[Oe List ...] Creation Based Spirituality

[chagnon at comcast.net]

Herman, 
I just got around to reading the magnificent Thomas Berry piece that you sent on April 27th.  Many thanks.  You are indeed fortunate to work with such a profoundly human human being.  Although it's decades since I read Original Blessing, I too believe that Matthew Fox would agree with Berry's perspective on creation-based spirituality.  I would be curious to know how Berry feels about Fox's attempts to outfox rather than dialogue with the man in the Vatican who outfoxed him.  
Warm regards,
Lucille Chagnon
on a cold spring day in Wilmington, DE in a neighborhood literally ablaze with azaleas 


> This is in response to Karen Bueno's request that someone say more about
> creation-based as contrasted with redemption-based spirituality. I was first
> introduced to this idea in 1982 with the paper set forth, in part, below. It
> was written before Thomas Berry made the change to inclusive gender
> language, so please accept that when we says "man" he means human. The idea
> of creation-based theology is well developed by Matthew Fox in Original
> Blessing and The Coming of the Cosmic Christ among other books. Matthew Fox
> and Thomas Berry are mutually appreciative of each other's work and I
> believe Matthew Fox would generally agree with Thomas Berry's treatment of
> this below.
> 
> Herman Greene
> 
> The Spirituality of the Earth
> 
> 
> 
> By Thomas Berry
> 
> 
> 
> The subject we are concerned with is the Spirituality of the Earth. By this
> I do not mean a spirituality that is directed toward an appreciation of the
> earth. I speak of the earth as subject, not as object. I am concerned with
> the maternal principle out of which man is born and whence he derives all
> that he is and all that he has. Man in his totality is born of the earth. We
> are earthlings. The earth is our origin, our nourishment, our support, our
> guide. Our spirituality itself is earth-derived. If there is no spirituality
> in the earth then there is no spirituality in man. Man is a dimension of the
> earth. These two are totally implicated each in the other.
> 
> 
> 
> Not to recognize the spirituality of the earth is to indicate a radical
> lack. of spiritual perception on the part of man himself. We see this lack
> of spiritual insight in the earlier attitude of Euro-Americans in their
> inability to perceive the spiritual qualities of the native American peoples
> and their mysticism of the land. The attack on these spiritual qualities by
> Chris­tians constitutes one of the most barbaric moments in Christian
> history. This barbarism turned upon the tribal peoples was loosed also upon
> the Amer­ican earth with a destructive impact beyond human calculation.
> 
> 
> 
> The fragility of the earth has not yet impressed itself upon us. The
> brutality of our relation to the earth cannot but indicate a radical absence
> of spirituality in man, not the lack of a spiritual dimension of the earth.
> The opaqueness is in man’s understanding of the earth not in the earth’s
> structure which expresses an abiding numinous presence. The earth process
> has been generally ignored by religious-spiritual currents of the West. Our
> alienation goes so deep that it is beyond Western man’s conscious mode of
> awareness. While there are tributes to the earth in the scriptures and in
> Christian liturgy there is a tendency to see the earth as a seductive
> real­ity that brought about alienation from God in the agricultural peoples
> of the near East. Earth worship was the ultimate idolatry, the cause of the
> Fall, and thereby the cause of sacrificial redemption by Divine personality.
> Thus too the Christian sense of being crucified to the world and living only
> for the Saviour. This personal Saviour orientation has led to an
> inter-personal devotionalism that quite easily dispenses with earth except
> as a convenient support for life.
> 
> 
> 
> This type of redemptive mysticism as it presently exists is possibly
> re­lated in its origins to the black Death of the mid-4th century; the most
> terrifying period in Western history, the period when a third to a half of
> the population died. At least partially in response to this experience
> direct re­course was had to supernatural forces, to the ancient spiritual
> powers, to eso­teric traditions, to submerged pre-Christian rituals. But
> above all there was a new emphasis on the redemptive forces within the
> Christian context, a renewal of primordial Faith, of prayer to be sustained
> in a frightening world. Thus came Pietism, Puritanism, Jansenism and a long
> list of sectarian move­ments all with intensive spiritualities, generally
> with a strong Saviour attachment.
> 
> 
> 
> This basic rejection of the earth in its existing form, and the longing for
> a transformed earth manifested itself in a renewed Millennarism, which in a
> variety of forms has dominated much Western thought in the past four
> cen­turies. Millennarism involves a radical dissatisfaction with the earth
> and with the whole created order.
> 
> 
> 
> But while the devotional tradition thought to achieve this by spiritual.
> processes in a redemptive context, another tradition emerged that sought to
> deal with the terror of life by inquiry into the functional dynamics of the
> earth and the entire universe. This led to the secular scientific
> technological society that now dominates human affairs to an overwhelm­ing
> degree and establishes the main disciplines in the educational process.
