Thomas Berry’s New Cosmology and the Ecozoic Era

Jai-Don Lee

Graduate School for Life

The Catholic University of Korea

The twenty-first century is said to be a time of great change in human history. The Industrial Revolution along with the modernity values of progress and reason, three hundred years ago, brought many positive contributions to human life such as liberation from oppressive human labour and promotion of the understanding on the human self, but it also had unparalleled negative consequences. The most ruinous of these has been the ruthless destruction of nature, which has begun to threaten the survival of all ecosystems including the human. It is of vital importance, therefore, that human culture change from an industrial and capitalistic one to one that will assure the survival of all ecosystems.

Many scholars give distinctive names to this transitional period of the twenty-first century. Ewert Cousins, for example, calls it the Second Axial Period, comparing it with the First Axial Period coined by Karl Jaspers. Hans Küng characterizes the present-day change as a Macro-Paradigm-Shift period, and Leonard Swidler describes it as humankind slipping out of the Shadowy Age of Monologue into the dawn of the Age of Dialogue. For Thomas Berry, the present-day transition is not only a cultural change of human history but it is also a geological change of earth history. Berry contends that the twenty-first century is a transitional period between the Cenozoic and the Ecozoic Era.

From a cultural historian’s perspective, Berry maintains that every age has its own historical task. He characterizes this task as “the Great Work” of history. Berry explains the Great Work of history:

History is governed by those overarching movements that give shape and meaning to life by relating the human venture to the larger destinies of the universe. Creating such a moment might be called the Great Work of a people.

In listing some examples of the Great Work of history, Berry cites the work of classical Greece in the creation of the Western humanist traditions; the work of Israel in expressing a new experience of the divine in human affairs; the work of Rome in gathering the diverse peoples of the Mediterranean and Western Europe under the rule of law; the work of the medieval period in giving the Western world its first Christian shape as symbolized by the great Gothic cathedrals. In India, he says, the Great Work was to lead human thought into the spiritual experience of time and eternity and their mutual presence to each other, while Chinese Confucianism created its Great Work as one of the most elegant and human civilizations humanity have ever known.

Unlike the previous Great Works which involved mainly cultural achievements within human history, Berry holds, the Great Work of the twenty-first century is more than cultural achievement. It involves a geological achievement which “is to carry out the transition from a period of human devastation of the earth to a period when humans would be present to the planet in a mutually beneficial manner.” In order to achieve this Great Work, Berry contends that four systems of society – political, economic, intellectual, and religious – should change their functional principles. These four systems must discard their assumption of “discontinuity between the nonhuman and the human modes of being, with all the rights and all inherent values given to the human.” Instead, these four systems should develop a new relationship between the human and the nonhuman. Religions also must develop eco-friendly teachings in which the human can coexist with the nonhuman in a mutually enhancing manner. This change of the four systems towards the Ecozoic, Berry claims, is the Great Work of the twenty-first century.

1. Need for a New Cosmology

The most serious problem humanity now face is the ecological destruction resulting from the industrial culture based on an anthropocentric cosmology. The destruction of the ecological system threatens not only human culture but also the whole life system on the earth. The strength of Berry’s ecological thought rests in its capacity to identify the reason that human culture has reached this destructive situation and to suggest the remedy for ecological healing from a cosmological perspective. The immediate reason for ecological devastation is the misuse of science and technology, but the primary reason is, Berry holds, that there is no appropriate and functional cosmology which explains and guides a just relationship between the human and nature.

Cosmology provides a context which accounts for where the human comes from and where the human is going. Human beings find the meaning and goal of their lives in a cosmological context. Without a functional cosmology, human beings cannot find their proper role in relationship with other human beings and with nature. Berry’s life-long task is to provide a new and functional cosmology.

Berry asserts two main reasons for the need for a new cosmology. For an ecological reason, Berry holds that the cause of mass extinction happening on the earth is that the human has no suitable cosmology. The anthropocentric cosmology presupposed by modern technological culture is a primary reason for the mass extinction of natural species everywhere. Therefore, Berry contends that a new ecological cosmology is needed. For a religious reason, he holds that while the understanding of the universe has been changed by the new insights of science and technology from cosmos to cosmogenesis, religions have not understood the meaning of this new scientific discovery. Since they still cling to an old anthropocentric cosmology, they cannot provide an appropriate cosmological explanation and cannot guide human beings to establish a proper relationship with the nature. As a result, human scientific and technological culture which was supposed to bring about development and prosperity, on the contrary, is fostering extinction.

Extinction: End of Cenozoic Era

Above all, Berry’s concern with cosmology begins with his observations on the ecological destruction happening on the earth. Berry pays special attention to the mass extinction of species. Humans “are probably extinguishing some ten thousand species each year,” and the human “will extinguish possibly between one-half and one million species out of the five to ten million species that we believe presently to exist,” if we continue to destroy nature as we are doing at present. Based on the magnitude and speed of the present mass extinction, Berry estimates that current extinction is one of the most intensive extinctions which have happened in the earth’s evolutionary history.

According to scientists, there have been several mass extinctions in the 4.5 billion years of earth history. For example, the Paleozoic Era ended with the mass extinction which happened 245 million years ago, and the Mesozoic ended with the mass extinction which happened 67 million years ago. Berry claims that the present-day human capacity to extinguish species can be compared with the forces that terminated the Mesozoic and introduced the Cenozoic Era in earth history. He is one of the first scholars who predicts that the Cenozoic Era is ending, and many biologists who doubted Berry’s assertion up to now are beginning to agree with him.

Based on the mass extinction happening on the earth, Berry claims that human beings now live in a transitional age, “not another historical change but a geological and biological change.” Therefore, in order to understanding the current transition, a cultural perspective is not enough; a geological perspective is needed. Berry evaluates the change taking place on the earth and in our minds as “one of the greatest changes ever to take place in human affairs, perhaps the greatest.”

Furthermore, diversity and extinction of life species, for Berry, has not only ecological implications but religious ones also. He explains the meaning of extinction with a religious tone:

[Extinction] is an eternal concept. It’s not at all like the killing of individual lifeforms that can be renewed through normal processes of reproduction. Nor is to simply diminishing numbers….It is rather an absolute and final act for which there is no remedy on earth or in heaven. A species once extinct is gone forever.

Once a species is extinguished, no power in heaven or on the earth can bring about a revival. Extinction of one species means its eternal disappearance from the universe. It is an eschatological event.

Following the teaching of Thomas Aquinas, Berry explains the diversity of species in relation to the completeness of the universe, and extinction, to a defect in that completeness. Answering the question of why there are many species in the universe, Aquinas explains that it is because God’s completeness can be expressed through a multitude of things so that if one thing is defective, other things can supplement. In addition, Berry holds that human beings have a beautiful image of God because they experience the beauty of the universe. Therefore, when the universe loses its beauty and completeness, the basis of religious experience disappears. For Berry, the universe is not just a material world, but instead it is the world permeated by the numinous revelation of God.

