Ellis Potter
“When I was a teenager doing Yoga and Buddhist meditation I had an unforgettable experience one afternoon. I experienced being the exact same size as the entire universe. The experience lasted about fifteen minutes and was very intense, although it could not have been very transformative or else it would not have become a mere memory. For the deeply enlightened person this experience is a constant reality”.
Ellis Potter has written, on many levels, a bizarre book. Prima facie, he is aiming to show how a Trinitarian category of “absolute reality” explains our universe and experience better than a “Monist” or “Dualist” category does. I certainly took it as such when I began to read 3 Theories of Everything. Because of this, for a good many pages I was frustrated; I thought that I was reading sweeping pseudo-philosophy. But that is simply not how to read this book. Instead, one should let Potter lead you on his own terms. When one does this, 3 Theories of Everything comes alive. Potter is not really seeking to persuade; there is no argument here. Instead, this odd piece of writing is flecked throughout with pithy, profound sayings, like the pleasing “God alone is God and God is not alone”.
Because he is not seeking to persuade, many of us will find numerous sentences jarring, such as “I have given you a short Buddhist sermon. I don’t know if any of you will be converted. I hope that you can understand the power and hope that underlies this worldview, and why healthy, intelligent people would devote themselves to it”. Lots of us evangelicals may well take issue with this bordering-on promotion of (Zen) Buddhism. I say finally. Not only in Potter is there a Christian who actually knows what he is critiquing when it comes to Eastern Mysticism, but he is actively sympathetic toward it. In the current Western cultural climate in which many Christians still think that New Atheism is alive and well, those we witness to need to know less and less why they are wrong, and we who witness need to know more and more why non-Christians are attracted to what they are attracted to. Books like this one could not be more welcome in that regard.
6.5 /10