Thomas Berry: Developing a Cosmological Spirituality
James Bacik
Introduction:
1.
I.
Thomas Berry (1914-2009) Passionist priest; cultural historian; important contribution to eco-spirituality; the
green guru; in 2014 there were important conferences honoring him on the centenary of his birth and fifth
anniversary of his death; grew up in Greensboro, North Carolina and died there; earned a doctorate at Catholic
University; 1948-49 studied in China; 1956-61 taught at Seton Hall; 1961-65 taught at St. John’s and at Fordham
1966-1979; 1970-95 director of Riverdale Center of Religious Research; 1975-1987 president of American Teilhard
de Chardin Association.
2. A cosmological spirituality emphasizes the relationship between humans and the vast evolving cosmos; our
ecological crisis has a spiritual dimension; exploring the role of religion and the natural world; the universe story
gives us a comprehensive perspective for viewing our ecological challenges; we share in the great work of
establishing intimacy with the planet in a mutually enriching relationship; we are beginning the Ecozoic Era. Berry
challenges us to broaden our spiritual perspective (The Universe Story) and to actively engage in the great work of
befriending and saving planet Earth.
3. Books by Berry: The Dream of the Earth (1988); The Universe Story (1992); The Great Work (1999).
The Ecological Crisis
A. The situation
1. Twenty-five billion tons of topsoil lost each year which seriously harms the future food supply.
2. Extinction of species in the rain forest in the southern hemisphere.
3. Polluting the river systems used for waste disposal.
4. Polluting the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels.
5. Radioactive waste from nuclear power plants.
6. We are in the terminal phase of the Cenozoic Age that began about 66 million years ago with the fifth
of the Big Five Mass Extinctions that wiped out the dinosaurs as well as nearly 50% of species; one
possible cause was a large asteroid hitting the Earth in the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico which caused
global forest fires, dust and smoke blocking sunlight.
7. Some believe we are in the sixth Mass Extinction phase.
B. Causes
1. Development of industrial societies, especially in the West, and economic systems that exploit nature
for profit.
2. A mode of consciousness that gives all rights to humans and sees other beings only in terms of
usefulness to humans - - a view shared by the four major players: governments, corporations,
universities and religions. They all accept or promote a radical discontinuity between human and
non-human.
3. With the use of modern science we see the universe as a collection of objects rather than a
communion of subjects. We no longer read the book of Nature; we are disengaged from intimate
interaction with nature; we no longer coordinate our liturgies with the great liturgy of the heavens;
the world has become an it rather than a thou; other voices of nature have been silenced.
4. The traditional religious stories and rituals that linked us with nature are no long effective for many
educated people. For example, educated Christians no longer accept the cosmology of the Bible with
its flat earth, stars stuck in the firmament with holes that allow rain.
5. Universities put emphasis on science and technology, on preparing for careers often at the expense
of the humanities.
6. Politics and big money: special interests, polarization.
II.
Thomas Berry: influences and outlooks
A. Shaping influences
1. At age 11, his family moved to a rural area. On an early afternoon in late May, Thomas walked down
from where the family house was being built, crossed a small creek in to a meadow covered with
white lilies, with crickets singing, woodlands in the distance, clouds in a clear sky. Reflecting on this
experience years later, Thomas saw it as normative for the entire range of his thinking: what helps
the meadow flourish is good, what harms it is not good; for example, an economic system that
diminished the power of the meadow to renew itself; policies that denies the right to flourish;
religion which no longer recognizes the mystery dimension of the blooming of the lilies.
2.
III.
IV.
His study of Eastern religions, Chinese Wisdom traditions (Taoism and Confucianism) and Indian
mystical traditions (Hinduism and Buddhism). He was especially interested in their cosmology the
way they understood and related to the cosmos. He taught Asian religions at Fordham (1966-1979)
where he directed the Graduate Program in the History of Religions.
3. Thomas Aquinas (d 1274): all creatures come from God and return to God; they exist by participation
in the infinite being of God. This means all creatures are connected not only to God but to all other
beings. Following Aristotle and not Plato, Aquinas had an appreciation of the material world.
4. Teilhard de Chardin (d 1955) author of The Phenomenon of Man and The Divine Milieu. Berry
appropriated his vision of a unified evolutionary process, guided by the law of complexity
consciousness. Consciousness arises within the process. Evolution is a way of seeing the world.
Creation is ongoing (cosmogenesis); importance of “Awakening” for Berry becoming aware of our
current moment of opportunity.
Berry and a proper attitude toward the universe
A. The problem
1. We suffer from spiritual autism: a self-absorbed broken connection with the universe, the earth, and
the natural world.
