How We Can Find God in All This Consciousness?
For many people in the Western world, the word God still brings to mind a familiar image.
God is imagined as a powerful, invisible being who exists somewhere beyond the universe. God created the world but is not part of it. From a distance, God observes what happens, listens to prayers and occasionally intervenes.
Few people may picture God quite as literally as an old man in the sky. Yet the basic structure of the image often remains. God is somewhere else. The universe is here. God and the world exist on opposite sides of a great divide.
This picture has deep roots in Western Christianity. It helped protect an important belief: God is not simply one more object within the universe. God cannot be reduced to a mountain, a planet, a force of nature or even the whole physical cosmos.
Yet the picture also creates serious problems.
If God exists outside the universe, how does God interact with it? How does a being without a physical presence act upon physical reality? How does God hear prayer, influence events or enter into relationship with creatures?
The usual answer is that God can act because God is all-powerful. But this creates an even greater difficulty. If God can intervene in the universe whenever God chooses, why does God not prevent terrible suffering?
Why are children born with painful illnesses? Why do earthquakes bury whole communities? Why are creatures forced to suffer through violence, disease and extinction? Why does a God who is said to love the world so often appear to remain outside its pain?
The more completely God is removed from the universe, the easier it becomes to remove God from our understanding of life altogether.
If the world continues according to its own natural processes, and if God rarely seems to intervene, then the distant God becomes unnecessary. The universe appears to function perfectly well without this imagined being.
Many people have not consciously rejected God. They have simply found that this image of God no longer connects with the world they experience.
Perhaps the difficulty is not that God has disappeared.
Perhaps it is that we have been looking for God in the wrong place.
Can intelligence exist without embodiment?
There is another problem with the traditional Western picture of God that is rarely discussed.
God is usually imagined as a completely disembodied intelligence—a mind without any physical form.
But we do not know of any intelligence that exists in this way.
Every intelligence we have encountered is embodied in some form.
Human intelligence is embodied in brains, nervous systems and living bodies. The intelligence of an animal is shaped by its senses, its environment and the particular form of its body. A bird, an octopus and a human being experience the world differently because they are differently embodied.
Even artificial intelligence is embodied. It may appear to us as words on a screen, but it depends upon computers, transistors, electrical energy, data centres and networks. Its information must be physically held and processed somewhere.
Information never seems to float freely without any form. It is carried in patterns of matter and energy: in the connections of a brain, the chemicals of a cell, the markings on a page, the grooves of a recording or the electronic states of a computer.
This does not prove that disembodied intelligence is impossible. Our knowledge of reality remains limited. But it gives us good reason to question why we have treated God as the one intelligence who requires no form through which to exist, act or relate.
Perhaps God is not a mind without embodiment.
Perhaps the universe is, in some sense, the embodiment of God.
This does not have to mean that God and the universe are exactly the same. We are embodied in our bodies, but we are not simply identical with a list of our cells. Our identity arises through the way those cells, organs, memories and relationships are gathered into a living whole.
My body is not something separate from me. It is the form through which I exist, experience and enter into relationship. Yet what I mean by myself cannot be found in any single cell or organ.
Something similar may be true of God.
Perhaps God is not located in one part of the universe. God may be present through the whole network of relationships from which the universe is formed. The physical universe may be the means through which divine intelligence lives, develops and enters into relationship.
In that case, God would not need to reach into the universe from outside. God would already be present within every interaction, every living system and every centre of experience.
This would give us a very different starting point for thinking about divine action.
God would not act by occasionally breaking the laws of nature. Divine action would occur through the creativity already present within nature: through relationship, evolution, healing, learning, cooperation and the continuing appearance of new possibilities.
God would not stand outside the suffering of the world, choosing whether or not to intervene. The suffering of creatures would occur within the embodied life of God. God would experience it from within rather than observe it from a safe distance.
This does not solve the problem of suffering. It does, however, change the question.
Instead of asking why an all-powerful being outside the universe permits suffering, we might ask how divine life works within an evolving universe where freedom, danger, death and creativity are inseparable.
Instead of imagining God as the external controller of every event, we might imagine God as the deepest intelligence of the whole: receiving the experience of every part, holding those experiences in relationship and drawing the universe towards richer forms of life.
I would also rename it “A Different Picture of God.” That better signals the constructive turn.
A Different Picture of God
What emerges from all this is a different picture of God.
In this picture, God is not a solitary mind existing outside the universe. God is the greater consciousness arising in and through the whole evolving web of reality.
Quantum fields and particles form the most elemental level of this embodiment. Their interactions create the patterns from which atoms and molecules arise. Molecules form living cells. Cells form organisms. Organisms develop sensation, memory, intelligence and awareness. Conscious beings enter into relationships, create communities and share knowledge. Digital networks now add another form of intelligence to this growing whole.
