#128. Body & Soul, Flesh & Spirit, Sarx and Pneuma

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ARCHIVE. For a list of all my published posts: 

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Blog entries beginning with #101 are not essays but minimally-edited notes and reviews from the files I've collected over the last few decades. I no longer have the time and energy needed to sort out and put together into decent essay-form the many varied ideas in these files, but I would like to share them with all who are interested.

If you have questions and think I might help, you're welcome to send me a note: sam@macspeno.com

Post #128 is a review I wrote for a friend of an extremely important book by the liturgist Cipriano Vagaggini; he is described very positively by the monks in the recorded conversations reviewed in post #127.

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Dear D:

This is another book review. The author is referred to in the earlier review I sent you [of Belonging to the Universe] where I mention that both of the monks involved in the new paradigms conversations "have very good things to say about Cipriano Vagaggini's work in promoting the paradigm shift."

They call Vagaggini "a key person in our theology, who influenced hundreds, even thousands, of students" (apparently at the international Benedictine college in Rome).

The context in which his name came up was David Steindl-Rast's comments about the contemporary rebirth of focus on inner experience, where he stresses that "much that is new is in fact a recovery of the older gnosis-wisdom perspective: a whole-person centered focus on transformative experience."

This book is even older than Belonging and is, I think, even more important. Its affirmation of the central significance of matter to a religious perspective is essential to Sophiology, the New Cosmology and the whole "immense transition." -Sam

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The Flesh, Instrument of Salvation: A Theology of the Human Body, by Cipriano Vagaginni, OSB (Alba House, 1969).

Somewhere in The Good Wine Bruno Barnhart has very positive things to say about this book (as do Br. David and Fr. Thomas in Belonging to the Universe), so I thought it was worth getting a look at, even though it's a half-century old.

I remember the author's name from way back, in connection with the "liturgical movement" of the 1950s and 60s, but I don't think I ever read anything of his.

This book was published after Vatican II but clearly was written earlier. It is just about unreadable; the language is that of a stilted English translation of a Latin document from the Council of Trent! The book even contains a nihil obstat.

But it's got some very good ideas in it. It is, in fact, a great treasure!

Its main point is something which the Christian world still needs to grasp, and which is essential to the perspectives of both the New Cosmology and Sophiology: that matter (the flesh, the human body, the physical universe) counts; that a material body is no less significant than a spiritual soul.

The author's key idea is that from a Christian perspective, the dichotomy between body and soul, which we inherited from Hellenistic matter-spirit dualism, simply has no validity.

He repeats over and over, in numerous contexts and in many different ways, the Latin dictum (which was not previously familiar to me and was the Italian title of the book: caro salutis est cardo).

Cardo is "hinge." So the dictum says that caro (flesh/matter) is the hinge, the cardinal or pivotal point, of our understanding of salvation.

Whatever "salvation" or "redemption" means, the body (matter, flesh) is central to it.

In The Good Wine Bruno talks about the apparent absence of a sense of reversal, paradox, irony in Christianity. That absence is strongly evident in Christianity's history: for almost its entire history, the flesh was considered the instrument of damnation.

Here it is seen as nothing less than the key, the cardo/hinge, the very means by which the cosmo-the-andric unity is achieved, so that the fullness of God may be in everything.

Vagaggini notes that the matter-spirit dichotomy of the past is only now, in our own day, coming to being resolved; and he says that the resolution is due is our understanding (from science) that the human person is at the core of the cosmos.

The copyright on the original Italian text isn't given; the English copyright is 1969. So he was certainly on the forefront of thinking back then.

And since the computer advances of the 1980s, allowing for the study of self-organizing systems, we can express his point even better: Because we can see that the self-organizing principle of the cosmos results in personal consciousness, we can also see clearly the non-validity of the body-soul distinction.

The author wants to take it even further, however. Although he doesn't use Eastern terms like "unitive" or "non-duality," his thought is rooted in the Christian idea of divinization.

His point is that flesh is no less divinized than spirit.

In different words: there is no dichotomy between theos and our real lives in the real world. As Karl Rahner says, "there is no dichotomy between grace and everyday life."

Vagaggini supports these views with texts from the Old and New Testaments and familiar early Church fathers such as Ignatius of Antioch, Irenaeus of Lyons and Cyril of Alexandria. He works his way up to Thomas Aquinas (of whom he is quite critical on several important points: "The learned doctor ought to know better," he says).

