Episode 63 - God or Field

Talk given at Parklands (Manchester, UK) on 23rd October 1974.  Eugene argues that the apparent opposition between a personal God and an impersonal universal field is false. Beginning with the scientific insight that matter is energy, he critiques both dualism (separate principles of good and evil, mind and matter) and classical monism, proposing instead an infinite, non-dual continuum of sentient power. Consciousness and matter cannot be fundamentally separate, but are different modalities of the same underlying reality.  Every individual personality is a local expression of this infinite field, which is necessarily omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. The traditional term “God” is therefore a convenient shorthand for this all-inclusive, intelligent, creative reality—not an anthropomorphic deity. Sin is interpreted as pursuing finite, ego-centred aims contrary to the wider purposes of the infinite sentient field, of which all beings are inseparable expressions.  A transcript is available at www.eugene-halliday.net.