In order to overcome this current ecological crisis, Berry holds, human beings should develop a new relationship with the natural world. This is why the human needs a new cosmology. Moreover, if the human succeeds in establishing a proper relationship with nature based on a new cosmology, according to Berry, the human can advance towards a more evolved stage in earth history, the Ecozoic Era. For this reason, Berry sees the current ecological disaster not only as a crisis but also as a kairos for the human and for the earth. He envisages a new hope in this crisis situation. For him, crisis means kairos. Just as the Mesozoic Era began after the Paleozoic, and just as the Cenozoic began after the Mesozoic, Berry proclaims, the Ecozoic must begin after the Cenozoic. The Ecozoic is a more evolved form not only in human cultural history but also in the earth history. In the Ecozoic Era, the human and nature coexist and co-evolve in a mutually enhancing manner. Berry declares that to achieve the Ecozoic is the Great Work of our time.

Cosmogenesis: Evolutionary Universe

The change in the human understanding of the universe, according to Berry, is another main reason for a new cosmology. A mythic, static, and cyclical cosmology has been discarded and substituted with an empirical, dynamic, and evolutionary cosmology discovered by modern science and technology. That is, the universe is no longer seen as cosmos, but cosmogenesis. This conceptual change regarding the universe is so influential in every part of human ways of thinking that without it the human cannot properly understand the magnitude of the ecological crisis or provide an efficient remedy for it.

Accepting the new insights of modern science, Berry reinterprets and narrates them in a story-telling method. Scientists explain that the universe began with the big bang of the fireball 13.7 billion years ago. Accepting this scientific data, Berry explains it as primordial flaring forth or creative energy. Creative energy is a driving force which makes the universe begin, be sustained, and evolve.

The creative energy of the evolutionary universe, according to Berry, has the three cosmogenetic principles: differentiation, subjectivity, and communion. These principles are functioning from the beginning of the universe not only with material dimensions but also social and spiritual ones. He describes these principles exhibited in the form-producing structures of the universe as follows:

Were there no differentiation, the universe would collapse into a homogeneous smudge; were there no subjectivity, the universe would collapse into inert, dead extension; were there no communion, the universe would collapse into isolated singularities of being.

Without these principles, therefore, it would be impossible for the universe to exist.

His first principle of cosmogenesis is differentiation. Berry describes it as “the primordial expression of the universe,” since the universe emerges as a differentiation process. Differentiation shows itself when the universe evolves into a variety of forms from atoms to humans.

This diversity manifests itself everywhere, both on the subatomic levels of elementary particles as well as the cosmic, galactic levels of existence. The primordial fireball energy of fifteen billion years ago differentiated itself into all that has come into being since then, electrons and protons, stars and galaxies, multicellular organisms, the immense variety of flora and fauna, as well as the rich diversity of humans.

Each form in the universe is a unique manifestation of existence. Because of the differentiation process, the more we come to know a particular reality, the more we discover its uniqueness. For example, when we meet two identical twins for the first time it is hard for us to tell them apart, especially if they are dressed alike. However, as we come to know them over time, we begin to observe and recognize the subtle differences between them. Their uniqueness will manifest itself in a myriad of ways. Some other words for differentiation include diversity, complexity, variation, multiform nature, heterogeneity, articulation and disparity.

Berry’s second principle of cosmogenesis is subjectivity. It relates to the interior dimension of things. Even the simplest atom cannot be understood by considering only its physical structure or external relationships with other things, because it emerges with an inner capacity for self-manifestation. An atom possesses a quantum of radical spontaneity in itself. As Kovats explains,

When we observe our universe which is so rich in chemical processes, cells, living beings, stars and galaxies, we find diverse manifestations of structures which display self-organizing dynamics. When we see stars organizing hydrogen and helium and producing other elements and light, we are observing the autopoiesis of the star. There is a power of organization within the star’s “self.” This self-organization is evidenced on the atomic and galactic levels as well.

Berry describes subjectivity as “the articulation of the individual reality…an interior depth, a special quality, a mystery that expresses not only a phenomenal mode, but also an archetypal realization.” Some synonyms of subjectivity include autopoiesis, self-manifestation, sentience, self-organization, interiority, presence, identity, dynamic centre of experience, and inner principle of being and voice.

Berry’s third principle of cosmogenesis is communion. This cosmic principle reflects the universal communion of all things that have existed from the beginning of the fireball 13.7 billion years ago. In the fireball all was connected, and this relationship of mutual inter-being continues as the universe emerges into being today: “The universe advances into community – into a differentiated web of relationships.” Berry explains the communion principle of the universe.

[E]very reality of the universe is intimately present to every other reality of the universe and finds its fulfillment in this mutual presence. The entire evolutionary process depends on communion. Without this fulfillment that each being finds in beings outside itself, nothing would ever happen in the entire world.

Communion refers to the interrelatedness among all existing things. We experience this communion of the universe in the phenomenon of the gravitational attraction that holds all things together. Some synonyms of communion include interrelatedness, interdependence, reciprocity, complementarity, interconnectivity, affiliation, kinship, and mutuality. This principle of communion affirms the intricate web of relationships that exist throughout the universe.

The creative energy and the three cosmic principles of Berry’s cosmology can be compared to the cosmic principle of Taoism – Tao, yin and yang. In Berry’s cosmology, the universe begins from the creative energy, while the universe begins from the Tao in Taoist philosophy. And like this yin/yang principle in Asian philosophy, Berry’s cosmogenetic principles are basic principles which explain the developmental process of everything in the universe. Yin and yang are two polar energies and causes of the universe, two complementary and interdependent principles. Yin and yang are usually observed and discussed as two opposite principles. But this is an observation of yin and yang from a static perspective. When yin and yang are observed from a dynamic perspective, they have three phases: yin, yang, and yin/yang interaction. In my understanding, creative energy pertains to Tao, differentiation to yang, subjectivity to yin, and communion to yin/yang interaction.

As the yin/yang principle is a universal principle explaining not only the physical world but also in Asian culture, as Confucianism and Taoism demonstrates, the social and religious phenomena, Berry’s cosmogenetic principles are also universal principles addressing not only the evolutionary physical world but also social and religious developmental processes.

Myth, Theory, and Story

In his book The Return to Cosmology, Stephen Toulmin defines cosmology in two ways. Toulmin observes that there have been two distinct types of cosmology – practical and intellectual – in human culture. In practical terms, cosmology provides the context for “where we stand in the world into which we have been born, to grasp our place in the scheme of things and to feel at home within it.” In intellectual terms, on the other hand, as a consequence of human speculation and imagination, cosmology includes “the scope of our thoughts and our language beyond all natural boundaries.” The practical understanding of cosmology takes the form of religious myth, while the intellectual understanding of cosmology takes the form of scientific theory.