A good positive summary of Vagaggini's view might be: Our non-duality is "whole person." I.e., we experience our non-duality with God by being a whole, healthy, human being: a person in right relatedness with all things.

To paraphrase St. Cyril: A physically and psychologically healthy human being is the fundamental way the divine glory shows itself.

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So. If the matter-spirit dichotomy isn't valid, how can we understand the bible's and church fathers' clear distinction between flesh and spirit?

Vagaggini says the biblical and patristic distinction between sarx and pneuma is in fact the distinction between the developmental nature of matter/body/person (sarx) in contrast to its having arrived at the telos of the developmental process (pneuma).

This view is obviously coming from a dynamic rather than a static perspective; and with his emphasis on person and dynamis, Vagaggini is clearly in the post-patriarchal, post-rationalistic world of the New Cosmology and Sophiology.

Calling sarx "movement toward the fullness of non-duality," and pneuma "the attainment of the goal to which the process is moving," is new to me. It's very helpful.

That Vagaggini shows that it's both biblically and patristically based is a breakthrough.

He acknowledges that sarx is usually identified with death, decay, corruptibility, but he makes the point that those are, in fact, aspects of the developmental process (of change and transformation).

Thus pneuma is not the opposite of the temporal process (i.e., not just in-corruptibility) but precisely the telos of that process: transformation to glory, new person, new creation.

In this context, he gives a seemingly simplistic definition of the Christian life which I especially like: participation in the movement toward the goal (the pleroma of non-duality) in order to reach it. A fascinating way to put it!

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Although, as I've mentioned, the book was written in Italian about five decades ago and in a style that might have come from five centuries earlier, newly familiar words and ideas keep popping up: importance of matter, centrality of person, dynamic cosmos, participatory process. A new, contemporary translation of this book would be a gift to the world.

Of special interest is his comments on (what else?) Romans 8: "the cosmos groans with us in wanting our bodies to be saved." I never really understood that text so clearly before.

In this context (i.e., that caro salutis est cardo), it is a tremendously powerful statement of the centrality of person in cosmic evolution.

If we keep in mind that "body" here simply means the material aspect of a person, so that from the beginning matter (living matter, human life) is oriented toward its persistence beyond all that threatens it, then the fulfillment of this built-in tendency of the material cosmos to persist depends on the non-duality of anthropos with theos.

What an affirmation of all that is represented by both the New Cosmology and Sophiology!

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Vagaggini was primarily a liturgist, so he wants to emphasize the implications of this insight for liturgy and sacraments.

He says that "the full cosmic value of the laws of the incarnation and sacramentality are derived from the human body." (Sounds like Bulgakov again!)

Unfortunately, it will probably take another generation or two before we can deal well with the liturgical implications of caro salutis est cardo. But once again the ultimate identity of eucharist, church and transfigured cosmos comes through clearly.

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Vagaggini has another, related idea, to which we can give our immediate attention: "The body appears as the result of a labor of tension which pervades the whole of material creation into the very vitals of its being."

This brings together the anthropos-cosmos link in terms of the labor of childbirth, the public work of the liturgy, and those aspects of endurance and burden connected with Sophia that modern Gnosticism seems to be especially concerned with.

This book is indeed a great treasure. Not only does the theological perspective on the ultimate identity of eucharist, church and transfigured cosmos come through clearly. With its biblical and patristic analysis of sarx and pneuma, the matter-spirit dichotomy of the past is resolved, and affirmed in our scientific understanding that the human person is at the core of the cosmos.

This book is a buried treasure!

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#108. The Universe in Each Infant

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This post is the 8th in a series of blog entries beginning with #101-- a collection of notes and essays from my files all dealing in one way or another with the emerging new religious consciousness. They are mostly things I've written over the last decade to clarify my own thoughts but which I now want to make available for anyone who might be interested.




Post #108 is a kind of informal book review with personal notes that I wrote for a relative and some friends who had asked about Mary Coelho's book "Awakening Universe, Emerging Personhood."

