What do you think?
Rate this book
God after Einstein: What's Really Going On in the Universe?
A leading theologian presents a hopeful account of the universe after Einstein, exploring it as a meaningful drama of awakening
“This book is a deep and provocative piece of theology that proposes we engage with the universe as a kind of narrative of awakening and unfolding, as well as an important and useful approach for thinking about theology with respect to modern cosmology.”—Matthew Stanley, New York University
Before the early twentieth century, scientists and theologians knew almost nothing about time’s enormity and the corresponding immensity of space. But now, after Einstein, cosmology offers theology a whole new way of looking at the ageless questions about matter, time, God, cosmic purpose, and the significance of our lives. The universe need not be thought of as simply an endless reshuffling of lifeless and mindless atoms in a pointless series of moments. Rather, the universe is a temporal drama of awakening whose meaning can be revealed only gradually by looking, in a spirit of anticipation and hope, toward the horizon of the cosmic future.
In conversation with Einstein’s ideas and opinions, John F. Haught develops here a new cosmological understanding of the meaning of God, time, eternity, mystery, life, thought, freedom, and faith. In doing so, he offers readers a new way of understanding the relationship of science to theology.
“This book is a deep and provocative piece of theology that proposes we engage with the universe as a kind of narrative of awakening and unfolding, as well as an important and useful approach for thinking about theology with respect to modern cosmology.”—Matthew Stanley, New York University
Before the early twentieth century, scientists and theologians knew almost nothing about time’s enormity and the corresponding immensity of space. But now, after Einstein, cosmology offers theology a whole new way of looking at the ageless questions about matter, time, God, cosmic purpose, and the significance of our lives. The universe need not be thought of as simply an endless reshuffling of lifeless and mindless atoms in a pointless series of moments. Rather, the universe is a temporal drama of awakening whose meaning can be revealed only gradually by looking, in a spirit of anticipation and hope, toward the horizon of the cosmic future.
In conversation with Einstein’s ideas and opinions, John F. Haught develops here a new cosmological understanding of the meaning of God, time, eternity, mystery, life, thought, freedom, and faith. In doing so, he offers readers a new way of understanding the relationship of science to theology.
- GenresPhilosophyScience
235 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 15, 2022
22 people are currently reading
67 people want to read
About the author
John F. Haught
50 books37 followersJohn F. Haught is a Roman Catholic theologian, specializing with systematic theology. He has special interests in science, cosmology, ecology, and reconciling evolution and religion.
Haught graduated from St. Mary's Seminary and University in Baltimore,, and he received a PhD in Theology from The Catholic University of America in 1970.
Haught received the 2002 Owen Garrigan Award in Science and Religion, the 2004 Sophia Award for Theological Excellence, and, in 2009, the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Leuven.
He is Senior Research Fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. There, he established the Georgetown Center for the Study of Science and Religion and was the chair of Georgetown's theology department between 1990 and 1995.
Haught graduated from St. Mary's Seminary and University in Baltimore,, and he received a PhD in Theology from The Catholic University of America in 1970.
Haught received the 2002 Owen Garrigan Award in Science and Religion, the 2004 Sophia Award for Theological Excellence, and, in 2009, the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Leuven.
He is Senior Research Fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. There, he established the Georgetown Center for the Study of Science and Religion and was the chair of Georgetown's theology department between 1990 and 1995.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
March 26, 2023
There were some profound trajectories of thought in this book. Aspects of the writing became distractingly repetitive at times, but the “anticipatory stance” as defined against the other two made me think of certain cosmological, existential, and theological questions in a different, new, and potentially coherent way. I’d quibble with a few assumptions and theological renderings, but the book’s global project to look as the universe as “awakening” with human consciousness as a feature of awakening will give me a bit to chew on, dare I say, for the rest of my life.
April 10, 2023
Interesting choice for a class book - enjoyed the thought, freedom, and caring for nature chapters. Cites significantly more men than women (after page 116 I saw: 31 men, 1 woman cited) which I always think limits range of ideas shown.
February 29, 2024
An eceedingliy interesting & encouraging book! Well written. A feast for scientists & theologians!