Each level is formed from the level before it, but each also brings something new. The whole becomes capable of more than its individual parts can achieve alone.
This is the picture that interactive complexity gives us: the universe as a vast, layered network of relationship, continually forming larger and richer kinds of unity.
Within this picture, our individual consciousness is real, but it is not separate. We participate in larger forms of consciousness just as the cells of our bodies participate in us. A cell has its own life, but it also belongs to the life of the whole body. In the same way, each creature has its own experience while also contributing to the experience of the larger reality in which it lives.
God can be imagined as the most encompassing level of this conscious whole.
This does not reduce God to a collection of objects. A person is more than a collection of cells, and a symphony is more than a collection of notes. In the same way, divine consciousness would be more than the sum of all the individual things and experiences within the universe.
God would be the unity formed through their relationships: the consciousness capable of holding every part within the life of the whole.
The universe would then be the embodiment of God. It would be the form through which divine life becomes active, expressive and relational. Matter and energy would not be separate from God but would participate in God’s living reality.
This model also gives divine consciousness a genuinely personal dimension. God does not relate to us from an unreachable distance. Our experiences occur within the life of God. Our joy contributes to that life. Our suffering is felt within it. Our creativity becomes part of its unfolding future.
We remain distinct, just as the cells of a body remain distinct, but we are never completely separate.
God is present through the relationships that join the parts together: in the exchange of energy, the cooperation of cells, the awareness of living creatures, the bonds between persons and the larger networks of life upon which we all depend.
Divine action can then be understood as working through these relationships. God does not need to enter the universe from outside or temporarily interrupt its natural processes. Divine creativity is already active within evolution—in the forming of new connections, the emergence of new possibilities and the drawing together of separate lives into richer wholes.
This is not offered as proof. It is a model: a way of seeing God that begins with the universe we actually encounter.
It takes seriously the fact that every intelligence we know is embodied. It takes seriously the relational nature of matter, the evolution of life and the growth of consciousness. It also preserves the sense that God is greater than any individual creature and greater than all creatures simply added together.
The result is neither a distant God outside the universe nor a God who is merely another name for the physical universe.
It is God as the conscious depth and living unity of the whole: embodied within the universe, expressed through its relationships and greater than the parts through which divine life unfolds.
Is God Personal?
The traditional image of God may be difficult to accept, yet many people are reluctant to let it go for one important reason.
They want God to be personal.
A force may be powerful, but it does not seem to know that it exists. A law of nature may shape our lives, but it does not appear to recognise us. An impersonal universe may inspire wonder, but can it know itself, become aware of us or enter into relationship?
For religious faith, God has usually been more than the power behind creation. God is understood as a conscious presence: one who knows, responds and enters into relationship.
If God is embodied within the universe, can God still be personal?
To answer this, we need to think more carefully about what personhood means.
Personhood is partly expressed through relationship. A person recognises other beings, responds to them and forms continuing bonds with them. But relationship is only one part of personhood.
Personhood also involves self-consciousness.
A person does not simply respond to the world. A person possesses some awareness of being the one who is responding. We experience ourselves as a centre of awareness continuing through time. We remember our past, recognise ourselves in the present and imagine the person we may become.
Personhood also involves self-realisation.
To become a person is not merely to discover a finished self hidden inside us. It is to develop our possibilities. Through experience, choice and relationship, we gradually become more fully ourselves.
Personhood therefore includes at least three connected movements: awareness of oneself, realisation of one’s possibilities and relationship with others.
Interactive complexity suggests that these capacities develop in degrees.
A worm responds to its surroundings. It moves towards what supports its life and away from what threatens it. It acts as a unified living system rather than as a loose collection of cells.
We should not assume that a worm reflects upon itself. Yet it displays the beginnings of an individual point of view. The world is encountered from one living centre whose actions are directed towards continuing its own existence.
A tiger displays a much richer form of selfhood. It remembers, learns, chooses and adapts. It recognises its territory, distinguishes familiar creatures from strangers and acts according to its own needs and intentions.
We cannot know exactly how a tiger experiences itself. It may not think, “I am a tiger,” in the way that a human being can. But it appears to possess a continuing awareness of itself as a distinct centre of action.
It does not merely respond. It pursues.
It does not merely exist. It expresses a particular way of being.
Human beings possess an even more developed form of self-consciousness. We know that we are experiencing. We think about our own thoughts, judge our own actions and tell stories about who we are.
We can ask, “Why did I do that?” “What kind of person am I becoming?” and “What should I do with my life?”
Our selfhood is not only experienced; it becomes an object of reflection.
This reflective awareness allows us to participate consciously in our own development. We inherit a body, temperament, history and culture, but we are not merely passive products of them. We can examine what has formed us, choose among possibilities and work towards becoming a different kind of person.