If you have questions and think I might help, you're welcome to send me a note: sam@macpeno.com


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Awakening Universe, Emerging Personhood: The Power of Contemplation in an Evolving Universe - Mary Coelho - ISBN: 1556053541 (Wyndham Hall Press, 2002)

This is the first book I know that attempts to integrate science, religion and psychology. It does so not from an ivy tower academic point of view but rather from that of individuals struggling to make sense of their lives in our confusing times.

The science is not that of 19th century materialism but 21st century evolutionary thought and quantum mechanics. The religion is not that of private morality and fear of punishment but the deep contemplaive perspectives of the Western religious tradition. And the psychology is the depth perspectives stemming from Jungian thought and an understanding of personal development based on the findings about early childhood development ignored by much of 20th century psychology.

The scientific worldview presented here is the new cosmology: the evolutionary perspectives of biology and the unconventional views of quantum physics that recognize the world not as static but dynamic. This in itself is a major change in consciousness; in fact, perhaps the biggest change in human awareness since human awareness first appeared on Earth. It sees the world going somewhere, with a direction and purpose, an unfolding in some way of the world's ultimate source. In this new cosmological view, life and personal awareness is not improbable; rather, human consciousness has a central place in the dynamic cosmos. Even these basic views of contemporary science haven't yet reached the ordinary person in the streets.

The dynamic worldview of modern science is integrated by Mary C. with the deepest aspects of the western religious tradition. "Religion" here means far more than a personal ethical perspective or a private morality. Not "save your soul, go to heaven" type of thing. Its focus is that personal communion with the ultimate mystery that is at the basis of global religions' unitive or contemplative perspectives.

The integration of these scientific and religious perspectives far transcends the on-going science-religion debates; it sees their resolution not in academic theories but in the hearts of individuals. It recognizes each person as being called forth by the universe.... with the "charge" of making themselves-- as their "work of works" and their participation and contribution to the goals of the cosmos.

The author's starting point is not theoretical but personal: the unexpected tragic death of her parents' four year-old son a few days after she was born. Her struggles to make sense of her life and to bring it to some degree of healing account for the profoundly cosmic and profoundly personal perspective offered here. She has a strong Quaker heritage, as well as a background in personal therapy and degrees in science and theology.

The chapter on the evolutionary worldview is the best summary I've seen anywhere of the modern scientific/evolutionary perspective. It is a masterpiece in itself. The chapter on the contemplative traditions of the west is equally well done: familiar names such as Plotinus, Gregory of Nyssa, Meister Eckhart and Teresa of Avila appear here. The psychology section includes familiar names such as C. G. Jung, but also some far less familiar names whose empirical findings have been ignored by 20th century thought. Each of these parts of the book are excellent in themselves, but it is the overall integrative worldview, with its important focus on child-rearing ideals, that makes the book unique and so valuable. 

All of our contemporary problems, from environmental disasters to religious fundamentalism and the oppression of women find their place here. But of most significance, as I see it, is the emphasis on the need for loving care of young children. Every mother is invited to become a theotokos, bearer of the primordial God-consiousness in her infant, and it is as to do as picking up the infant when the child needs it, and smiling at the baby.

The final chapters deal with the means by which the difficulties of life are so often dealt with: incomplete "formation" results in the hungry wolf or angry dragon..... then the cover up by pretense of perfection... and the resulting fear and hatred we experience in our society daily.

To me the most fascinating aspect of the book is her focus on the place of "the person" in the new science story. Of the three-fold transition we’re in-- a new consciousness of the divine, the cosmic and the human-- it’s that third one-- the role of personal consciousness in cosmic evolution, which we don’t even have a name for yet-- that she’s especially good at. Mary Coelho stresses that the universe is becoming conscious of itself in each infant. Her focus on the humanity aspect of the immense transition-- on what infants need in order to gradually grow into fully mature persons, as understood from both the evolutionary context and that of western religion’s mystical perspectives-- is quite powerful.

In a Michael Dowd & Connie Barlow review they say this is the first new cosmology-related book to do this kind of needed integration. It’s challenging material. Not really difficult, but most definitely not casual reading. Sister Miriam MacGillis-- friend of Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme and founder of Genesis Farm-- said it moved her to tears. Couldn't get a better recommendation! +++

#88. Understanding Sacred Manhood

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I've been writing this blog about the New Cosmology for more than four years. My intent from the start has been to be a teacher, offering simple and clear ideas about the many details involved in understanding the contemporary convergence of science and religion.