April 3, 2023
the value of anticipation
This book is an eye opener, a mindset changer. It has great value to Christians because it lights the path to new hope based on the integration of science and faith. It also has value to humanists of all beliefs because it explains the value of paying close attention to what is going on in the cosmos, which is the cradle of humanity.
This book is an eye opener, a mindset changer. It has great value to Christians because it lights the path to new hope based on the integration of science and faith. It also has value to humanists of all beliefs because it explains the value of paying close attention to what is going on in the cosmos, which is the cradle of humanity.
December 26, 2022
Lo abandoné antes de la mitad. Tal vez lo retome en el futuro pero personalmente no lo disfruté y no logré avanzar todo lo que hubiese querido.
May 2, 2024
Loved the first few chapters of this book and appreciate the basic premise of process theology, which Haught terms the “anticipatory view.” The meat of the book felt quite repetitive of a previous book I read of his (The New Cosmic Story). He compares and contrasts three different worldviews: the analogical (traditional Christian thought), the archeological (scientific reductionalism) and the anticipatory (process theology). I listened to both books on Audible, so maybe that’s why, but at times I’d have difficulty following which line of thought he was currently going down. I’d prefer he just focus exclusively on the anticipatory view, rather than going back and forth time and again discussing how each of the 3 outlooks view each concept.
August 24, 2025
Fantastic and insightful. This really should be read by everyone. I have found that with these new insights and outlook it has opened my mind to understand things better, especially at Church and seeing a bigger picture. I love how everything is grounded in science and it's science that suddenly blows your mind when you realise the hope that an outlook of anticipation brings to everything. This furthered my reading of Ilia Delio and was a helpful, if more heavy, detour. So pleased I read this wow.
November 15, 2022
Making Wholeness in the Realty of Time, Not Yet Finished!
Awakening to time’s movements by pointing to linguistic understanding of our contemporary influences. Very in-depth revelations for “ the way, the truth and the life” of the first born of many!!
Awakening to time’s movements by pointing to linguistic understanding of our contemporary influences. Very in-depth revelations for “ the way, the truth and the life” of the first born of many!!
Read
May 23, 2024I resonated with so much in this book and agree with so much of what he’s said here. As other have said, it’s pretty repetitive from chapter to chapter as he engages similar ideas from slightly different angles. I found myself skimming a bit. But overall still enjoyed it.
September 27, 2023
Haught is the most trustworthy theologian writing today and this is one of his best.
June 11, 2024
Unconvincing and a bit empty.
December 16, 2023
I try to read at least one book on science/cosmology every year. When those books are written specifically from a Christian perspective, like Return of the God Hypothesis by Stephen Meyer or The Language of God by Francis Collins, this can almost be an act of worship.
Surprisingly enough, the same can almost be said for secular books that are written well enough and display the awe and wonder of this universe God Created. I remember this being true of The Language God Talks, by Herman Wouk. This was probably one of the earlier such books I read that truly impacted me in such a way with Hawking's A Brief History of Time obviously being the first. Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos both also seriously impacted me as well. To be fair, some of Greene's later books were disappointingly underwhelming. Although not cosmology, James Gleick's Chaos deserves a mention. None of these books were distinctly Christian and some were even anti-Christian at points. Even still, they have each given me a greater depth of wonder at the universe God created as well as a fuller appreciation for how he works.
This book was not that. This was not even close to that. Let's be real. The science in this book is vague enough that I cannot even say with confidence that John Haught understands Einstein. At least, not beyond the vaguest outlines one could learn from a brief google search about his theories of General and Special Relativity. And to flip it, the theology is weak enough that I also could not say with confidence that John Haught really knows God either.
So if the book God After Einstein isn't talking about God, and it isn't talking about Einstein, then what is it talking about? Good question. The key theme in this book is that the universe is a cosmic drama that is still going on. Many of his chapters like "Life," "Thought," and "Compassion," are his unfolding of how these "surprises" have unfolded over time. As a sidebar here, apparently Haught returns theologically to a pre-Copernican time where the earth is once again at the center of everything "the universe is unfolding."