> Especially when the secular scientific approach to life is supported by the
> most powerful political form known to man, the modern nation state, the
> future direction of human affairs as well as the industrial exploitation of
> the earth is assured. The terror of life was to be answered by the
> domestication of the earth and the domination of the creative function of
> the earth by man. This attitude, however designated as secular in form,
> involved a certain submerged religious dynamic which can be identified as a
> concern for creation process rather than redemptive process.
> 
> 
> 
> Thus we witness particularly in America two parallel societies, the
> redemption oriented society, with its spiritualities and the creation
> oriented ‘secular’ society with its “spiritualities.” These two communities
> have given extrinsic recognition to each other. Believing religious
> personal­ities are often proud of their acceptance of the modern world of
> science and technology. Scientists and technologists are often religious
> believers. Yet both of these societies are trivialized. Redemptive-oriented
> society and its spiritualities are trivialized because they are isolated
> from the larger dynamics of the human community. The secular technological
> society is trivialized because it has no depth of meaning, no numinous
> quality. Resolution of this impasse is the greatest single challenge to a
> functional contemporary spirituality.
> 
> 
> 
> We can produce spiritualities that function in certain isolated con­text
> without regard for the larger society. We can produce spiritualities that
> offer a redemptive solutions for the society. But this latter is not liable
> to be effective in any extensive degree. It speaks a rhetoric that is not
> available for secular man or, if it is available, it widens rather than
> lessens the tragic inner division between the world of affairs and the world
> of divine communion. It does not offer a way of interpreting the inner life
> of the society itself in a rhetoric available to the society. It does not
> establish an understanding of that authentic experience in con temporary
> life which is oriented toward communion with creation processes. Indeed it
> does not recognize that the context of any authentic spiritual­ity lies in
> the creation myth that governs the total life orientation.
> 
> 
> 
> This lack of appreciation of the earth process is manifested at the present
> time by the training that takes place in most seminaries. It is doubtful if
> there is any seminary in the country where adequate attention is given to
> creation dynamics in the manner in which creation is experi­enced in our
> society. A long list could be drawn up of the courses explain­ing
> redemption: Soteriology, Christology, Ecclesiology, Revelation, Scripture,
> Patristics, Pastoral Ministry and several others. Creation is gener­ally
> presented as part of the tract on “God in himself and in relation to His
> creation.” But creation in this metaphysical, biblical, medieval,
> theological context is not terribly helpful in understanding the creation
> process as this is set forth in the scientific manuals or the textbooks of
> Earth Sciences or Life Sciences such as they are studied by children in
> Elementary, High School, or later in College.
> 
> 
> 
> These classroom studies initiate the child into a world that has more
> continuity with his later adult life in its functional aspect than does the
> catechetical story of creation taken from Biblical sources. This school­room
> presentation of the world in which the child lives and finds his place in
> the world is all important for the future spirituality of the child. The
> school fulfills in our times the role of the ancient initiation rituals
> which introduced the child to the society and to his human and sacred role
> in this society. The tragedy is that the sacred or spiritual aspect of the
> initiation process is now absent. The child is given a physical process, a
> marvelous story of the emergence of the universe, of the earth and of’ man,
> but without reference to the spiritual aspect of this process. It is
> doubtful if separate catechetical instructions with their heavy emphasis on
> redemptive processes can ever supply what is missing.
> 
> 
> 
> It may be that the later alienation of young adults from the redemptive
> sacramental tradition is, it. some degree, due to this inability to
> comm­unicate to the child a spirituality grounded more deepy in creation
> dynamics in accord with the modern way of experiencing the galactic
> emergence of the universe, the shaping of the earth, the appearance of life,
> of man, and the historical sequence in man’s development.
> 
> 
> 
> In this sequence, the child might learn that the earth has its intrin­sic
> spiritual quality from the beginning, for this aspect of the creation story
> is what has been missing. This is what needs to be established if we are to
> have a functional spirituality. Just how to give the child his integral
> world—that is the issue. It is also the spiritual issue of the modem
> religious personality. Among on most immediate tasks is to establish this
> new sense of the earth and of man as a function of the earth.
> 
> 
> 
> We need to understand that the earth acts in all that acts upon the earth.
> The earth is acting in man whenever man acts. In and through the earth
> spiritual energy is present. This spiritual energy emerges in a total
> complex of earth functions. Each form of life is integrated with every other
> life form. Even beyond the earth by force of gravitation every particle of
> the physical world attracts and is attracted to every other particle. This
> attraction holds the differentiated universe together and enables it to be a
> universe of individual realities. The universe is not a vast smudge of
> matter, some jelly-like substance extended indefinitely in space. Nor is the
> universe a collection of unrelated particles. The universe is rather a vast
> multiplicity of individual realities with both qualitative and quanti­tative
> differences all in spiritual-physical communion with each other. The
> individuals of similar form are bound together in their unity of form. The
> species are related to each other by derivation: the later more complex life
> forms are derived from earlier more simple life forms.