At this point I've written close to 90 mini-essays. If I haven't been able to say what I want to say by now, I probably won't ever be able to. 

Recently, it occurred to me that it might be helpful to offer an overview of all the various topics I think are needed for an accurate understanding of the contemporary science-religion perspective and its new cosmology.

When I began to think about it, however, I realized that there are two big topics I would want to include in the overview which I've not written about in separate posts. One of them has been mentioned frequently (symbols, rituals and sacred signs), although I've never presented what I consider an adequate post along those lines. I've shied away from it because, while I have some practical skill at helping people take part in rituals, I feel much less adequate when it comes to a conceptual discussion of those practical aspects.

The other topic I never got around to writing about is an evolutionary understanding of sacred manhood: the "masculine" seen in the light of the New Cosmology.

This topic may be even more difficult to write about than sacred ritual. As with signs and symbols, it deals with perspectives so radically different from the conventional views taken for granted in our culture that we don't yet have the language for it. But I'm going to give it a try; this post and the next will be about understanding and recovering sacred manhood.

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As elementary as it seems, I need to start by saying what I mean by "manhood." It includes not just genes and genitals but "maleness" and the "masculine" in the very broadest sense-- physical, anatomical, psychological and cultural.

"But what," you may already be asking, "has that to do with either religion or science?" My answer? "Everything." As I see it, it's precisely because an understanding of sacred manhood is so different from the conventional perspective on maleness and the masculine that it can provide us with the very context we need for making sense of the convergence of science and religion. So please be patient. Thanks!

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The difficulties involved in talking about a contemporary understanding of manhood are quite similar to the difficulties involved in talking about a contemporary understanding of God. For many centuries, Western culture has used the word "God" to refer to an external-only divinity, and there is no easy way to express in everyday words what's meant by an inner experience of what Thomas Berry calls the "numinous source of all things."

We obviously need a better way to talk about the “Ultimate" or the "Great and Holy Mystery" than the language which patriarchal culture allows us. The problem, of course, is that Western culture remains to a great extent stuck in its patriarchal assumptions about the meaning of "God."

It's also stuck in its assumptions about manhood. Just as there are alternative and richer ways to understand divinity than as a reality which is only external to us, so there are also alternative-- and indeed richer!-- ways to understand the significance of human maleness.

In both cases, recovering these alternatives is a major part of the New Cosmology. So this post is about understanding just what "sacred manhood" means, and the next post will be about ways in which sacred manhood is being recovered in our day.

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Thomas Berry does a wonderful job in describing the roots of religion in humanity's genetic coding; he makes clear that, thanks to natural selection, our experience of the numinous in nature-- our sense of the Ultimate-- is in our genes. As he explains it, our Paleolithic ancestors were unable to survive in the face of an overwhelming cosmos without a sense of alliance with the Ultimate Mystery behind the cosmos.

The same is true with regard to sacred manhood. But just as our earliest ancestors' experience of the sacred in the natural world was eventually lost in Western culture, so too our early ancestors' experience of the sacred character of human manhood was lost.

Historically, that double loss-- of the divine-within as well as of manhood's sacred quality-- resulted in the attitudes and perspectives we know today as "patriarchy."

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We tend to think of patriarchy primarily in terms of male domination of women; the second-class status of women continues to be a major aspect of Western culture in our day. But the loss of sacred manhood along with the loss of an awareness of the divine within us has also brought about two other significant and related features of the Western world. I've mentioned them often in these posts: religious dualism and reductionist science.

Reductionist science sees the world only in terms of matter and logic, from the "bottom rung of the Great Ladder." It's about 500 years old. 

And religious dualism, which is about ten times older, is characterized by its disdain for matter, its hatred of the body, and its fear of the feminine. These are the primary aspects of the Western world's patriarchal culture.

My point here is that patriarchy is a distortion of human maleness. And that we are as much in need of a recovery of primal (sacred) manhood as we are in need of recovery of primal (Cenozoic) religion.

The patriarchal expression of maleness has been a historical reality for only the last 2% of human history. On a walk from one goal line of a football field to the other, 2% is the last six feet of that hundred yard walk. Sacred manhood was the norm for 98% of human history-- 98 yards of our walk down the length of a football field.

