COSMOLOGY, WORLDVIEWS, STORIES: ENCOUNTERS IN THE FIELD OF RELIGION AND ECOLOGY
Heather Eaton
The field of religion and ecology developed in stages, and distinctly in diverse local, national, and global contexts. From the beginning it represented multireligious and multidisciplinary initiatives. Today, in the fifty years of development and expansion, it is impossible to categorize the field of religions and ecology, as it is vast, robust, active, and impactful. The alliance of religion and ecology has become a multifaceted and global agenda within and outside of academia, institutions, and religions, with a wide spectrum of activities, proposals, topics and approaches. It is uneven, with some expressions more comprehensive than others, and with some efforts more concerned about religion over ecology, or the reverse. At times the focus is on the retrieval of insights, teachings or texts. Others are concerned with religious reforms, (re)constructions and relevance. Still others consider that historical religions need to be transformed and understand themselves within a tapestry of religion within the overarching cosmic and Earth journeys. And another direction is concerned with the social impacts of ecological degradation and global economic and cultural systems that sustain inequities.1
The focus here is an overview of the cosmological proposal within the field of religion and ecology, considering some broad themes and observations.2 There are two primary influential thinkers who associate cosmology with religion and ecology; Alfred North Whitehead and those using process theologies, and Thomas Berry, a cultural historian. This essay is a short exposé on Berry’s proposition and those who developed it in the field of religion and ecology.
The cosmological proposal is a composite of the significance of origin stories, narratives, science, and religion in the face of the ecological crisis. It is meant to propel cultural transformations. This essay is divided into five sections: stories and worldviews; cosmology, a new story?; religion, ecology and cosmology; debates and discussions; and future directions.
Stories and Worldviews
Before delving into contemporary cosmological contributions, a key element is to reflect on the significance of creation, or origin, stories.3 Such stories have arisen from human cultures for at least two hundred thousand years.4 These stories provide horizons of meaning, worldviews, and an orientation towards the cosmos, the Earth, the natural world.5 As well, they specify tenets for social relations, ethics, sexuality, birth, death, and suffering. They teach us how to live.6Origin or creation stories can be considered akin to worldviews, social imaginaries, or life-maps.7 They provide existential orientations—navigational maps—from the farthest reaches of time and space to our interior perceptions and pressures. These stories give guidance on how to grapple with human exigencies and life events, including how to interpret everything from weather to emotions. They specify boundaries between benevolence and malevolence. There are countless variations, with aspects that can be magical, imaginative, powerful, graceful, and elegant. They have been told, sung, danced, carved, painted, sewn, or transcribed, and at times within ceremonies, fasting and feasting, and with sacrifices and celebrations.8
Furthermore, humans, individually and collectively, construct and live within narratives. Jonathan Gottschall explains why, and how, humans are the story telling animal.9 Gottschall shows that we are always living within and reconstructing existential dynamics and interpreting these within narratives. These stories codify a variety of experiences: cognitive, emotions, psychic processes, communication, education, and more.
Thomas Berry, a key founder of the field of religion and ecology, also verified that all societies live within some form of cultural narrative; that is, a worldview that allows us to make sense of the natural and social worlds, and with themes validating that life is worth the struggle.10 Narratives seem to be the organizational architecture of the human mind. By extension, narratives are the main organizational structure of worldviews. These stories are the narratives around which life is oriented. They guide and shape our personal and collective identities, life purposes, actions and interactions, and presume to represent reality. Outside a story, there is no context in which human life can function in meaningful ways.
In addition, each of these stories, to varying degrees, explains and symbolizes human emergence from, entanglement with, embeddedness in, or belonging to, Earth processes. They teach how we are to abide within the larger realms, such as the cosmos, the natural world, and what Jane Bennett calls “vibrant matter.”11 Some versions, such as in the Lakota idiom, “all my relations,” denote an interconnectedness of matter, spirit, and reverence. These cultural narratives provide horizons of meaning and details of how to live, from the micro-, meso-, and macro-parameters of human existence. They are neither true nor false. Worldviews function or not. Not to be naïve, some harbor notions of slavery, misogyny, ethnic and racial inequalities, homophobia, and devaluing the natural world.