> 
> 
> 
> The first shaping of the universe was into those great galactic sys­tems of
> fiery energy that constitute the starry heavens. In these celestial furnaces
> the elements are shaped. Eventually, after some ten billion years, the solar
> system and the earth are born out of the stardust result­ing from exploded
> stars. Earth particularly is our concern. So far as we know, earth is the
> most unique of all heavenly bodies. Here life, both plant and animal life,
> was born in the primordial seas some three billion years ago. Plants came
> out upon the land some six hundred million years ago after the planet earth
> had shaped itself through a great series of transformations in forming. the
> continents, the mountains, the valleys, the rivers and streams. The
> atmosphere was long in developing. The animals came ashore along with the
> plants. As the life forms established themselves over some hundreds of
> millions of years the luxuriant foliage formed layer after layer of matter
> which was then buried in the crust of the earth to become fossil formations.
> One hundred million years ago flowers appeared and the full beauty of earth
> began to manifest itself. Some sixty million years ago the birds were in the
> air. Mammals. walked through the forest. Some of the mammals, the whales and
> porpoises and the dolphins, went back into the sea.
> 
> 
> 
> Finally some two million years ago the ascending forms of life culmi­nated
> in the awakening consciousness of man. A wandering food gatherer and hunter
> during all of this time until some eight thousand years ago man be­gan to
> settle into village life. This led to the archaic classical civiliza­tion
> which have flourished so brilliantly over the past five thousand years.
> 
> 
> 
> Then some four hundred years ago a new stage of scientific develop­ment took
> place which, in the 18th and 19th centuries, brought about man’s
> technological dominance of the earth out of which he had emerged. This can
> be interpreted as the earth awakening to consciousness of itself in man. The
> story of this awakening consciousness is the most dramatic episode of the
> entire earth story.
> 
> 
> 
> The spiritual attitude that then caused or permitted man to attack the earth
> with such savagery as we witness has never been adequately explained. That
> it was done by a Christian-derived society, and even with the belief that
> this was the human and Christian task of man, makes explanation es­pecially
> harsh for our society. Possibly it was the millennial drives toward a total
> transformation of the human condition that led man, resentful that the
> perfect world was not yet achieved by divine means, to set about the violent
> subjugating of the earth by his own powers in the hope that in this way the
> higher life of man would be attained, his afflictions healed.
> 
> 
> 
> While this is the positive goal sought it must be added that the negative,
> even fearful, attitude toward the earth resulting from the general hardships
> of life led to the radical disturbance of the entire earth pro­cess. The
> increasing intensity shown it exploiting the earth was also the result of
> the ever rising and unsatiated expectation of Western peoples. Even further
> the natural antagonisms of earth were fostered by the Darwinian principle of
> the Survival of the Fittest, indicating that the primary attitude of each
> individual and each species is for its own survival at the ex­pense of the
> others. Out of this strife, supposedly, the glorious achievements of earth
> would take place. Darwin’s blindness to the cooperative and mutual
> dependence of each form of life on the other forms of life, is amaz­ing
> since he himself discovered the great web of life. Still he could not
> appreciate the principle of inter-communion.
> 
> 
> 
> Much more needs to be said on the conditions that permitted such a mutually
> destructive situation to arise between man and the earth, but we must pass
> on to give some indication of the new attitude that needs to be adopted
> toward the earth. This involves a new spiritual and even mystical communion
> with the earth, a true aesthetic of the earth, a valid economy of the earth.
> We need a way of designating the earth-human world in its continuity and
> identity rather that; in its discontinuity and difference. In spirituality
> especially we need to recognize the numinous qualities of the earth. We
> might begin with some awareness of what it is to be human, what is the role
> of consciousness on the earth, what is the place of man in the universe.
> 
> 
> 
> While the scholastic definition of man as a rational animal gives us some
> idea of man among the biological species it gives us a rather inadequate
> sense of the role that man plays in the total earth process. The Chinese
> have a better definition of man as the hsin of heaven and earth. This word
> hsin is written as a pictograph of the human heart. It should be translated
> by a single word or a phrase with both a feeling and an understanding
> aspect. It could thus be translated by saying that man is the “understanding
> heart of heaven and earth.” Even more briefly the phrase has been translated
> by Julia Ch’ing in the statement that man is the "heart of the universe.” It
> could, finally, be translated by saying that man is “the consciousness of
> the world,” or that man is “the psyche of the universe.” Here we have a
> remarkable feel­ing for the absolute dimensions of the human, the total
> integration of real­ity in man, the total integration of man in reality.
> 
> 
> 
> We need a spirituality that emerges out of a reality deeper than man, even
> deeper than life, a spirituality that is as deep as the earth process
> itself, a spirituality that is born out of the solar system and even out of
> the heavens beyond the solar system. There in the stars is where the
> primordial elements take shape in both their physical and psychic aspects.
> Out of these elements the solar system and the earth took shape, and out of
> the earth, man.
> 
> ___________________________
> Herman F. Greene
> 2516 Winningham Road
> Chapel Hill, NC 27516
> 919-929-4116
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