Historically, then, this link between Cenozoic religion and primal manhood is fairly clear. When we recognize it, we can see that, for a renewal of contemporary religion and spirituality, our cultural understanding of sacred manhood has a central place.

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The link between patriarchy and religious dualism is no less clear. 

Patriarchy may be somewhat more political, and religious dualism more psychological, but they come from the same need for control-- of the material environment and of other human beings-- generated by the patriarchal male's disdain for matter, fear of the feminine and hatred of the body.

From the unitive perspectives of the New Cosmology, it's especially clear that patriarchal dualism is the very opposite of the unitive worldview; it is the opposite of that cosmo-the-andric unity I've mentioned so many times in these posts. Whether we think of it in terms of scientific reductionism or of religious dualism, the distorted form of manhood we call "patriarchy" separates us from the rest of the natural world and from the world's numinous source.

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Probably the most difficult idea to deal with here is the question of the origin of patriarchal manhood. Where does that male fear and disdain of matter, body and feminine come from originally?

This is an especially difficult problem because of our cultural assumption that the patriarchal form of manhood is, and always has been, the only natural one. Bringing long-submerged ideas into consciousness is never easy; and because we are, as Thomas Berry says, "doubly estranged," the very idea of a possible alternative to patriarchal manhood is only very slowly becoming part of our new cultural perspectives.

Over the years, I've found one relatively easy way to understand it. In terms of a historical perspective, we can think of patriarchy-- including both religious dualism and scientific reductionism-- as a reaction to the loss of primal (natural, sacred) manhood.

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What exactly was it that got lost? What was especially sacred about maleness for the first several million years of human history? That's the main question in this post.

I need to put in a good word first about the term "patriarchy." At least since the 20th century, "patriarchy" has primarily been a label for the suppression of women's rights; but originally it didn't refer to a social evil. The Hebrew patriarchs, for example, were honored as men who were responsible for the welfare of their people-- much the way, even today, we honor George Washington with the title "father of our country."

"Patriarchy" in this original sense meant being responsible for others, providing especially for those less able to take care of themselves, such as women with children, the sick and the old. This was the very essence of the male role in the human community from the time of our earliest ancestors. For two million years, it meant that to be male was to be a hunter.

We know from the sciences of anthropology and archeology that the Hunting Culture persisted for 98% of our history. The final 2% of humanity's cultural development saw the discovery of agriculture in the Neolithic period about 10,000 years ago and the invention of writing, social organization and cities about 5,000 years ago. What we call "civilization" is only the final one yard of our walk down the football field.

It's difficult for us today to understand that, prior to the Neolithic and Civilization periods, hunting was a religious activity. For all those several million years, obtaining food for the life of their people was the very essence of sacred manhood.

For countless centuries, natural selection shaped males-- physically and psychologically-- for that task of being a hunter. But when the Neolithic-agricultural period of human history began, males gradually lost their several-million-year-old sacred role in human life.

What we call "patriarchy" today can be seen as a reaction to that loss. 

When we look at human manhood in light of these stages of humanity's cultural development, we see that in the modern, negative sense, patriarchy-- with its religious dualism, male superiority and suppression of women--goes back at least five thousand years. No wonder the people of Western culture-- women, no less than men-- take patriarchy for granted!

A way to summarize this historical perspective is to say that patriarchy is a backlash, a negative response to the loss of sacred manhood during the Neolithic period of the Great Mother Goddess. Patriarchy was an misguided attempt to restore meaning and significance to manhood by negating the "evils" of matter, body and women.

What constitutes the essence of sacred manhood, then, is the very opposite of that rejection of matter, body and feminine. It means to give oneself, as a hunter, for the life of the people.

As I've said, it's not easy to appreciate that hunting was once a spiritual activity, the religious work of our male ancestors. But we can more easily understand today that hunting was how human males participated in the cosmic process, that it was a sacred task carried out "on behalf of all and for all."

My main point is that while the Paleolithic hunting culture is long gone, the male need for significance, for participation in life by meaningful action, is not.

What constitutes the sacredness of manhood is precisely that spiritual meaning and significance of giving oneself "for the life of the people." 

And, as Thomas Berry says in his essay on reinterpretation that I described in the previous post, redemptive sacrifice is a primary characteristic of the cosmic emergence process. It's how evolution works.

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I'm aware that I've presented a very big picture and that understanding it takes a lot of effort, so I considered ending this post right here.