Cosmology: A New Story?
Scientific knowledge, amassed mainly in the past century, has contributed to genuinely new understanding of Earth’s interconnected evolutionary and cosmic processes. Berry realized that the contemporary understanding of the universe is revelatory, as well as relevant to current issues. Rather than being static and stable, the universe is dynamic and transforming.12 What is increasingly astonishing is that everything about the universe is so much more than assumed or imagined previously. Evidence confirms the complexities, diversifications, development sequences, and the intricacies and inter-relatedness of the emergent universe. There is a cohesiveness within the astonishing diversity found in how the universe functions, including in the birth and death of stars, and galaxies and planetary formations. This understanding, coupled with current evolutionary knowledge, affirms that we emerged from, belong to, and are a living element of, a living universe and Earth.
While the universe, the Earth, and human existence are not “stories.” narratives are the central modality of the mind, of social organization, and of overall life-orientation for hominids. The connection is that many cultural stories no longer include tenets and edicts of how to live without harming ecological integrity. The cavalier attitudes towards and devastating destruction of the natural world in Eurowestern societies are embedded within the worldviews and cultural stories. Stories and visions of progress, economic accumulation, protectionist politics, and other-worldly religious views infuse Eurowestern worldviews.13
The cosmological proposal is that the scientific insights can contribute to a renewed ecological orientation, and in the form of story. Story is the most apt form for this new knowledge, and for the necessary transitions. It has the potential to galvanize the deepest human energies to respond to the dire social and ecological decline. A new vision—cultural story—sufficiently potent to transform the fundamental orientation of Eurowestern societies is needed. These facets of cosmology—stories, worldviews, evolution, and a living universe—are what became dialogue partners within the emerging field of religion and ecology.
Religion, Ecology, and Cosmology
Religious origin stories, worldviews, and values have always conceptualized human-nature relations. With the increasing awareness of ecological ruin, many engaged in the retrieval of pertinent texts and traditions, developed eco-justices and environmental ethics, and addressed anthropocentrism. Others engaged in critiques, noting that Eurowestern, predominantly Christian/capitalist stories and worldviews are strewn with fault lines that see ecological ruin as irrelevant, or even necessary for progress. Anthropocentrism and the devaluing of the natural world were exposed throughout the beliefs, values, cultural commitments, and practices. The critique was incisive and widely confirmed within the multi-disciplinary realms of environmental studies.
There is a tension between the problems within, as well as the potential of, religions in an era of ecological decline. For example, some problems occur where anthropocentrism is inextricably connected to notions of salvation and spiritual priorities. Thus, it was inevitable that the foundations of Eurowestern cultures are anthropocentric and or have an embedded contempt for the natural world. Much has been written about this, especially within Christian traditions. Nevertheless, many realize that, with varying degrees of reformation, the potential of religions to be influential in the work of worldview transformation is great. This became a central preoccupation in the field of religion and ecology. Yet, religious literacy is insufficient in religion and ecology work.
Furthermore, not all could appreciate the radical—to the root—of worldview critiques. A sustained analysis is required to see that social and ecological destruction are rooted in worldviews. This worldview challenge goes beyond the methods of retrieval, reinterpretation and reconstruction, and nuanced critiques. Adding cosmology to the worldview discussions is much more than deconstructing anthropocentrism, affirming religion’s legitimacy, or prescribing eco-social change. It means a new orientation for cultures whose creation stories or worldviews arose in very different times, with distinct challenges, without contemporary science, and with little to no guidance on how to respond to the dire state of ecological crises.