According to Berry, however, neither religious myth nor scientific theory can provide a functional cosmology to present-day human beings. The religious myths which are handed down through traditional religions including Christianity have gradually lost their influence on human cultural development, because they present “the world simply as an ordered complex of beings that are ontologically related as an image of the divine.” That is, religious myths fail to introduce the world as an unfolding process which is described as cosmogenesis.

Meanwhile, a scientific theory which emerges from the empirical observation of modern science is not suitable either, because it lacks any depth of meaning or inspiration. A scientific theory on creation, Berry holds, is not “adequate to a culture living in a time of ecocrisis either, since the focus is on a merely material process that does not include, in fact excludes, the spiritual.” The scientific theory presents the world as “random sequence of physical and biological interactions with no inherent meaning,” and therefore it cannot provide a society with any spiritual or moral values. Neither of these cosmologies can adequately provide a context for our meaningful and sustained existence since neither can motivate the cultural transformation required to address the ecological crisis. The human is in crisis because it does not have a functional cosmology.

The new cosmology that human beings now desire, according to Berry, is a cosmology which includes scientific theory and religious myth. It is “a new creation myth which includes both the credibility derived from the scientific account of the universe’s story and the meaningfulness instilled by the spirituality of a faith tradition.” This cosmology narrated by Berry is an intertwined story of empirical science and intuitive wisdom. Science deals with objects, while myth deals with subjects. Since every form of being including the universe has both objective and subjective characters, the new cosmology needs both dimensions. It is scientific in its data and it has a mythic dimension as narrative. This mythic dimension is what lifts this cosmology from scientific data to an integral spiritual vision.

In order to combine religious myth with scientific theory, Berry holds that story is the most appropriate format. Story format has two characteristics. First, story is a narrative with historical sequence of beginning, development, and end. Unlike myth which focuses only on archetypal experience, story has concern for historical development. Additionally, story is an open and flexible format. Unlike scientific theory which is faithful to its logic, story is open to addition and revision depending on context and audience. Since Berry employs story format for his cosmology, it has these two traits. That is, his cosmology is a story with historical developments and a flexible story open to revision. Only through a story format narrated in understandable and non-technical language, he contends, can religious myth and scientific theory be combined. In 1992 Berry, together with Brian Swimme, published in story format The Universe Story to provide a new cosmological story embracing scientific theories and religious myths.

The story of the universe and the human role in the universe is “a primary source of intelligibility and value” Through this story, human beings come to appreciate the meaning of life and derive the psychic energy needed to deal effectively with those moments of crisis which occur in the life of the individual and in the life of the society. That is, “this story not only interprets the past, but also guides and inspires the human shaping of the future.”

Throughout human history, Berry holds, Western culture more than any other has been dependent on a story of historical patterns. As a cultural historian, he illustrates how Western culture has depended on various stories for its historical vision. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Augustine’s six-age story, from creation to the millennium, as articulated in The City of God, gave a new vision to the Western world. In the twelfth century, the three-age story of Joachim of Flores – the age of the Father, the Son, and the coming age of the Holy Spirit – gave a new religious fervor to Christianity which made Franciscan passion and devotion possible. In the eighteenth century the three age story of Giambattista Vico – the divine, the heroic, and the human ages – gave an explanatory pattern to the new culture. Then in the nineteenth century, Karl Marx’s story of historical development, from an original classless society through the feudal and bourgeois societies, and finally the classless society of communion, gave a new energy and vision to the twentieth century.

At the dawn of the twenty-first century, Berry identifies that the human needs a new story which is able to motivate a new energy and vision for human history. In response to this need, he proposes a new story which includes four stages of historical development – tribal, classical, technological, and ecological. Through this new story, Berry hopes that human beings can shape an ecological age, a new human culture of mutually enhancing human-earth relationships based on the new cosmology that will allow us to cope with the current ecological disaster. Berry views the ecological age as already emerging. A turning point event towards an ecological age of human culture, according to Berry, is that the United Nations has recognized the value of the natural world and passed the World Charter for Nature at the UN Assembly in 1982.

2. Comprehensive Vision of History, Science, and Religion

Berry’s cosmology is a comprehensive vision composed of historical dynamics, new discovery of evolutionary science, and the spiritual insight of traditional religions. These are deeply intertwined in his cosmology: historical dynamics form the backbone, while scientific new discovery and religious insight provide the two wings. Although the outline of cosmology emerges from Western science and historical concepts, in its inner depths it relies much on indigenous wisdom and Asian religions. In order to distinguish it from other traditional cosmologies, Berry’s cosmology is usually referred to as the “new cosmology.”

Historical Dynamics

The first component of Berry’s cosmology is his understanding of historical dynamics. Berry embarked on his academic career as a cultural historian, and therefore historical methodology forms the basis of his thought. Berry wrote his doctoral dissertation on the work of an eighteenth century Italian historian, Giambattista Vico who subsequently greatly influenced him. While there are definitely departures and developments from Vico’s work, Berry shows a “preference for both Vico’s method and much of his interpretation of history.” Berry’s classification and characterization of human history – tribal-shamanic, religious-cultural, scientific-technological, and ecological age – show Vico’s influence. And Berry, like Vico, underlines the psychic dimension of each historical phase.

The tribal-shamanic phase is characterized by a human sensitivity to the ultimate mystery of the universe and by the accompanying creativity in the expressions of these experiences. The religious-cultural phase is the period of social stratification, sacrificial rituals, articulated theologies and spiritual disciplines in what are now considered the great civilizations of the world. In this phase, the human psyche focused on an absolute mode of being rather than on the phenomenal world. At the end of the Middle Ages, there was a shift in the human psyche to the physical structure of the universe, and consequently the scientific-technological phase began. This phase has made many contributions to human life through technology but it has led to a massive destruction of life systems on the earth. It has caused the sacred experience with the earth community to disappear. In the twenty-first century, according to Berry, human beings are entering another historical period, called the ecological age, or, in geological terms, the Ecozoic age. Like other historical ages, it is accompanied by a change in human consciousness. In order to realize the Ecozoic age, human beings need to reintegrate historical consciousness with cosmic consciousness.

In these historical developments, Berry holds, the human consciousness of historicity is very important for bringing about historical change. This is the reason that he thinks Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), a French Jesuit and paleoanthropologist is more significant than Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947), an American process philosopher, in shaping understanding of the Ecozoic age. Berry criticizes Whitehead for not having a clear idea of realistic and historical time:

[Whitehead] understood process time, but he did not have a grasp of an integral history in its phenomenal reality. He understood the universe as an organism, as holistic, as integral, as interacting, as a process, but he did not have it going anywhere.