Haught also neatly divides worldviews into three categories. One of these, Analogical, is a caricature of what most Christians would think when saying things like "this earth is not my home." Haught wants us to remember that God is working through this universe (or perhaps emerging in it? His theology is often quite vague) not in some pie in the sky on some sweet by and by. The second view is... archaeoconomic? I have no idea if I am spelling that made up word correctly and I am too lazy to look it up. Anyways, this is a fancy word for a materialistic and timeless view that Einstein is being accused of holding "even though his own theories were proving him wrong." The final, correct way of viewing things is called anticipatory. This view is that the universe is a cosmic drama that is still unfolding. And we should eagerly look forward to what the universe (or God? Are they the same?) is going to unfold next. Even if that next "unfolding" takes another million years. We should look forward to it. Eagerly. Anticipatorily.
The most annoying thing about this book was the fact that it gets so repetitive. There are times where I found myself flipping back or ahead pages thinking somehow I had lost my place. Nope. Sure enough, sometimes entire pages are almost carbon copies (give or take some minor wording changes) of entire pages from other chapters. This happens a lot. A. LOT. This 235 page book easily could have cut fifty pages with how much repetition Haught included. If Yale University Press was paying him by the word, they got scammed. If you are wondering how Yale University press could put their name behind such nonsense, just go to Youtube and watch some of the lectures coming out of Yale Divinity School. No further proof is needed that Joe's Community College down the street can get you a better theological education than what Yale is producing these days.
So yeah. Don't read this book. There are a lot of great suggestions I left for you instead in the top couple of paragraphs. If you have others, I would love to hear them.
Surprisingly enough, the same can almost be said for secular books that are written well enough and display the awe and wonder of this universe God Created. I remember this being true of The Language God Talks, by Herman Wouk. This was probably one of the earlier such books I read that truly impacted me in such a way with Hawking's A Brief History of Time obviously being the first. Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos both also seriously impacted me as well. To be fair, some of Greene's later books were disappointingly underwhelming. Although not cosmology, James Gleick's Chaos deserves a mention. None of these books were distinctly Christian and some were even anti-Christian at points. Even still, they have each given me a greater depth of wonder at the universe God created as well as a fuller appreciation for how he works.
This book was not that. This was not even close to that. Let's be real. The science in this book is vague enough that I cannot even say with confidence that John Haught understands Einstein. At least, not beyond the vaguest outlines one could learn from a brief google search about his theories of General and Special Relativity. And to flip it, the theology is weak enough that I also could not say with confidence that John Haught really knows God either.
So if the book God After Einstein isn't talking about God, and it isn't talking about Einstein, then what is it talking about? Good question. The key theme in this book is that the universe is a cosmic drama that is still going on. Many of his chapters like "Life," "Thought," and "Compassion," are his unfolding of how these "surprises" have unfolded over time. As a sidebar here, apparently Haught returns theologically to a pre-Copernican time where the earth is once again at the center of everything "the universe is unfolding."
Haught also neatly divides worldviews into three categories. One of these, Analogical, is a caricature of what most Christians would think when saying things like "this earth is not my home." Haught wants us to remember that God is working through this universe (or perhaps emerging in it? His theology is often quite vague) not in some pie in the sky on some sweet by and by. The second view is... archaeoconomic? I have no idea if I am spelling that made up word correctly and I am too lazy to look it up. Anyways, this is a fancy word for a materialistic and timeless view that Einstein is being accused of holding "even though his own theories were proving him wrong." The final, correct way of viewing things is called anticipatory. This view is that the universe is a cosmic drama that is still unfolding. And we should eagerly look forward to what the universe (or God? Are they the same?) is going to unfold next. Even if that next "unfolding" takes another million years. We should look forward to it. Eagerly. Anticipatorily.
The most annoying thing about this book was the fact that it gets so repetitive. There are times where I found myself flipping back or ahead pages thinking somehow I had lost my place. Nope. Sure enough, sometimes entire pages are almost carbon copies (give or take some minor wording changes) of entire pages from other chapters. This happens a lot. A. LOT. This 235 page book easily could have cut fifty pages with how much repetition Haught included. If Yale University Press was paying him by the word, they got scammed. If you are wondering how Yale University press could put their name behind such nonsense, just go to Youtube and watch some of the lectures coming out of Yale Divinity School. No further proof is needed that Joe's Community College down the street can get you a better theological education than what Yale is producing these days.
So yeah. Don't read this book. There are a lot of great suggestions I left for you instead in the top couple of paragraphs. If you have others, I would love to hear them.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews