THOMAS BERRY
A New Cosmology of the Universe
Of all the issues we are concerned with at present, the most basic issue, in my estimation is that of human-earth relations. The twentieth century has eliminated the terror of the unknown darknesses of nature by devastating nature herself. Our ultimate failure as human beings is to become not a crowning glory of the earth, but the instrument of its degardation. We are playing for high stakes, the beauty and grandeur and even the survival of the earth in its life-giving powers.
In this context, we must ask what are the real gains for the human ? The automobile, our urban centers, our space exploits, our communication skills? What have we gained? A set of once-magnificent but now decaying infrastructures that exhaust our energies, our finances, and the resources of the earth itself. Whereas the infrastructures of nature continually renew themselves from within, our infrastructures dissolve in the corrosive acids of the environment or break under the relentless straain imposed upon them.
Are we really moving into a wonderland so magnificent that it is worth such a destructive presence to the natural world ? Is this the only way to survive, to provide the food and shelter and clothing andenergy that we need? What benefit is worth giving upe the purity of the air we breathe, the water we dring and the life-giving soil in whichour food is grown ?
The myth of our economy is that the deterioration of planetary life support systems is seen as "progress". The myths of superconsumtion as quality of life drives our system despite what science tells about our limited resources and our instituions continue to place higher emphasis on sports and entertainment than sustainability.
While the discilpline of caring for the earth was explained to Moses thousands of years ago, it took Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson to stun us into recognizing what nature was telling us for decades.
Even now Congress sees the environmental movement as a threat to the economy when in fact the econoy is founded on the resources it is over-exploiting (to the point that in the next generation there will be no first world nations).
Although Thomas Aquinas alerted us to the existence of a single planetary society hundreds of years ago. Economics and religion are two aspects of a single earth process. Yet the current crisis (assault on the creation and extinction of its most elaborate life forms) emerged in a Christian culture without conscientious objection from the faith community.
The circumstances warrant a religious response of a type based upon a new story of the universe. We are entering into a period of the Third Mediation: first was divine-human interaction; second inter-human; but the future of the first two is dependent on the success of a mutually enhancing human-earth relationship.
The Cosmogenetic Principle (the form-producing power of the Universe) states that the evolution of the Universe will be characterized by differentiation, subjectivity, and communion throughout time and space and at every level of reality.
1. Cosmogenesis is ordered by differentiation. A Universe of unending diversity, there has never been a time when the Universe did not seek further differentiation. The Universe began in a concentration of energy and at each instant has re-created itself new. The seemingly infinite power for transfiguration in every region of the Universe speaks of an inexhaustible fecundity at the root of reality. The Universe comes to us, each being and each moment announcing its thrilling news: I am fresh. To understand the Universe you must understand me.
Some synonyms for differentiation are diversity, complexity, variation, disparity, multiform nature, heterogeneity, articulation.
2. Cosmogenesis is structured by subjectivity. A Universe filled with structures exhibiting self-organizing dynamics (autopoiesis) - from autocatalytic chemical processes to cells, from living bodies to galaxies. Not just living beings, but self-organizing power within all of creation. Refers to the interior dimension of things, its essence. Everything is endowed with and inner capacity for self-manifestation.
Note for humans: The movement from primordial rocks to mammalian consciousness is a radical one certainly. But we must avoid regarding such consciousness as an addendum or as an intrusion into reality. The integrity of the Universe must always be respected. Everything comes forth out of the intrinsic creativity of the Universe.
Synonyms--- self-manifestation, sentience, self-organization, dynamic centers of experience, presence, identity, inner principle of being, voice, interiority.
3. Cosmogenesis is organized by communion. To be si to be related, for relationship is the essence of existence. Nothing is itself without everything else. The Universe evolves into beings that are different from each other (differentiation), and that organize themselves (subjectivity). But in addition to this the Universe advances into communion--into a differentiated web of relationships among sentient centers of creativity. Note that relationships are discovered even more than they are forged.
Note for humans: The loss of relationship, ie to be cut off from intimacy with other beings with its consequent alienation is perhaps the supreme evil in the Universe or in religious terms the essence of damnation.
Synonyms---interrelatedness, interdependence, kinship, mutuality, internal relatedness, reciprocity, complementarity, interconnectivity, affiliation.
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