Teilhard, however, understands that the universe itself has a time-developmental history. In his thought, history has its own goal as well as its driving energy to reach that goal. Among religions, Christianity is the strongest in the consciousness of historicity, since it has a millennial vision. Unlike Asian religions which are mainly interested in archetypal experience rather than historical change, the strength of Christianity is its consciousness and emphasis on historical development until the time of completion. Berry believes that in the establishment of the Ecozoic Age the historical consciousness of Christianity should be a driving force of human culture in the future.

Evolutionary Science

The insight of modern science is one of the major components in Berry’s cosmology. In constructing his cosmology, he especially relies on the evolutionary theory of Teilhard. Through evolutionary theory, Teilhard attempted to explain the evolution of the universe and the human in a comprehensive manner. He is the first scholar to outline the four phases of the evolutionary process of the universe: galactic, earth, life, and human evolution. Teilhard understands, moreover, that these four processes are all interrelated in the universe evolutionary process.

The more significant meaning of Teilhard’s thought remains in his reinterpreting of Christian doctrine from the perspective of evolutionary science. His attempt caused many controversies in the Catholic Church and forced him to an unwanted prolonged stay in China. Teilhard was concerned with the split between the two worlds in which he lived – the secular and scientific world which lost its religious meaning, and the Christian world which failed to communicate with modern humanity. His life-long pursuit was to bring together these two worlds. To achieve this task, Teilhard abandoned a Thomistic creation story that relies on being and substance, instead he employed an evolutionary narrative that relies on becoming and process. In this sense, Teilhard’s reinterpretation of Christian doctrine is post-Darwinian, an evolutionary account that goes beyond the Bible and traditional doctrine.

When Teilhard tried to reconcile Christian belief with scientific discovery, he was optimistic about the course of cosmic history and humanity’s role in it. He believed that the goal of evolution is complex consciousness – Omega Point or Christ – and that humans are creatures capable of achieving the evolutionary process. He believed in human science and technology as a part of evolutionary process, and was not worried about their destructive side-effects.

Berry’s understanding of the evolutionary universe and Christian theology are mainly influenced by Teilhard. Berry evaluates Teilhard as one of the most important thinkers since St. Paul and cites in particular:

I have learned from him three things of special import. The universe has a psychic-spiritual dimension as well as a physical-material dimension from the beginning; the universe story and the human story are two aspects of a single story; and there is need to move from an excessive concern for redemptive processes to a new concern for creation processes.

Being deeply influenced by Teilhard on the spiritual/material dimension of the universe, the relationship between the universe and the human, and the direction that Christian theology should take for the future, Berry has been called a Teilhardian thinker.

However, Berry distances himself from Teilhard on the basis of his ecological views. Berry criticizes Teilhard’s notion of progress and human dominance over nature, a perspective of an old anthropocentric cosmology.

Teilhard is committed to the imperial view of human-earth relation. Examination of his writings reveals no significant passage to mitigate the intensity of his intellectual and emotional dedication to this position. The opinion is correct that Teilhard does not in any direct manner support the ecological mode of consciousness.

Berry thinks that Teilhard’s thought is not fully credible to contemporary ecologists because he was so intensely committed to the technological world. Berry, further, criticizes Teilhard for not understanding the devastating aspect of human science and technology.

Teilhard could not take seriously the destruction of the natural world. Once, when someone pointed out to him the destruction of the natural world, Teilhard said that science would discover other forms of life.

For Teilhard, the evolutionary process of the universe is totally concentrated on the human. He had an excessive optimism for modern scientific technologies and an extreme anthropocentrism. Therefore Berry rejected Teilhard’s imperialistic attitude towards nature when he stated that it should be discarded. Instead, Berry argued humanity should become a functional component, not an oppressive destroyer, of an integral earth community.

Another difference between Teilhard and Berry is seen in their attitude to the relation between science and theology. Both accept that “science is a part of general revelation, that is, human interpretations of the divine.” However, while Teilhard attempts ”to incorporate scientific narrative in the context of the broader framework of religious discourse,” Berry does not engage in theoretical debate on the relationship between science and religion. Instead, he accepts scientific discourse as a context for all disciplines including religion. Brian Swimme describes Berry’s attitude to science as follows:

Berry does not try to prove that religion and science are compatible; nor does he examine the methodologies and epistemological assumptions of science and theology. Berry is not interested in adjusting religious thought to make it fit scientific categories of thought. Such a program has been carried on throughout the scientific period, based on the assumption that science is the whole truth and needs to eliminate the superstitious claims of religion. Nor does Berry translate the universe into theological thought, which can irritate scientists. Instead, by taking the universe as the primary source of revelation, Berry proposes a cosmology that is meaningful to modern people.

Berry understands that both science and religions are not static realities but unfolding processes of truth in history. He recognizes the different characteristics of religion and science; religions relate to the spiritual dimension while science relates to material one. Berry keeps an open attitude to both the ever-changing scientific theory of adjusting to new discovery and the ever expanding religious experience of adjusting to the needs of time.

Religious Wisdom

Religious traditions play an important role and supply the spiritual dimension in Berry’s cosmology. According to him, traditional religions, Christianity as well as Asian, have a fundamental limitation in dealing with ecological issues or modern cosmological experience since they are based on the concept of a cyclical universe. Meanwhile, human beings of the modern age are experiencing a time developmental universe, that is, cosmogenesis. There is a discrepancy between the teaching of traditional religions and how present-day human beings understand the universe. This prevents religions from providing spiritual energy to human beings. Nevertheless, Berry contends, the human cannot deal with the ecological crisis without the traditional religions, since they are the sources of psychic and spiritual power in human history.

Berry differs from Teilhard in understanding the role of Asian religions in human evolutionary process. Teilhard disregards Asian classical cultures as undeveloped and belonging to the Neolithic Age. He estimates that Asian religions’ “current has ipso facto lost its power,” and is “mercilessly halted in its stride by the obstacle of a universe.” For him, only Christianity is a definitive religion, which “can stand up to the new temperatures and new tensions produced in the human mind by the appearance of the idea of evolution.” For Berry, on the other hand, Asian religions are parts of God’s revelation which expresses its completeness through diversity. Unlike Teilhard, he highly values and expects Asian religions’ contributions to the wholeness of human spirituality and to the healing of ecological wounds. Not only Asian religions but also native religious traditions, Berry thinks, can provide valuable wisdom to heal the ecological crisis caused by Western industrial culture.

In constructing his cosmology, Berry accepts the spiritual insights available for ecological healing from religious traditions of the world. From Christianity, he accepts as valuable factors for his new cosmology its understanding of God’s revelation through history and its emphasis on the driving force of historical dynamics. From Asian religions, Berry values the sacredness of the natural world, the organic relationship between humans and nature, the sense of compassion for all living beings, and the interdependent relationship between macrocosm and microcosm. From native religions, Berry learns the human bondedness to the earth which can be interpreted as land mysticism. Berry holds that these ecologically friendly insights of Asian and native religions are important and necessary components for launching the Ecozoic Era.

3. Emergence of Ecozoic Era

The new human culture within the new cosmology which Berry envisages is the Ecozoic Era. Even though the Cenozoic is ending because of the human destruction of the earth, Berry hopes the emergence of the Ecozoic will be because of a new human relationship with the earth. Establishing the Ecozoic requires a radical change of human consciousness and global programs. Achieving the Ecozoic, according to Berry, is the Great Work challenging human beings in the present historical and universal evolutionary process, and it is the most difficult task yet in human history.

Tension between Technozoic and Ecozoic Eras

As the Cenozoic era is coming to an end and the twenty-first century has already begun, Berry maintains that two options are offered to the human: the Technozoic and the Ecozoic. The Technozoic is a type of culture in which humans exploit and manipulate nature for their own purpose, while the Ecozoic is a type of culture in which the human coexists and co-evolves with nature. The terms – the Technozoic and the Ecozoic – are Berry’s terminologies to convey the geological implications of the change in culture which humans should be undertaking.

He believes that there is a great tension in the world between the Technozoic consciousness and the Ecozoic consciousness. Just as the dominant political-social issue of the twentieth century was between the capitalist and the communist worlds, the dominant issue of the twenty-first century is the tension between the capitalists who would continue to plunder the natural world and the ecologists who would preserve it. The Ecozoic is a culture based on the earth’s technology which is earth’s self-organizing process, while the Technozoic is a culture based on human industrial technology. Since the Ecozoic is very different from the Technozoic in its perspective on the relationship with the nature, the tensions and conflicts between the two cultures cannot be avoided. The following story told by Vandana Shiva shows two extremely different worldviews.

In December 1987, two prizes were awarded in Stockholm: the Nobel Prize for economics was given to Robert Solow of MIT for his theory of growth based on the dispensability of nature. In Solow’s word: “The world can, in effect, get along with or without natural resources, so exhaustion is just an event, not a catastrophe.” At the same time, the Alternative Nobel Prize (the popular name for the Right Livelihood Award), instituted ‘for vision and work contributing to making life more whole, healing our planet and uplifting humanity’, honoured the women of the Chipko movement who, as leaders and activists, had put the life of the forests above their own and, with their actions, had stated that nature is indispensable to survival.

The Nobel Prize represents the Technozoic consciousness, while the Alternative Nobel Prize represents the Ecozoic consciousness. This conflict between the two worldviews is already emerging all over the world. It is exhibited, for example, in the reception of the Kyoto protocols in countries like Canada when the code of conduct is adopted.

For humans and life systems on the earth to survive in the future, Berry contends that “human beings have to choose the Ecozoic over the Technozoic.” Although it is simplistic to totally identify the Technozoic with capitalists and the Ecozoic with ecologists, that very argument is often used to imply that the ecological worldview is anti human process. There are vast differences between the worldviews of capitalists who pursue the Technozoic and ecologists who pursue the Ecozoic. I will now compare the different understandings of earth systems, limitless growth, and privatization of these two groups in order to explore how Berry is convinced that the only future possible for the human and all life systems rests in a transition into the Ecozoic and why humans must move from the modern industrial culture to an ecological one.

To ecologists, the earth is an extremely fragile system, “akin to a marble balanced on the globe: any disturbance will lead to disaster.” Any changes are problematic. Especially troubling is the pollution caused by industrial technology which is threatening the chemical and biological balance of the earth. Ecologists see the destruction caused by capitalism as incompatible with the survival of the earth. To the capitalists, however, the earth is a robust system “akin to a marble resting at the bottom of a bowl.” Any changes made by humans, even by industrial technology, are mild disruptions, with a swift return to equilibrium. Change, according to capitalists, provides great opportunities to innovate and to solve new and more complex problems. They argue that the human is facing “no real problems; technological and institutional advances have and will continue to make it possible to address any shortages.”

Capitalists and ecologists have opposing views on limitless growth, which is the basic theory of the ecological movement. In his book An Essay on Population published in 1798, Thomas Malthus argued that the human has a propensity to reproduce far faster than the food supply can increase. Consequently, some portion of human beings will always be doomed to starvation. Ecologists, relying on the Malthus’ theory, criticize the capitalistic culture for its heedless devastation of the earth’s resources. However, based on the statistics of population and food increase in the world, capitalists argue that Malthus’ theory is in error. They think that the ecologists’ argument is based on unsound theory and inaccurate information.

Capitalists and ecologists also engage the privatization of the earth’s resources from different angles. For ecologists, privatization is one of the major causes of ecological degradation. Berry opposes the privatization of the earth’s resources because he views the earth as an indivisible organism.

No part of the earth in its essential functioning can be the exclusive possession or concern of any nation. The air cannot be nationalized or privatized; it must circulate everywhere on the planet to fulfill its life-giving function anywhere on the planet….So it is with the waters on the earth. They must circulate throughout the planet.

Capitalists, however, contend that privatization is one of the effective ways of resource protection. For example, if land is open to the public, they argue, the land is easily exploited rather than preserved.

When land is open to anyone who wants to use it, the tragedy of the commons is an almost inevitable result. In the case of commonly held grazing land, herdsmen have no incentives to restrain the number of cows grazing on the commons. In fact, the reverse is true. If a herdsman does not put a cow on the land, his neighbour will, and thus reap the benefits of raising an additional cow.

Capitalists criticize ecologists for failing to realize that the problem lies in common ownership not in privatization, while ecologists find that privatization leads to overgrazing and the eventual destruction of the common pastureland.

Are these worldviews – the capitalists and the ecologists – so polarized? Is the only way to understand the relationship between the Technozoic and the Ecozoic way as a hostile, “either/or” relationship? I will argue that the Ecozoic must include and transcend the Technozoic so as to advance towards a viable future. The ecologists’ understanding of the earth, of Malthusianism, and of privatization has to be seen as complementary to the approach of the capitalists. Berry also does not mean that achieving the Ecozoic means returning to the pre-industrial age. Present-day human beings cannot return to a pre-industrial culture and cannot abandon technology. Instead they should reorient human science and technology towards earth’s technology with ecological sensitivity so as to achieve the Ecozoic. I will now examine the conditions which must be fulfilled in order to achieve the Ecozoic era.

The Conditions of Ecozoic Era

Achieving the Ecozoic definitely depends on human decision and commitment. In the evolutionary process of the earth, the geological sphere played an important role in forming an earth crust, the chemical sphere played an important role in forming atmosphere and water, the biological sphere played an important role in the emergence and evolution of living beings; now in the emergence of Ecozoic noosphere, the human should play an important role. The human did not contribute to the formation of the Cenozoic, but the emergence of the Ecozoic massively depends on the human role. In the Ecozoic, according to Berry, “human beings are going to be involved in almost everything that happens.” This means that humanity is involved not only in the cultural developmental process but also in the evolutionary process of the earth.