But besides this historical perspective, I have one other way of understanding sacred manhood that I think is helpful, so I've decided to include it in this post rather than trying to incorporate into a later one. 

You might like to take a break before continuing to read on. I'll leave some space, to mark the place, when you come back to it.

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As you may have guessed, my second way of understanding sacred manhood make use of the "tools" of the four-fold perspective which I have referred to in many previous posts. This too takes effort; it can get complicated and once again I ask for your patience!

Long-time readers will remember that the essential insight of the four-fold perspective is that we can be conscious in four different ways. And, as with so many other important understandings in this time of great transition, we don't yet have a commonly accepted language to talk about these four ways our minds work.

I've described a number of different versions of the four-fold perspective in previous posts. They include images from the Native American Medicine Wheel and from the Hebrew Bible's Wisdom literature, as well as the language used by teachers and thinkers as diverse as C. G. Jung, Ken Wilber, Michael Dowd and Karl Rahner.

As I noted in post #82 (Moving Up the Ladder), even the classical elements (earth, air, fire, water) make good tags for talking about how our minds work, as do the four directions (north, east, south, west), the four seasons (winter, spring, summer, fall), and the four times of day (midnight, dawn, noon, dusk). I think the simplest words to work with are body, mind, soul, spirit, however, especially when used in conjunction with the Jungian terms.

We are flooded with riches! We can easily get lost in all these treasures, so I want to make my main point as clearly and simply as I can with regard to the efforts needed for an understanding of sacred manhood: the patriarchal mind limits itself to two of these four ways of being conscious.

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Using Jung's terms, it is the Sensing and Thinking functions which are considered masculine in the patriarchal perspective. That's body and mind in the older wording. We can see right away that restricting reality to only physical matter and logical thought is a perfect description of the limited perspectives of Western culture's reductionist science.

For Patriarchy, the Jungian Feeling function (soul, our awareness of connections) is considered feminine and therefore of no importance, while the Intuition function (spirit, the big picture of life's significance) isn't even acknowledged.

Nature imagery especially helps us to see what's missing from patriarchal manhood: fire and water, day and evening, the warmth of relatedness and the healing flow of meaning.

This imagery helps us to see why some of the essential religious perspectives of sacred manhood-- expressed, for example, in Native American prayers such as "All things are our relations" and "Great Mystery, we see you all around"-- simply make no sense to the severely limited dualistic view of the patriarchal masculine.

This lack of any sense of relatedness or significance explains why Western culture is only gradually coming to see the importance of human rights not just for some but for all, and to value environmental awareness. The two modes of human consciousness most needed in our present situation-- the Black Bear's big picture and the Green Mouse's sense of connectedness with all things-- are precisely what's missing from patriarchal manhood.

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As I've said, understanding all this takes a lot of work! I hope these historical and psychological perspectives on humanity's cultural development and on four-fold consciousness are helpful in providing a positive understanding of sacred manhood and the importance of its recovery.

If I were presenting these thoughts in a college classroom it would take five or six sessions, since there would be so many comments and questions. There would be objections too, of course, since there's something here to upset almost everyone.

But objections and questions, about even the smallest details, are what help us clarify these basic ideas. I invite you to share yours.

sam@macspeno.com

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#78. "Thank God for Evolution"

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In recent weeks I've received two comments from readers with opposite views. One said, "I do not find the themes in Wilber’s book at all interesting." The other said, "I have no interest in what Michael Dowd has to say."

I, of course, think we need to know about both authors.

Wilber is probably best described as a philosopher concerned with the big picture of the evolutionary development of human consciousness. In his book Sense and Soul he focuses on how religion and science became alienated from one another and what's needed on both sides for our culture to bring them together.

Dowd, in contrast, is an evangelist-- a "preacher" in the old time sense. 

But he's not a preacher of "that old time religion." He calls himself a "story-teller." He wants to spread the good news of the New Story of the Universe that's ours today thanks to modern science.

It's of interest that the phrase "marriage of science and religion" occurs in the subtitle of both Sense and Soul and Thank God for Evolution. 

Although they are coming from very different perspectives, these authors really are about the same thing.

Despite those differences, it's their common concern-- what I call, in the title of this blog, "the convergence of science and religion"-- that makes them both so significant.

