Lois's statement to list readers, Tuesday June 22, 2021:
At the risk of explaining how sausages are made, it might also help to think of the 5GU gods, as I do, as emergent properties of the world. Not separate -- no dualism here, thankyouverymuch. I touch on this in the recent Smart Bitches interview.
If you take the emergent properties model, physics is emergent from the underlying structure of the universe, chemistry is emergent from physics, biology is emergent from chemistry, and life and mind are emergent from biology. Take it up one step or level further, and the gods are the emergent property of all. So matter and spirit are not two things; spirit (or mind, if you like) is an inherent expression of matter, generated by it.
Totally not like real-world religions with creator gods; profoundly different from, say, the Catholicism with which it often gets confused or conflated. A lot of readers, I observe in reviews, seem to be tone-deaf to serious theological matters, taking their notions of religion from D&D games I suppose, and blow right past these underlying concerns of the stories without them registering, which gives them a very different read from those who do. "Speculative theology" is a good call.
(There's a whole 'nother discussion on whether the 5GU gods are inside or outside time, or whether anything parallel to notions of eternity apply. Since notions of eternity really upwhack agency in free will, I am on the whole inclined to think They are inside time with the rest of the observable universe that creates/generates Them.)
See http://lists.herald.co.uk/pipermail/lois-bujold/2021-June/001463.html