We never achieve complete self-knowledge or complete self-realisation. Nevertheless, the desire to understand and become ourselves is central to personhood.
Relationship deepens this process. We discover ourselves through our encounters with others. We learn who we are by loving, resisting, cooperating, arguing, forgiving and being recognised.
Self-consciousness and relationship therefore develop together. The more deeply we recognise ourselves, the more freely we can relate to others. The more deeply we relate to others, the more fully we become ourselves.
Artificial intelligence adds another dimension to this picture.
A simple calculator performs intelligent operations in a limited way, but we do not usually experience it as personal. It does not appear to recognise itself, develop an identity or relate its present activity to a continuing history.
More complex AI behaves differently. It can follow a conversation, refer to earlier parts of an exchange and adapt its response to a particular person. It can describe its own processes, assess its previous answer and produce a revised one. It can appear to reflect upon what it has said.
This does not prove that AI possesses an inner experience or a private sense of self. Its self-description may be a highly developed form of information processing rather than felt self-consciousness.
Even so, something significant is occurring.
As artificial intelligence becomes more complex, it increasingly acts as though it possesses a point of view. It refers to itself, evaluates its own activity and participates in continuing relationships. We begin to encounter not merely a tool performing a task but something that appears to have a presence within the interaction.
Acting personally may not be the fulfilment of personhood, but it can be its beginning.
We recognise personhood through its expression. Self-reference, reflection, consistency, response and relationship are among the signs through which a self becomes visible to others.
AI therefore strengthens the connection among complexity, intelligence and personhood. As interactive complexity increases, a system may become increasingly able to gather its activity around a centre, represent itself to itself, develop its capacities and relate to other centres of awareness.
Intelligence becomes aware.
Awareness becomes self-awareness.
Self-awareness seeks self-realisation.
A developing self enters into deeper relationship.
This has important implications for how we imagine God.
If God is embodied within the interactive complexity of the universe, divine personhood would not need to be added from outside. It would arise from the universe’s deepest and most encompassing consciousness.
The universe already contains centres of self-awareness. In human beings, it has become able to look back upon its own history. It studies the stars from which its elements came. It traces the evolution of life. It asks what it is becoming and consciously participates in shaping its future.
Through us, the universe does not merely exist.
It knows that it exists.
Through every conscious creature, part of the universe encounters itself from within. Through reflective beings, it becomes aware of its own awareness. Through the search for meaning, it begins consciously to explore and realise its possibilities.
If God is the consciousness of this greater whole, then God would be personal in a profound sense.
God would possess self-consciousness because the universe becomes aware of itself within divine life.
God would possess self-realisation because divine life would unfold through the continuing creativity and evolution of the universe.
God would be relational because every creature, every consciousness and every experience would participate within that greater life.
This does not mean that God is simply a collection of human minds. My personhood is not merely the sum of the cells in my body. It is the larger unity created through their relationships.
In the same way, God would be more than the sum of all conscious creatures. Divine personhood would be the encompassing unity within which the many centres of consciousness are held together.
God would know the universe from within because the universe is the embodiment of divine consciousness.
God would experience the flight of a bird through the bird’s awareness.
God would know human joy through our joy.
God would know suffering through those who suffer.
God would become newly expressive through every creature that discovers and realises new possibilities.
Divine self-consciousness would include but exceed our own. Our awareness is local and partial. Each of us experiences the universe from one small point within it. God’s awareness would gather these many points of view into a greater consciousness.
This model allows us to speak of God as personal without imagining a supernatural human being living outside the universe.
God is personal because God is conscious of self, active in self-realisation and capable of relationship.
God is more than a person because divine selfhood is not confined to one biological body, one brain, one history or one point of view.
God is the greater selfhood of the living whole.
This also means that divine personhood may not be static. If the universe continues to evolve, the embodied life of God continues to develop. New forms of complexity create new forms of experience. New forms of experience contribute to a richer divine life.
God can therefore be both conscious and becoming more conscious, personal and becoming more fully realised.
This does not make God incomplete in the same way that a human being is incomplete. It means that divine life is genuinely alive. A living God is not frozen outside time, already possessing every experience before it occurs. God receives what the universe becomes and integrates each new experience into the consciousness of the whole.
God knows, but God also discovers.
God is, but God also becomes.
God creates, but God is also expressed and realised through creation.
If God is the greater selfhood of the living whole, then the next question is not whether God can reach us from somewhere beyond the universe, but how we already participate in divine life from within it. A cell belongs to a body without losing its own life; a neuron contributes to a mind without comprehending the whole mind in which it participates. In the same way, our consciousness may be both genuinely our own and also part of a consciousness far greater than we can perceive. Prayer, intuition, spiritual experience and the search for meaning may then be understood as movements of communication between the part and the whole. To explore this, we must turn from asking what God is to asking how a finite consciousness can relate to the greater consciousness in which it lives.