Achieving the Ecozoic requires a radical change of human consciousness and planet-wide programs. The four systems which play a crucial role in human society – political, economic, intellectual, and spiritual – must change their functioning principles. The systems humans applied during the Cenozoic are inappropriate in achieving the Ecozoic since they functioned on anthropocentric principles.

They all presume a radical discontinuity between the nonhuman and the human modes of being, with all the rights and all inherent values given to the human. The other-than-human world is not recognized as having any inherent rights or values. All basic realities and values are identified with human values. The other-than-human modes of being attain their reality and value only through their use by the human. This attitude has brought about a devastating assault on the nonhuman world by human.

Berry holds that these four systems are failing to preserve human culture and the life of the earth because they overemphasize the human interest and neglect the value and rights of other beings. Change of the four systems is a prerequisite for achieving the Ecozoic.

First, the modern political system must change. Berry criticizes the current political system because it focuses only on national or human interest. He emphasizes the necessity of a new political consciousness that views the earth as one community. The earth, Berry holds, “exists and can survive only in its integral functioning. We cannot save the earth in fragments, since the earth is a single reality.” Therefore, Berry contends that “we need a United Species, not simply a United Nations.”

In order to protect the rights not only of the human but also of all living beings, Berry claims, that political systems must “move from democracy to biocracy.” For this purpose, Berry thinks, as an American, that the American Constitution is not sufficient.

[T]he American Constitution…guarantees to humans participatory governance, individual freedoms, rights to own and dispose of property – all with no legal protection for the natural world. The jurisprudence supporting such a constitution is profoundly deficient.

The World Charter for Nature passed in the United Nations Assembly in 1982, Berry asserts, is very important for a new political and legal system, since the Charter states that “every form of life is unique, warranting respect regardless of its worth to man, and, to accord other organisms such recognition, man must be guided by a moral code of action.” He contends that the legal status of rights for all living beings is especially needed since “the human has attained such extensive power over the functioning of the planet.”

The modern economic system must also change. Berry criticizes the current economic system which presupposes that the natural world is limitless; this gives license to destroy it.

The difficulty comes when the industrial mode of our economy disrupts the natural processes, when human technologies are destructive of earth technologies. In such a situation the productivity of the natural world and its life systems is diminished. When nature goes into deficit, then we go into deficit.

As time goes on, the entropy in the natural world will reach its limit, and the current economic system will not be able to sustain it any longer.

In order to achieve the Ecozoic, Berry argues that the human must have a new consciousness about economics. The economics of the earth is primary and human economics is derivative. Earth economics constitutes the context of human economics. Therefore, Berry asserts, “to preserve the integrity of the Earth economy should be the first purpose of any human economic program.” As long as the economy of the planet is integral, human economy can be sustained. However, human corporations cannot survive if the earth economy becomes bankrupt.

Modern university systems must also change. For the establishment of the Ecozoic, the university, the intellectual system of society, is particularly important, since it provides new generations with a future-oriented vision. Berry criticizes current university teaching because it puts emphasis only on human affairs. Paradoxically, the teaching of the humanities contributes to an inappropriate relationship between the human and the natural world. Berry identifies this “deeper sources of difficulty”:

It lies in what are called the humanities, or liberal studies, as they are known. These supposedly, as humanist scholars tell us, provide for the expansion of the truly human quality of life. Yet this centering of value so extensively on the human distorts the place and role of the human in the structure and functioning of the universe.

Berry sees current university programs preparing “students for their role in extending human dominion over the natural world, not for intimate presence to the natural world.”

For universities to take a proper role for the Ecozoic, Berry proposes a new university curriculum. In this curriculum, all disciplines would take the new cosmology as their basic context. Although there are several critical responses to Berry’s recommended curriculum, his proposal has significant implications for the future of university education.

The approach of religious teaching must change. Religions, according to Berry, are seriously deficient in not teaching more effectively that the natural world is our primary revelatory experience. Especially culpable is the overemphasis within Christianity on verbal revelation to the neglect of the manifestation of the divine in the natural world; this is to mistake the entire revelatory process.

In order to achieve the Ecozoic, Berry teaches that religions must develop new ethics towards the natural world. Even though human beings in the modern world are sensitive to suicide, homicide, and genocide, they have no moral principles for dealing with biocide or geocide. Therefore, the human needs “new ethical principles which recognize the absolute evils of biocide, the killing of life systems, and geocide, the killing of the planet.” Humans who possess the power to destroy the life systems of the earth must develop a responsibility and ethical consciousness parallel to their power. The teaching role of religions, based on new theological insights, will be central to the necessary transformation.

Bibliography

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________. The Dream of the Earth. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1988.

________. “The Cosmology of Religions.” In Pluralism and Oppression: Theology in World Perspective,

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New York: Continuum, 1996.

________. “The Universe Story: Its Religious Significance.” In The Greening of Faith: God, the

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208‐218. Hanover and London: University of New England, 1997.

________. The Great Work: Our Way into the Future. New York: Bell Tower, 1999.

Carroll, John E, Paul Brockelman, and May Westfall, eds. The Greening of Faith: God, the Environment,

and the Good Life. Hanover and London: University of New England, 1997.

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Lonergan. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1999.

Dunn, Stephen, and Anne Lonergan, eds. Befriending the Earth: A Theology of Reconciliation between

Humans and the Earth; Thomas Berry in Dialogue with Thomas Clarke. Mystic, CT: Twenty Third Publications, 1991.

McDonagh, Sean. The Greening of the Church. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1990.

McFague, Sallie. The Body of God: An Ecological Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993.

Oelschlaeger, Max. Caring for Creation: An Ecumenical Approach to the Environmental Crisis. New

Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.

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1988.

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Ecozoic Era －A Celebration of the Unfolding of the Cosmos. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.

Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre. Christianity and Evolution. New York, Harcourt Brace & Company, 1974.

Toulmin, Stephen. The Return to Cosmology: Postmodern Science and the Theology of Nature. Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1982.

� See Ewert H. Cousins, Christ of the 21st Century (New York: Continuum, 1992), 4-10; Ewert H. Cousins, “Religions on the Eve of the Twenty-First Century,” in Community of Religions: Voices of Images of the Parliament of the World’s Religions, ed. Wayne Teasdale and George Cairns (New York: Continuum, 1996).

� See Hans Küng, Global Responsibility: In Search of a New World Ethic (New York: Continuum, 1993), 2-6.

� See Leonard Swidler, “Toward a Universal Declaration of a Global Ethic,” in For All Life: Toward a Universal Declaration of a Global Ethic: An Interreligious Dialogue, ed. Leonard Swidler (Ashland, Oregon: White Cloud Press, 1999), 16; Leonard Swidler and Paul Mojzes, eds., The Study of Religion in an Age of Global Dialogue (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000), 2.

