JC de los Reyes

I certainly hope so!
show comments (0)

Nicanor Perlas

I consider myself a deeply spiritual person. I grew up a Christian, though not a traditional one. I am a Christian in the sense that I believe in the cosmic nature of Christ as Logos, the reason and being of world existence. I work at applying my spirituality in practical life—in living out the teachings of Christ day-to-day. My view of God may be nontraditional but it allows me to seriously dialogue with Muslims, Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists because there is a common sense of the sacred to draw upon. But I was also trained as a scientist and I think like a scientist. What is exciting in our time is that modern science has reached a point of discovering the awesome power of a divine intelligence that is found throughout nature and all over the cosmos. The new science of Astrophysics, for example, shows very clearly that there are too many improbable and impossible aspects of the universe for the universe to have taken place by chance. Therefore, it is clear to me that only a divine intelligence had the power to create the intricate structure of the universe and the whole evolutionary process that we find ourselves in today. It is not an accident that we are here on planet Earth. We are the product of 13.8 billion years of a conscious directed evolution, one that ensured the emergence of a self-aware intelligent form of life we call humans. I am at home scientifically and spiritually in a belief in and knowledge that this is the work of God. It is also clear to me that through our thinking, especially our intuition, we have access to this divine intelligence. This is the basis of our creativity and our innovation. The great inventor Thomas Edison called this his “link to the infinite intelligence”. And this infinite intelligence-- what I would call God-- is the foundation of human existence. You know, it's interesting-- I found out recently when I read the political /social writings of Rizal, that he placed a lot of attention on reason. Rizal’s saw “reason” as the manifestation of the divine, of the spirit in human history. So it is through our creative reason that we enter into the intelligence that created the world, and this intelligence manifests itself in history through human deeds. So this Logos, this reason, is what I see as the spirit that is active in human affairs. And it can actually today be discerned scientifically. So when I speak to Muslims, Christians and other religions, I would say the universe created one human species—in the end we are one humanity. We were not created separate as Muslims or Christians; we have a deeper basis of unity based on our humanness. This is not abstract. Muslim leaders in Mindanao understand this. And so do Christians. So there is a deep foundation for living together peacefully because we are all products of a divine intelligence who created us as one. Despite our differences, if we really want to, we can find a common level to converse and to create a mutual peace that is satisfactory to the different religions.
show comments (0)