Neither of these notions—worldviews or cosmology—are habits of mind. That societies live within stories which shape identities and social priorities is also eclipsed from habitual awareness. They are unfamiliar topics and are not probed or interrogated. The urgency for a renewed worldview for ecological destructive societies is evident. Yet, worldviews are perplexing to understand, and even more so to change. Furthermore, worldview analysis clears debris and exposes concealed influences but does not lead to a new vision. We need an ecological vision: a new story. However, the question is thought provoking. Which story or vision? Whose? In whose interests? How can a community decide which to embrace? What will inspire? What about previous stories? There are diverse and competing visions, and the processes of change from one social imaginary to another are not straightforward.
When religion, ecology, worldviews, and stories are gathered together in a cosmological proposal, the challenges augment. Given the immediacy of the quotidian, increasing ecological strain, and pervasive injustices, it is not apparent how the dynamics of the universe, Earth’s evolutionary pathways, or interrogating who humans are in the scheme of things are relevant. To go further, in his 1993 book, The Dream of the Earth, Berry wrote, “We cannot do without the traditional religions, but they cannot presently do what needs to be done. We need a new type of religious orientation.”14 He proposed a cosmology of religions: a new religious and cultural orientation, with primary reference points of cosmogenesis, evolution, and the biosphere. This new story, or cosmology of religions, would not erase other stories and is not a new religion. It is a complex insight to see that cosmology is the primary reference for all origin stories and cultural worldviews. It has the potential to reshape our worldviews with ecological integrity.
Debates and Discussions
Worldviews and cosmological considerations, initially brought forward by Berry scholars, were illuminating for some, and challenged or resisted by others. While many appreciated the relevance of cosmology and the need for a “new story,” others took protectionist stances concerning their religious truth claims, origin stories, doctrinal veracity, and ultimacy. From another angle, there was a knee-jerk postmodern reaction rejecting the notion of a new story, assuming it was another Eurowestern hegemonic tyranny, and noting that the world is awash with stories that are all relevant to specific cultures and subjectivities. Worries that global/whole Earth/cosmological viewpoints would erase the local, or cultural distinctiveness appeared and then faded. It also took time to see how cosmology is relevant to injustices, structural violence, systems of oppression, and poverty. Those adding cosmology to the religion and ecology agenda clarified, explained, and discussed these tensions regularly. These debates took a few decades to resolve and eventually subsided.
Those engaged in inter/multi-religious work usually have supple religious boundaries and sophisticated theories of religion, which are useful in this field. However religious studies are somewhat allergic to claims about a sacred, spiritual, mysterious, or a numinous dimension, and often delimit religions to social constructions and functions. Theologians, being more confessional, can more readily embrace these claims, but are often without interest in or instruction on the histories of religions or theories that relay the significance of religions. They make assumptions that these cosmological proposals are an addendum to a classical Christian worldview. However, the cosmological proposal in religion and ecology is about cultural change, not only the customary academic efforts that excel in deconstruction, analyses, critiques, and expositions. A composite constructed proposal does not suit all academic endeavors.
Some continue to disregard the relevance of cosmology and interpret it as stargazing. They have not yet understood this cosmological proposal or the magnitude of the ecological crisis. They miss the point entirely of the significance of new cosmological and Earth sciences, of the import of origin stories and worldviews, of replacing anthropocentrism with cosmic or Earth-centered approaches, and that ecological literacy is required. Yet, across disciplines, the need for coherent unifying eco-cultural narratives is established, with a multitude of terms that re-embed humans within the rhythms and limits of the natural world, and as one member of a living Earth community.15
Future Directions
Since the introduction of cosmology to the religion and ecology field, much work has been undertaken. Some initiatives that include a cosmological dimension can be found within the ongoing work of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, the Journey of the Universe project, and recently the Ecological Civilization initiatives.16 The work in integral ecology includes cosmological and Earth sciences at times. Outside of academia, programs such as the Earth Charter, Democracy of Life, and Global Ecology, for example, use terms such as bio or eco-democracy, eco-cosmopolitanism, bio- or eco-centrism, and ecological imaginaries. They are promoting ideas such as planetary solidarity, ecological citizen, planetary subject, and more. While not all see cosmology as relevant, they share a main goal to connect social and ecological issues and to replace anthropocentrism and resource-based environmentalism with ecological literacy and notions of an Earth community. The gist is that there is a broader context of nature, and that the world is only partially formed by human ideas and models of the world/Earth. We tend to ignore that we live within a thin layer of culture within immeasurable layers of a natural world and are a living part of an emergent cosmos. All these are interwoven within this cosmology proposal in the religion and ecology work and elsewhere.