� The term, “Ecozoic,” is coined by Thomas Berry to indicate the new culture we must adopt for a viable future. The Ecozoic is the period in which the human and the non-human coexist in a mutually enhancing manner. Primarily, this term has a geological implication rather than cultural one. See Thomas Berry, The Great Work: Our Way into the Future (New York: Bell Tower, 1999), 8.

� Berry, Great Work, 1.

� See Ibid., 1-2.

� Ibid., 3.

� Ibid., 72.

� Christian Wolff introduced the word cosmology for the first time in 1730 and classified cosmology as a special branch of metaphysics. Based on reason alone and deduced from notions previously defined and explained in general metaphysics, it applies the conclusions of ontology to the consideration of the totality of existing things. In modern scientific usage, cosmology also refers to the discipline which concerns itself with theories pertaining to the origin and structure of the universe. See, J. V. Burns, “Cosmology,” in New Catholic Encyclopedia vol. 4 (New York: McGraw- Hill, 1967), 364.

� See Rosemary R. Ruether, Gaia and God: An Ecofeminist Theology of Earth Healing (San Francisco: Harper, 1992), 33-40; John E. Carroll, Paul Brockelman, and May Westfall, eds., The Greening of Faith: God, the Environment, and the Good Life (Hanover and London: University of New England, 1997), 177-178.

� Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry, The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era – A Celebration of the Unfolding of the Cosmos (New York: HarperCollins, 1992), 247.

� Thomas Berry, The Dream of the Earth (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1988), 8-9, 11; Berry, Great Work, 4, 35, 59; Stephen Dunn and Anne Lonergan, eds. Befriending the Earth: A Theology of Reconciliation between Humans and the Earth: Thomas Berry in Dialogue with Thomas Clarke (Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third Publications. 1991), 5.

� See Swimme and Berry, Universe Story, 118, 123.

� Berry, Great Work, 90; see also Berry, Dream of the Earth, 11-12.

� Berry, Dream of the Earth, 11.

� Ibid.

� Ibid., 9.

� See Swimme and Berry, Universe Story, 247.

� Berry, Dream of the Earth, 79.

� See Dunn and Lonergan, Befriending the Earth, 9.

� Berry, “Role of Religions in the Twenty-First Century,”188.

� See Berry, Great Work, 7-8; Thomas Berry, “The Universe Story: Its Religious Significance,” in The Greening of Faith: God, the Environment, and the Good Life, ed. John E. Carroll, Paul Brockelman, and May Westfall (Hanover and London: University of New England, 1997), 218.

� See Swimme and Berry, Universe Story, 223-224; Thomas Berry, “The Cosmology of Religions,” in Pluralism and Oppression: Theology in World Perspective, ed. Paul Knitter (Lanham: University Press of America, 1991), 102.

� Berry, Dream of the Earth, 45; Swimme and Berry, Universe Story, 71.

� Swimme and Berry, Universe Story, 73.

� Berry, Dream of the Earth, 45.

� Alexandra Judith Kovats, “A Cosmic Dance: The Cosmic Principles of Differentiation, Autopoiesis and Communion and Their Implication for an Ecological Spirituality,” (Ph. D. diss. The Union Institute, 1997), 75.

� Ibid.

� Swimme and Berry, Universe Story, 71-72.

� Ibid., 73-74.

� Kovats, “Cosmic Dance,” 77-78.

� Berry, Dream of the Earth, 106.

� See Swimme and Berry, Universe Story, 72.

� Ibid., 77.

� Berry, Dream of the Earth, 106.

� See Swimme and Berry, Universe Story, 72.

� Berry, Dream of the Earth, 24.

� Jung Young Lee, “The Yin-Yang Way of Thinking: A Possible Method for Ecumenical Theology.” The International Review of Mission 289 (1971): 368.

� Cf. Mary Evelyn Tucker, “The Philosophy of Ch'i as an Ecological Cosmology,” in Confucianism and Ecology: The Interrelation of Heaven, Earth, and Humans, ed. Mary Evelyn Tucker and J. Berthrong (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1998), 205.

� Stephen Toulmin, The Return to Cosmology: Postmodern Science and the Theology of Nature (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1985), 1.

� Ibid.

� See Berry, foreword to A Theology for the Earth: The Contributions of Thomas Berry and Bernard Lonergan, by Anne Marie Dalton (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1999), viii.

� See Berry, Dream of the Earth, 129.

� Max Oelschlaeger, Caring for Creation: An Ecumenical Approach to the Environmental Crisis (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 165.

� Berry, Dream of the Earth, 130.

� See Berry, Dream of the Earth, 123.

� Dunn and Lonergan, Befriending the Earth, 5-7.

� See Swimme and Berry, Universe Story, 241; Fritjof Capra and David Steindl-Rast, Belonging to the Universe: Explorations on the Frontiers of Science and Spirituality (San Francisco: Harper, 1991), 76-77.

� See Berry, “Role of Religions in the Twenty-First Century,” 187.

� Mary Evelyn Tucker calls Berry’s thought as new story, while Anne Lonergan and Dennis P. O’Hara call it new cosmology. It seems that new cosmology emphasizes Berry’s concern for the natural world, while new story emphasizes Berry’s concern for history. See Mary Evelyn Tucker, “Thomas Berry and the New Story: An Introduction to the Work of Thomas Berry,” http://www.ecoethics.net/ops/tucker.htm; Anne Lonergan and Caroline Richards, eds., Thomas Berry and the New Cosmology (Mystic, CT: Twenty-third Publications, 1987); and Dennis P. O’Hara, “The Implications of Thomas Berry’s Cosmology for an Understanding of the Spiritual Dimension of Human Health,” (Ph. D. diss., University of St. Michael’s College, 1998).

� Sallie McFague, The Body of God: An Ecological Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 105.

� Berry, foreword to Theology for the Earth, viii.

� Berry, Dream of the Earth, xi.

� Ibid., xi.

� See Berry, Dream of the Earth, xii.

� Ibid., 139. See also Dunn and Lonergan, Befriending the Earth, 28.

� Berry, Dream of the Earth, xiii.

� Anne Mary Dalton characterizes Giambattista Vico, world religions, Teilhard de Chardin, and modern science as influential factors of Berry’s ecological thought. See Anne Marie Dalton, A Theology for the Earth: The Contributions of Thomas Berry and Bernard Lonergan (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1999).

� For various factors influencing Berry’s historical vision, see John Grim, “Time, History, Historians in Thomas Berry’s Vision,” Cross Currents 37:2-3 (Summer/Fall 1987): 225-239.

� Thomas Berry, The Historical Theory of Giambattista Vico (Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1951).

�Dalton, Theology for the Earth, 7.

� See Berry, Dream of the Earth, 39.

� See Ibid., 39.

� See Ibid., 40-41.

