The Psychology of Real Happiness

Continued from page 3

It was a major change in my life, and a big discovery for me. And I would like to share it and say it in a way that's compelling for people who are secular. I have come to believe that there is a secular view that leads to God, and it leads to meaning because it's grounded outside yourself.

In most religions, God has four properties: He or She is the Creator of the universe, and also omnipotent, omniscient, and righteous.. The objections to the idea of a creator are legion. But if you accept the Big Bang theory of creation, you are left with a God who isn't a creator-but is omniscient, omnipotent, and righteous. The question is, does such a God exist? The answer would seem to be "Not now"-because you're basically stuck with the problem of why there is evil in the universe and the question of how there can be free will if God is omnipotent. But will there ever be such an entity? The answer is yes, in the longest of runs.

It more or less fell into place when I read Bob Wright's book

. He describes life as a positive sum game in which complexity wins out. Evolution works strongly in favor of growth and complexity. In human history, we are going from knowledge to omniscience, from potence to omnipotence, from ethics and religion to righteousness..So, in my view, God comes at the

of this long process. This may not happen in our lifetimes or even in the lifetime of our species. But we can choose lives that are part of this pathway to God, lives that are meaningful and sacred. They're in the service of God coming

. That's the theology that I can accept.