2. Our detached attitude allows us to pollute and destroy species without conscious guilt.
3. By ignoring and harming the natural world we weaken our religious imagination.
4. Anthropocentrism, fear of nature (residue of the Black Plague).
B. Toward a solution
1. We are the universe become conscious of itself - - it took over 13 billion years to create my hand.
2. The universe, our galaxy, our solar system, our earth are sources of revelation with a power to touch
our religious imagination, to awaken in us a sense of amazement, enchantment and awe, and to
uncover the mystery dimension of all creation.
3. Think of the universe as a communion of subjects rather than a collections of objects.
4. We should read the Bible against the background of the Book of Nature.
5. Think of contributing to the Ecozoic Era by a healthier relationship to the Earth.
Berry and the Universe Story
A. Background
1. Story form is designed to make scientific knowledge accessible and intelligible, to touch the
imagination.
2. The Universe story has a physical, material dimension studied by science and an internal spiritual
dimension discerned by religious traditions.
3. The traditional religious stories no longer work for educated people. We are between stories,
needing a new story that connects us with the universe.
4. Berry wrote a book with physicist Brian Swimme, The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring
Forth to the Ecozoic Era. This material was made into an award-winning documentary film, “Journey
of the Universe” by Swimme and Mary Evelyn Tuelier. It takes place on the Greek Island of Samas
beginning at dawn and ending at midnight, telling the story of cosmos evolution. There is also a
valuable study guide prepared by Matthew Riley at Yale.
B. Content
1. About 13.7 billion years ago with the Big Bang there was a flaring forth of the primordial energy that
contained all that would happen in the evolutionary process including our existence.
2. This primordial energy produced an expanding universe with its original galaxies and stars.
3. One of the stars imploded or collapsed producing a supernova which spewed out all the 94 natural
chemical elements found on earth.
4. About 4.6 billion years ago gas and dust in the Milky Way galaxy evolved into our solar system
producing the star known as the Sun and its eight planets (Pluto seems to be off the list).
5. Berry wants us to think of the Earth primarily as “a life process” carrying within itself a tendency
toward “ever greater differentiations;” “a deepening spontaneity” and an “ever more intimate selfbonding of the component parts.”
6. The Earth found its proper distance from the Sun (not too hot or cold to support life), got its radius
just right so it is not too large and gaseous like Jupiter or too small and rocky like Mars. The moon
had to be the right distance so seas are not stagnant or the tides overwhelm the continents. The
early earth rotated faster producing five-hour days. The moon which was produced by a collision
with an object the size of Mars over 3 billion years ago. The moon was much closer causing massive
waves to roll over the ocean.
7.
V.
At one point the Earth was one large ocean with a single large island which gradually separated into
continents. The radioactive elements within the earth provided the heat for the volcanic explosions
leading to the seas and raising the continents above the waters. This is a single process leading to
human consciousness.
8. The first simple cells emerged on earth almost four billion years ago, the ancestors of all forms of life
today. The early cells had the ability to respond to their environment. Life on earth is “nested” in the
larger evolutionary process.
9. Plants developed a biomolecule called chlorophyll that enabled the process of photosynthesis
whereby the plants absorb photons from sunlight causing them to grow. Berry presents cells as
possessing the power to discern how to best respond to the environment which enables the
evolutionary process to grope its way forward. Adaptation is a key feature of Earth’s history as is the
tendency “to commune.”
10. Berry is especially interested in the past 65 million years of Earth history since the extinction of the
dinosaurs (the Cenozoic era) when emerged: flowers came forth in all their gorgeous colors; great
deciduous trees; the tropical rain forests; great variety of birds with distinctive colors, songs and
mating rituals; various species of mammals with their passion, sexual choice and extended parental
care during longer maturation process.
11. Some 60 thousand years ago our human ancestors emerged in northeast Africa with the capacity for
speech, symbolic expression, tool-making skills, extending family relations, ritual actions, visual arts,
song and dance (the late Paleolithic Period). We all have African roots - - something to ponder in
terms of race relations. About five to seven million years ago a small population of chimp-like apes
adapted to a changing climate living in open plains, developing a much larger brain, learning to walk
on two legs and to be very flexible. These traits allowed them to migrate to Europe, Asia and the
Americas. They were not only able to pass on these genes but also what they had learned. As symbol
producing beings, we humans became “overnight a planetary species” (Swimme). Meditation and
liturgy can put us into right relationship with the Earth.
12. After living as hunter-gatherers for roughly 260 thousand years, our ancestors began living in villages
about 10,000 years ago along the great rivers (Tigris-Euphrates, the Nile, the Indus, the Yellow River),
and in the Americas the Maya in the Yucatan Peninsula and the Incas in the high plateaus of Peru.