� In his early writings, Berry expresses the ecological age and then changes it to the Ecozoic. This shows that Berry’s understanding of the ecological crisis expanded from a cultural perspective to a geological one. Berry prefers the term Ecozoic to ecological since this enables the human to place the coming geo-biological period in its proper context in the sequence from the Paleozoic, to the Mesozoic, to the Cenozoic, and what now might be termed the Ecozoic period. Berry thinks the Ecozoic is a proper term, as it reveals the magnitude of ecological destruction happening on the earth. See Berry, “The Universe Story,” 213.

� See Berry, Dream of the Earth, 41-42; Dalton, Theology for the Earth, 19; Thomas Berry, “Contemporary Spirituality: The Journey of the Human Community,” Cross Currents 24:2-3 (Summer/Fall, 1974): 176

� Dunn and Lonergan, Befriending the Earth, 28.

� See Berry, Dream of the Earth, 28; Dunn and Lonergan, Befriending the Earth, 115.

� About Teilhard’s scientific achievement and its meaning, see Toulmin, Return to Cosmology, 113-126.

� See Thomas Berry, Teilhard in the Ecological Age (Chambersburg, PA, Anima Books, 1982), 4.

� For the official warning from the Catholic Church to Teilhard de Chardin, see Acta Apostolicae Sedis 54 (1962): 526.

� See Dalton, Theology for the Earth, 62.

� See Oelschlaeger, Caring for Creation, 152.

� See Ibid., 165.

� Caroline Richards, “The New Cosmology: What It Really Means,” in Thomas Berry and the New Cosmology, ed. Anne Lonergan and Caroline Richards (Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third Publications, 1987), 99.

� Dunn and Lonergan, Befriending the Earth, 6.

� Berry, foreword to Theology for the Earth, vi-vii; see also Dunn and Lonergan, Befriending the Earth, 24.

� See McFague, Body of God, 70; Sean McDonagh, The Greening of the Church (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1990), 196.

� Berry, Teilhard in the Ecological Age, 14.

� Dunn and Lonergan, Befriending the Earth, 25.

� See Berry, foreword to Theology for the Earth, vi.

� See Berry, Teilhard in the Ecological Age, 19.

� Oelschlaeger, Caring for Creation, 152.

� Ibid.,152.

� See Ibid., 165.

� Brian Swimme, “Science: A Partner in Creating the Vision,” in Thomas Berry and the New Cosmology, ed. Anne Lonergan and Caroline Richards (Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third Publications, 1987), 82.

� Dunn and Lonergan, Befriending the Earth, 6-7.

� Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Christianity and Evolution (New York, Harcourt Brace & Company, 1974), 123.

� Ibid., 207.

� Ibid., 207-208.

� See Berry, “Catholic Church and the Religions of the World,” 5.

� See Swimme and Berry, Universe Story, 183-205; Berry, Dream of the Earth, 17; Dunn and Lonergan, Befriending the Earth, 22, 77; Thomas Berry, foreword to Religions of India: Hinduism, Yoga, Buddhism, 2nd ed. (Chambersburg, PA: Anima Publication, 1992), no pagination.

� See Berry, Dream of the Earth, 186-187.

� See Berry, Great Work, 7.

� Swimme and Berry, Universe Story, 249-250; See Berry, “Role of Religions in the Twenty-First Century,” 185.

� See Swimme and Berry, Universe Story, 250.

� Vandana Shiva. Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Survival in India (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1988), 218. Shiva quotes Slow from Economic and Political Weekly, vol. XXII, no. 45, Nov. 7, 1987.

� Swimme and Berry, Universe Story, 250; See also Swimme and Berry, Universe Story, 14-15.

� See Ronald Bailey, ed. The True State of the Planet: Ten of the World's Premier Environmental Researchers in a Major Challenge to the Environmental Movement, (New York, Free Press. 1995).

� See Berry, “Role of Religions in the Twenty-First Century,” 183.

� Fred Smith, “Epilogue: Reappraising Humanity’s Challenges, Humanity’s Opportunities,” in The True State of the Planet: Ten of the World's Premier Environmental Researchers in a Major Challenge to the Environmental Movement, ed. Ronald Bailey (New York, Free Press. 1995), 380.

� Ibid., 380.

� Ibid., 379.

� See Donella H. Meadows et al., The Limits to Growth: a Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind (New York: Universe Books, 1982); Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb (New York: Ballantine Books, 1970).

� See Ronald Bailey, “Prologue: Environmentalism for the Twenty-first Century,” in The True State of the Planet: Ten of the World's Premier Environmental Researchers in a Major Challenge to the Environmental Movement, ed. Ronald Bailey (New York, Free Press. 1995), 2.

� For the capitalists’ information on ecological issues and earth resources, see Bailey, True State of the Planet; Julian L. Simon, The Ultimate Resource 2, rev. ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996).

� Berry, Dream of the Earth, 220.

� Bailey, “Prologue,” 4.

� See Berry, Dream of the Earth, 65-69.

� Ibid., 19.

� Dunn and Lonergan, Befriending the Earth, 98.

� Berry, Great Work, 72.

� Dunn and Lonergan, Befriending the Earth, 96; Swimme and Berry, Universe Story, 255.

� Berry, Dream of the Earth, 161. See also John Seed, Joanna Macy, Pat Fleming, and Arne Naess, Thinking like a Mountain: Towards a Council of All Beings (Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1988).

� Berry, Dream of the Earth, 161.

� Berry, Great Work, 74.

� Ibid., 75.

� Ibid., 74.

� Berry, Dream of the Earth, 70; Thomas Berry, “Economics: Its Effect on the Life Systems of the World,” in Thomas Berry and the New Cosmology, ed. Anne Lonergan and Caroline Richards (Mystic, CT: Twenty Third Publications, 1987), 6.

� See Dunn and Lonergan, Befriending the Earth, 97; Swimme and Berry, Universe Story, 255.

� Berry, Great work, 74; See Dunn and Lonergan, Befriending the Earth, 97.

� Berry, Great Work, 76.

� Ibid., 73.

� Berry, Dream of the Earth, 89-108; see also Thomas Berry, “The American College in the Ecological Age” Religion & Intellectual Life 6:2 (Winter 1989): 7-28.

� The responses to Berry’s article from several authors in the same volume of Religion & Intellectual Life 6:2 (Winter 1989) are: Everett Gendler, “A Terrestrial Dogmatism?” 29-35; Dell Hymes, “From an Anthropologist,” 36-41; William Nichols, “The Limits of Ecological Vision,” 42-47; Mary Evelyn Tucker, “New Perspectives for Spirituality,” 48-56; Betty Readon, “Getting from Here to There,” 57-62; and Theodore Benfey, “A Scientist Comments,” 63-69.

� Thomas Berry, “Ecology and the Future of Catholicism: A Statement of the Problem,” in Embracing Earth: Catholic Approaches to Ecology, ed. Albert J. LaChance and John E. Carroll (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1994), xi.

� See Berry, Great Work, 75.

� Dunn and Lonergan, Befriending the Earth, 100.

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