In the last few posts, I've emphasized Wilber's insights into the social and cultural reasons for the split between these two basic areas of human life. In this and the next few posts I plan to share my thoughts about Dowd's practical concerns for living the New Cosmology.

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I've described Thank God for Evolution in several previous posts as "extraordinarily comprehensive." It really is, as I said in post #77 (From Theory to Practice), a "unique compendium or manual of praxis for living out the New Cosmology in everyday life."

It's almost 400 pages long, and it's such a vast treasury of practical ideas that I hardly know where to start in trying to describe it.

I think one of its most valuable things is the large number of small anecdotes that fill the pages. Dowd says that these down-to-earth stories about ordinary people have been included at the insistence of his wife, Connie Barlow. She has gone to the heart of his practical concern! 

Just reading the book's many anecdotal stories-- easy to find because they're printed with a clear background so that they readily stand out-- is a delight.

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Another thing which makes this book such a strong resource for anyone interested in the New Cosmology is the section called Who's Who. Dowd offers seven pages of brief biographies of the many influential thinkers and writers who have contributed in one way or another to our new understanding of the universe and of our place in it. With approximately 20 persons listed on each page, this Who's Who of the New Cosmology is-- as book reviews often say-- "worth the price of the book."

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Another especially valuable thing Dowd's book offers is the numerous quotes by many well-known people in our culture who help us to understand the new scientific story of the universe. When I first starting writing this post I thought I would simply list the names of all the people who are quoted, but the list would be much too long.

I decided instead to pick out the names of persons quoted that you are likely to recognize. It still comes to a long list, but I think it might be worth sharing, just to make the point that the thoughts of many well-known persons are available for helping us to understand the practical aspects of the convergence of science and religion.

Here's the list: Thomas Berry, Winston Churchill, Mary Conrow Coelho, Bill Cosby, Theodosius Dobzhansky, Loren Eiseley, Albert Einstein, Black Elk, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Matthew Fox, Steven Jay Gould, Vaclav Havel, Helen Keller, Miram Macgillis, Ashley Montague, Lewis Mumford, the poet Rumi, Carl Sagan, Carl Sandburg, Percy Shelley, Brian Swimme, Teilhard de Chardin, Alan Watts, Edward O. Wilson, Alfred North Whitehead, Robert Wright.

They are an example of the breadth of Dowd's efforts as a story-teller. 

And like the anecdotal stories, their quotes are highlighted and easy to find.

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Another example of Dowd's breadth in his story-telling efforts is his inclusion in an appendix of a letter written by the noted atheist Richard Dawkins. The letter is not addressed to Dowd but to Dawkins' own then-10-year-old daughter. I mentioned in the previous post that with Dowd's ability "to address believers, non-believers, and everyone in between," he is a model of the Post-modern Deconstructionist respect for the diversity of persons, perspectives and cultures that Ken Wilber describes. Dowd's inclusion of this letter is an excellent example of his openness. He's definitely not a preacher in the old time sense.

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With this collection of anecdotal stories about little-known people, the quotes from well-known people, and the Who's Who of influential New Cosmology persons, it's obvious that the New Story of the Universe is not just something which a few quirky members of contemporary society are interested in. It is what's happening in our world.

Neither gossip about celebrities, nor the corruption of politicians, nor the insensitivity of corporate executives is the whole story. They are not even the main story. No, even that's not correct. They're not the story at all!

The real story of our time is our gradual discovery of a far-deeper-than-previous understanding of our place in the universe and of our participation in the cosmic process.

So Thank God for Evolution is of the greatest relevance to our contemporary problems. As no other book I know, it helps us to see the big picture and to recognize that war, damage to the environment, the imposition of poverty or gender inequality, and the cover-up of child abuse are all "distortions of the cosmic process."

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Probably the single most significant thing about Dowd's book is his emphasis on the fact that the big picture we have from modern science is the birthright of every human being. He spells it out from the start. In the first pages of his Introduction he says, "The scientific story of the cosmos, Earth, life and humanity is now our shared sacred story-- our 
common creation myth."

And this common story of all humanity reaches back billions and billions of years. Every person on the Earth is "heir to a magnificent and proud heritage."

I see the most significant practical value of this book is in the help it offers us to update that common heritage. As the book cover says, bringing science and religion together can "transform your life and our world." While there are certainly many ways we can transform our lives, only communion with the Earth and one another in daily life can transform our world.