Although we are immersed in the current and continuous troubles of violence, wars, political corruption, economic stress, climate changes—and these seem never-ending and even accelerating—they are only fragments of reality. The daily grind of social injustices, the rise of right-wing politics, migrants and socially displaced people, cyber-bullying, a decrease of public civility, and a post-truth world saturated with mis- and dis-information diminishes awareness of, and concern for, the more-than-human world. These difficulties may determine the fate of human communities and severely impact the rejuvenating capacity of the Earth community. Furthermore, there is a ubiquitous denial of the magnitude of the ecological crisis, which will terminate the Cenozoic era. And yet, this does not change that we are also immersed in planetary processes, which are part of one solar system, in one galaxy along with up to two trillion other galaxies. None of our preoccupations alter that we are part of the evolutionary dynamics of an incredible Earth community, which is ongoing for 4.5 billion years—long, long before us—in an ever-evolving cosmic drama.
While many people appreciate the astonishing images from the James Webb telescope, what is needed is to continue to connect these more comprehensive realities to human identities, concerns, and priorities. For those for whom cosmology has transformed their awareness and is a teacher, the associations with daily living are obvious. To live fully in an emergent cosmos, and participate in the journey of the universe, can be difficult in postmodern, aggressive capitalist societies. Yet, the work is to connect human, Earth community, and the cosmic journey. The magnitude of the crisis requires nothing less.
1 The website of the Yale Forum of Religion and Ecology is one source where most of the publications, events, conferences, educational programs, and websites related to this field may be found. See https://fore.yale.edu.
2The field of religion and ecology is now extensive, with local, national and international organizations. Much influential work exists from the United Nations to community rituals. Some, for example, eco-spirituality contributions, are many in number and kind, tend to be creative, and have fewer conventions and restraints than academia.
3 For this essay, and to avoid repetition, I am using the terms origin or creation story, worldviews, social imaginary, cultural narratives, and visions in similar ways.
4 Lewis-Williams, The Mind in the Cave.
5 Eaton, “The Human Quest to Live in a Cosmos.”
6 Berry, “The New Story.”
7 Taylor, Modern Social Imaginaries; The Worldviews Group; Cummings Neville, “Worldviews.”
8 Eaton, “In the Beginning: The Universe was Dreaming.”
9 Gottschall, The Storytelling Animals, and Deacon, The Symbolic Species.
10 Thomas Berry bibliography: https://thomasberry.org/bibliography/. Eaton, The Intellectual Journey of Thomas Berry.
11 Bennett, Vibrant Matter.
12 Tucker and Grim, Living Cosmology. Eaton, “An Ecological Imaginary: Evolution and Religion in an Ecological Era.”
13 The focus here is the development and legacy of Eurowestern societies, although these concerns exist elsewhere in the world, with distinct reasons.
14 Berry, The Dream of the Earth, p. 87.
15 Mickey, Tucker, and Grim, Living Earth Community.
16 FORE: Journey of the Universe Project: https://www.journeyoftheuniverse.org; Institute for Ecological Civilization : https://ecociv.org/what-is-ecological-civilization/; Ecological Civilization https://fore.yale.edu/Ecological-Civilization.
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