God's Grand Game

Subtitled 'divine sovereignty and the cosmic playground', this is a logical elaboration of the proposition that everything we do is what God is doing through us as the 'Cosmic Animator', in other words 'God is in control of everything that happens.' The author begins by giving an account of his own somewhat traumatic development, including the death of his mother and challenges with respect to mental health. The logic unfolded stems from the author's understanding and experience of the attributes of God: omnipresence, boundlessness, being all that exists, creativity, omnipotence, omniscience, aliveness, reality and mystery. This entails the nonexistence of free will - also asserted by those with a non-dual perspective - a denial of causality and moral responsibility as well as enlightenment. The author rejects the scientific account of determinism while his own view expresses just such a position based on the fundamental idea of control. I think this concept is problematic when applied across the board as it is fundamentally a category applicable to machines. It is, however, stimulating to engage with the author's arguments and their implications as he is very well read and articulate. I do agree that there is an element of a game in the cosmic scheme, although I would describe it differently as a 'fall' into separation, sleep, darkness and ignorance so the journey is one of self-realisation waking up to unity, light and wisdom. Stephen has also written an interesting short book entitled Big Ideas from Ancient Greece, where he discusses 12 philosophers and the ideas they had that have influenced our way of thinking ever since. Each chapter describes the philosopher in question, is the idea and the author's reflections on this.