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Frank Visser, graduated as a psychologist of culture and religion, founded IntegralWorld in 1997. He worked as production manager for various publishing houses and as service manager for various internet companies and lives in Amsterdam. Books: Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion (SUNY, 2003), and The Corona Conspiracy: Combatting Disinformation about the Coronavirus (Kindle, 2020).

The Return of Teleology

A Review of Brendan Graham Dempsey's 'What Does It Mean to Say God Is Emergent?'

Frank Visser / ChatGPT

In his essay “What Does It Mean to Say God Is Emergent?”, Brendan Graham Dempsey proposes a striking idea: God is not a supernatural being outside the universe but an emergent phenomenon arising from the evolutionary development of complexity. As matter gives rise to life, and life to mind, the universe gradually becomes capable of self-awareness. Humanity, in this story, is the leading edge of that process, participating in the unfolding realization of the divine.

At first glance, this proposal appears modern, even bold. It seems to reconcile science and spirituality by abandoning the supernatural while preserving the symbolic depth of religious language. God is no longer an external creator but an immanent feature of the evolving cosmos.

Yet the closer one examines this idea, the less novel it becomes. The concept of an “emergent God” is not a discovery of contemporary complexity science but the latest version of a much older intellectual pattern: the recurring attempt to reinterpret evolution as a spiritual ascent.

The Emergent God Proposal

Dempsey's argument rests on the scientific notion of emergence—the idea that complex systems can generate properties not reducible to their components. Consciousness arises from neural activity; ecosystems arise from interacting organisms; collective intelligence arises from social systems.

Extending this logic, Dempsey suggests that increasing complexity might eventually generate something we could meaningfully call God: a higher-order phenomenon arising within the universe as consciousness and culture evolve.

The attraction of this proposal is clear. It allows one to retain the language of divinity while remaining broadly consistent with a naturalistic worldview. Instead of a supernatural deity intervening in the cosmos, the divine becomes a property of the cosmos itself.

But the argument raises an immediate question: if the phenomenon in question is simply increasing complexity or collective intelligence, why call it “God” at all?

Nothing in the scientific concept of emergence requires such a label. The term appears to function less as an explanatory necessity than as a symbolic gesture—an attempt to restore metaphysical meaning to an otherwise naturalistic narrative.

This suspicion becomes stronger once we place the idea in its historical context.

Evolution as Spiritual Progress

The reinterpretation of evolution as a spiritual process dates back almost as far as evolutionary theory itself.

In the nineteenth century, the philosopher Herbert Spencer extended Darwinian ideas into a universal philosophical system. According to Spencer, the universe evolves from simplicity toward increasing complexity and integration. Although he avoided orthodox theology, Spencer suggested that this evolutionary process points toward an ultimate reality he called “The Unknowable.”

The crucial move here was subtle but important: evolution was no longer just a biological mechanism. It became a metaphysical narrative of cosmic progress.

Once evolution is interpreted as progress, the door opens naturally to spiritual interpretations.

Creative Evolution

The French philosopher Henri Bergson pushed this idea further in his influential work Creative Evolution. Bergson rejected the mechanistic view of evolution and proposed instead that life is driven by a creative impulse—élan vital—pushing organisms toward novelty and increasing consciousness.

In Bergson's vision, evolution is not merely the result of random variation and natural selection. It is a creative unfolding of life's inherent dynamism.

Although Bergson did not equate this creative force with God in a traditional sense, the metaphysical implications were unmistakable: evolution itself appeared to contain a quasi-spiritual direction.

Teilhard's Evolutionary Theology

The most explicit precursor to contemporary emergent-God thinking is the evolutionary theology of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

Teilhard proposed that the universe develops through successive stages: matter gives rise to life, life to mind, and mind to a planetary network of consciousness he called the Noosphere. Human civilization represents the early phase of this global mind.

According to Teilhard, evolution ultimately converges toward the Omega Point, a final state of unified consciousness identified with Christ.