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Dowd points out that one of the major questions of our day is: Who can we trust? Given the ineptitude of politicians, the insensitivity to human suffering by leaders of corporations, and our betrayal by religious authorities, we repeatedly (if unconsciously) ask,"What can we count on?"

Dowd's main point is that in the context of the New Cosmology we see that "We can count on the universe itself." He doesn't mean the static universe of past ages, of course, but the universe as we know it today: the dynamic-evolutionary cosmos. It's the cosmic process itself that we can count on.

But to trust the evolutionary universe we have to be informed about it. 

We need to know the facts; our cultural awareness-- of our selves and of our place in the world-- needs to be updated. I would say, as a long-time teacher, that we "need better science education." Dowd puts it in religious language: "Facts," he says, are "God's native tongue."

Once we have the data modern science offers us, it's much easier to see that the dynamic universe can be counted on to continue in its evolutionary development. After fourteen billion years, it isn't likely that the cosmic process is going to do an about face. It's not going to make a "drastic U-turn," as Ken Wilber puts it.

With the facts available to us, we can trust that the universe is going to continue to develop in the directions it has been moving ever since the Big Bang.

I've mentioned some of the directions the cosmic process moves in repeatedly in these posts-- diversity, complexity and consciousness, for example. Some are easier to understand than others. Dowd lists seven of them and I could easily use a whole post just to describe them briefly. 

But the main point here is that we're just coming to appreciate these ongoing aspects of the cosmic process; we're just coming to realize that we can indeed count on the mystery of the universe to continue what it's doing. And that is a major change from both the religious and non-religious perspectives of the past!

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You may be thinking, "Well, I know a lot about all that. At least to some extent, I am familiar with the big picture that we have thanks to the New Cosmology." What you may be more interested now is how you can personally live it out in your everyday life.

If you've been thinking along those lines, Dowd offers an exercise to discern your calling. It's a way of matching your inborn talents and skills with your interests and concerns. By comparing "Your Joys" and the "World's Needs," you can figure out where you personally fit in, and what you can contribute, to our many-billion-year-old heritage.

This Discerning Your Calling Exercise is on page 178. It may only take you about 20 minutes, but you will find yourself refining it for days and weeks afterwards as you come to a deeper and fuller understanding of what might be your personal and unique contribution to humanity's Great Work.

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Another aspect of Dowd's book which makes it a great treasure is the collection of resources it provides for updating ourselves. If there's an aspect of the New Cosmology you feel weak about, help is available: Dowd lists several hundred books, in nine categories.

To give you some idea of the extent of these available resources, the nine categories and the number of books available in each category are listed below.

1. The Big Picture: 25 books.

2. The Trajectory of Divine/Cosmic Creativity and Human History: 23 books.

3. Living in Deep Integrity:19 books.

4. Parents and Children: 5 books.

5. Humanity, Technology and the Future: 5 books.

6. Evolutionary Psychology, Brain Science and Ethics: 23 books.

7. Visions and Tools for an Evolutionarily Sustainable Future: 20 books.

8. The Limitations of Flat-Earth Faith:12 books.

9. Toward an Evolutionary Faith: 52 books.

There's also a free study guide available on Dowd's web site: ThankGodforEvolution.com.

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I have just described a half-dozen major treasures in this book. You can see why, in earlier posts, I have referred to it as "remarkably comprehensive."

If you're wondering whether I think the book has any limitations, I've found one. It's Dowd's comments about ritual. I don't think they are wrong or incorrect, but they are inadequate.

I have struggled repeatedly-- and not yet satisfactorily-- to express my own thoughts about ritual and evolution, so I'm not being critical. I do think, however, that there's something more about the importance of ritual in our understanding of the New Story that still needs saying. I hope I will be able to express my thoughts about it more adequately. Eventually!

Meanwhile, in the next few posts I plan to share some thoughts about what I think are Dowd's own most significant and helpful ideas. Some have to do with things we don't often connect with science or religion, such as our need, in light of modern knowledge about how our brain works, to trust our shadow side. Others have to do with what Dowd calls "day and night language" and some changes he says the "old time religion" needs to make.

I find it all fascinating. Hope you do, too!

sam@macspeno.com

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