Their civilizations gave us the arts, religion, the pyramids of Egypt, the Great Wall of China, the
cathedrals of Europe. Humans became stardust conscious of itself, being able to appreciate the
power and beauty of the evolutionary process, able to be in communion with the cosmic forces. We
are the product of a process that is neither random nor determined but is creative. We are neither
an addendum nor an intrusion into the universe but are integral to the process, able to ponder its
mystery dimension. We are now the prime movers of the evolutionary process rather than natural
processes. We are between stories with the task of spreading the universe story to those who can no
longer accept the traditional religious story like a literal reading of Genesis.
The Great Work
A. Background
1. The Great Work is to reverse the degradation of the Earth and to live in a mutually enriching
relationship with the Earth.
2. To initiate a new Ecozoic Era.
3. To heal the wounds of the Earth.
4. All humans are called to share in this work.
B. How to contribute
1. Have a large vision of the Universe Story and work in small ways at the local level. We need an
“ecological geography” that helps us appreciate the unique characteristics of the bioregion where we
reside so we can achieve intimacy with it and therefore respect it.
2. Learn to appreciate the wildness of the natural world which is disciplined by various factors such as
gravity, the curvature of space. Staying in touch with wildness like hurricanes, floods, earthquakes
can stimulate the religious imagination and foster artistic expression.
3. Move from a human-centered to an Earth-centered norm of reality and value. We have to do this for
our own survival. The Earth is “a biospiritual planet.” There is a struggle between the industrial
commercial enterprises and the ecological movement - - the great issue of the 21st century. Toward a
solution: stop viewing the earth and its components as commodities; pass laws to protect the
environment; redefine the word progress (not just material) and profit (not just economic); gender
(vs patriarchy); medical profession take seriously the environmental causes of illness.
4.
Berry thinks controversial groups like Greenpeace and Sea Shepherds are needed to force deeper
reflection.
5. Our best hope is a pervasive change of consciousness which includes recovering and reinterpreting
archetypal symbols: the Great Earth Mother who sustains life; the Cosmic Tree of Life which
represents the organic unity of the Universe and the integral reality of the Earth making devastation
of the natural world repulsive; Death-Rebirth seen in terms of temporal development; the Journey
we share in the journey of the Universe Story as product and participant.
6. Universities play an indispensable role in developing an ecological outlook. They should critique an
economic system that promotes consumption at the expense of the natural world; jurisprudence that
grants rights to humans and not the natural world; religions that focus on redemption from sin while
neglecting the glory of creation; the humanities that separate humans from the natural world. In
general, universities must move from training students for temporary survival in a consumerist world
to educating students to be participants in the earth community.
7. We need a “macrophase ethics” that replaces our anthropocentric ethics, and make the well-being of
the comprehensive Earth community the norm and sees the well-being of humans within that
context.
8. The most important political divisions are not between liberals and conservatives but between
developers who want to extend the current consumerist practices and the ecologists who favor
“sustainable development.” More radically, Berry says we need “a sustainable way of life”
(development is not sustainable) or a “restorative economy.”
9. We must reinvent the human at the species level (guided by the inherent tendencies of our genetic
coding expressed through the fundamental archetypes identified by Carl Jung); through critical
reflection that realizes the natural world is violent and dangerous as well as serene and benign;
within the community of life systems; in a time-development context that goes back to the original
flaring forth and recognizes differentiation (every being is different from all others); each individual
has a “sacred depth” grounded in “the numinous mystery”; the entire universe is bonded in a
comprehensive unity; all given expression in the universe story known through science interpreted
religiously; the need to dream of a different way to be human in harmony with the Earth community.
10. We must find hope for the future by emphasizing the psychic dimension of the evolutionary process.
As physical resources become less available we rely more on psychic energy which multiplies by use
that is a cause of celebration and a hope for the future. There is a spiritual energy that gathers
around the great archetypes: the journey, Death and Rebirth, the Cosmic Tree, the Sacred Center
now interpreted in the framework of the Universe Story. We are now responsible for directing and
energizing the ongoing evolutionary process. We are supported by the same Power that brought the
Universe and the Earth into existence, that guided the emergence of life including human life. We
are immersed in “a sea of energy” that can be tapped to build a better future for earth and ourselves.
11. We can draw on four sources of Wisdom: indigenous peoples who maintain an intimate relationship
with the natural world; women who challenge patriarchy that dominates nature as well; classical
traditions such as Chinese Wisdom that promotes harmony in the world and medieval scholasticism
represented by Aquinas who celebrated the power of reason to discern truth; and science that excite
a sense of awe before the great mystery of the evolving world. We need all this wisdom to meet the
current ecological crisis.
12. We are participating in a moment of grace like no other when a new vision and a new energy are
coming into existence. We see ourselves as the product of a long cosmogenesis and as an agent of
transformation to a mutually enhancing human mode of living in the Earth community. The Universe
Story can help unite people all over the world and motivate us to the Great Work of producing the
Ecozoic Era.