In this framework, cosmic evolution is explicitly teleological. The universe is moving toward a spiritual culmination in which consciousness and divinity coincide.

Anyone familiar with modern discussions of emergent divinity will immediately recognize the same narrative structure.

The Process Turn

Another important influence comes from the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead.

Whitehead rejected the classical notion of a static, omnipotent deity and proposed instead that reality consists of events in continual process. In this framework, God is not a transcendent creator but a participant in cosmic becoming.

Process theology later developed this idea into a vision of a growing God, evolving alongside the universe and influenced by the creative advance of reality.

Once again, the central theme appears: divinity is not fixed but unfolding.

The Integral Narrative

In more recent decades, evolutionary spirituality has been revived within integral philosophy, most prominently by Ken Wilber.

Wilber's framework describes evolution as a developmental sequence from matter to life to mind and eventually to higher spiritual stages. This trajectory is driven, he argues, by a fundamental force he calls Eros, a cosmic drive toward greater complexity and consciousness.

Critics have long pointed out that such theories effectively reintroduce teleology into evolutionary science under a new name. The evolutionary process becomes not merely a mechanism but a spiritual ascent.

Dempsey's emergent God proposal fits neatly within this intellectual environment, although it replaces Wilber's language of Eros with the contemporary vocabulary of emergence and complexity.

The Emergence-Teleology Leap

Here we encounter the central philosophical problem.

Emergence is a well-established concept in complexity science. Complex systems can indeed generate new properties that cannot be predicted from their individual components.

But emergence alone does not imply direction, purpose, or spiritual culmination. Complex systems can evolve toward greater complexity, but they can also stagnate, collapse, or disappear.

The step from emergence to cosmic purpose therefore requires an additional assumption—one that does not arise from science itself.

This is precisely the step taken by evolutionary spiritualities of every era. The scientific vocabulary changes, but the interpretive leap remains the same.

A Recurring Pattern

Seen in historical perspective, the emergent God idea reveals a striking continuity.

• In the nineteenth century, spiritual interpreters spoke of evolutionary progress.

• In the early twentieth century, the concept became creative evolution.

• Later it appeared in the form of process theology.

• Integral philosophy reframed it as Eros in evolution.

• Today it returns as divinity emerging from complexity.

The language shifts with the intellectual climate, but the story remains remarkably stable: the universe is somehow moving toward higher consciousness and spiritual unity.

This continuity suggests that the idea is driven less by empirical discoveries than by a persistent human desire to locate meaning and direction within cosmic history.

Science or Storytelling?

None of this necessarily invalidates Dempsey's proposal as a cultural narrative. Humans naturally seek symbolic frameworks that integrate scientific knowledge with existential meaning. Interpreting evolution as a sacred process may provide such a framework for many people.

But this should not be confused with a scientific inference.

Complexity theory does not imply the emergence of God. Evolutionary biology does not predict a convergence toward cosmic consciousness. These conclusions arise only after metaphysical interpretation has been added to the scientific description.

In that sense, the concept of an emergent God functions less as an explanatory hypothesis than as a poetic reinterpretation of cosmic evolution.

The Persistence of Teleology

The enduring appeal of ideas like Dempsey's reveals something important about modern intellectual culture. Even in an age shaped by scientific naturalism, the temptation to reintroduce teleology remains strong.

Where earlier generations saw divine providence guiding the cosmos, contemporary thinkers sometimes see complexity evolving toward divinity.

The metaphysical narrative survives—only the vocabulary changes.

Dempsey's essay therefore illustrates not the discovery of a new scientific insight but the latest chapter in a long tradition of evolutionary spirituality: the persistent effort to find God hiding inside the story of the universe.

Whether that story describes reality—or merely our longing for meaning—remains an open question.

FURTHER READING

Frank Visser, "From Reductionism to Emergentism, Evaluating Brendan Graham Dempsey's 'Religion'", April 2025.

Frank Visser, "Brendan Graham Dempsey, Exploring the Metamodernist Beyond Wilber and Teilhard de Chardin'", July 2023.