise.
God and the Big Bang succeeds as both an introduction to cosmological thinking and an invitation to consider how wonder and awe might be the common ground where science and spirituality meet.
Recommended for anyone seeking a nuanced approach to life's biggest questions.
Daniel C. Matt's God and the Big Bang: Discovering Harmony Between Science and Spirituality offers a compelling exploration of one of humanity's most enduring questions: how can scientific understanding coexist with spiritual belief? Matt, a renowned scholar of Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah, brings both intellectual rigor and spiritual wisdom to this complex dialogue.
The book's strength lies in Matt's ability to present cutting-edge cosmological theories alongside ancient mystical teachings without forcing artificial connections. He draws particularly from Kabbalistic thought, especially the concept of tzimtzum (divine contraction), to suggest ways that mystical insights might complement rather than contradict scientific discoveries about the universe's origins and structure.
Matt writes with clarity and accessibility, making complex concepts from both physics and mysticism understandable to general readers. His background as a translator of the Zohar brings authenticity to his mystical references, while his careful attention to scientific accuracy demonstrates genuine respect for empirical inquiry. The book avoids the trap of using science to "prove" religious beliefs or dismissing spirituality in favor of materialism.
What's particularly refreshing is Matt's intellectual honesty. He doesn't claim to have solved the science-religion debate, but rather offers thoughtful perspectives on how both ways of knowing might inform our understanding of existence. His exploration of consciousness, the nature of time, and the mystery of creation raises profound questions without providing pat answers.
The book occasionally feels repetitive in its central themes, and some readers may find Matt's focus on Jewish mysticism limiting if they're seeking broader interfaith perspectives. Additionally, those looking for either pure science or traditional religious doctrine may find the middle path frustrating.
However, for readers genuinely interested in thoughtful dialogue between scientific and spiritual worldviews, this book offers valuable insights. Matt demonstrates that it's possible to be both scientifically literate and spiritually engaged without intellectual compromise.
God and the Big Bang succeeds as both an introduction to cosmological thinking and an invitation to consider how wonder and awe might be the common ground where science and spirituality meet.
Recommended for anyone seeking a nuanced approach to life's biggest questions.
November 20, 2024
I think the book started more strongly, as to its subtitle and Big Bang-centered kabbalistic, expansive inspiration. Matt from the Jewish Renewal-liberal side seems to give short shrift to halakah (Jewish law) in its traditional forms, and seems to dismiss those post-Shoah who cling to such observance. Instead, he champions the progressive trend to reinterpret the Torah-Talmud et al. into inclusive terms that accept those marginalized or prevented (women, gays) from full participation in Judaism. He goes into the need for Jews to become ecologically aware, for the prayer service to allow increased room for silence, and for the values of current society to find acceptance when they match those idealized in the Torah. But he denies the naive hopes of a messianic era of future human perfection. For him, the "yetser hara" evil impulse can be tamed and framed, in apt considerations of the dark force within it that can be chastened and harnessed, but there will never be an age when shortcomings of men and women, baked in as it were from creation, will dissipate.
He also diverges into such issues as accepting the Jesus as "Galilean hasid" rather than the Son of God or Messiah, as amenable to Jewish sensibilities. No disagreement there, but he tends to overlook the verses in the Gospel where Christ is credited with appealing to the Gentiles, and where he challenges the Law rather than upholding it, as other passages say, to the last jot and tittle. It's a theme that does not seem to align that neatly with the preceding part of his book, full of cosmology, and then its parallels to Kabbalah. Here, Matt's on surer ground, and I found some insights original and creative. He doesn't bog down in the intricacies of the "sefirot" but channels them into energy.
This is a 2017 revision of a book that appeared about twenty-odd years before, published by a New Age-Renewal leaning press, so its audience appears to be that of the already converted. Matt thus doesn't appear to try to convince those who lean more center or right than left, but this is expected. That built-in assumption diminishes the force of certain arguments, but still, it offers seekers some guidance for integrating silence and absence more into spiritual practice, where words fade away.
He also diverges into such issues as accepting the Jesus as "Galilean hasid" rather than the Son of God or Messiah, as amenable to Jewish sensibilities. No disagreement there, but he tends to overlook the verses in the Gospel where Christ is credited with appealing to the Gentiles, and where he challenges the Law rather than upholding it, as other passages say, to the last jot and tittle. It's a theme that does not seem to align that neatly with the preceding part of his book, full of cosmology, and then its parallels to Kabbalah. Here, Matt's on surer ground, and I found some insights original and creative. He doesn't bog down in the intricacies of the "sefirot" but channels them into energy.
This is a 2017 revision of a book that appeared about twenty-odd years before, published by a New Age-Renewal leaning press, so its audience appears to be that of the already converted. Matt thus doesn't appear to try to convince those who lean more center or right than left, but this is expected. That built-in assumption diminishes the force of certain arguments, but still, it offers seekers some guidance for integrating silence and absence more into spiritual practice, where words fade away.
March 10, 2023
Like the physicist, the mystic, too, is fascinated by the intimate relation of matter and energy. [Beyond a personal God] is the oneness of matter and energy. -Page 29-[We need to understand the difference between ego and soul]-The ego and its personal God are dependent on each other. -page 49-[As the ego and soul merge], the self becomes aware of the self, personal consciousness tastes the oneness of the God beyond God-The energy of all energies! I highly recommend God and the Big bang by Daniel Matt. Are you ready to accept matter is energy, and go beyond a personal God, to the beloved transcendent energy of all energies -the Ein Sof?
September 4, 2017
One of the clearest and most beautiful explanations of the easy connections between science and religion, rationalism and mysticism.
Join me this week on Thursday, September 7, for a discussion of the ideas in this wonderful book.
E-mail me for details: rabbifreirich@tbz.org
Join me this week on Thursday, September 7, for a discussion of the ideas in this wonderful book.
E-mail me for details: rabbifreirich@tbz.org
October 5, 2018
Describes everything I believe in, that being spiritual and believing in science are NOT mutually exclusive, that Kabbalah understood aspects of astrophysics before we knew what it was, and gave me a deeper understanding of *how* ancient myths reflect scientific principles.
May 1, 2023
This was my first time reading something from the Jewish Kabbalah perspective, and it just continually intrigues me how much the mystical traditions from all faith traditions are saying the same thing. This was a beautiful book.
February 10, 2023
I really enjoyed this connection of spirituality and science and especially learning about it through a kabbalistic lense
December 24, 2024
A profound book of deep religious thought. This is not an easy read with highly esoteric content. Daniel Matt is a modern Kabbalist and his thinking reflects this rich tradition.
July 27, 2015
Good book for someone needing a different perspective with religion. Though it is focused more in the Reform Judaism direction it is one worth going through for those of other denominations as well. Other does a good job bring things together with science. Showing a more open view of belief and understanding with what is being learn and discovered.
Will admit that it is slightly dry for a leisure read. Isn't a heavy read though which makes it easier to read through.
Will admit that it is slightly dry for a leisure read. Isn't a heavy read though which makes it easier to read through.
December 20, 2010
Excellent book!
July 11, 2015
This was a remarkable book. My study group read it and it helped me put together the concepts of their being an Infinite Divine and my personal self.
June 3, 2019
Very disappointing
July 30, 2010
Fairly interesting read.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews