The human is neither an addendum nor an intrusion into the universe. We are quintessentially integral with the universe. Thomas Berry – The Great Work, p 32 |
We come now to the last, all-encompassing layer within which all of our exploration fit. Our minds cannot comprehend the infinite, but our hearts can surrender to it.
A significant body of thought in this work comes from the astonishing theologian (“geologian” he called himself) Thomas Berry:
“If the dynamics of the universe from the beginning shaped the course of the heavens, lighted the sun, and formed the Earth, if this same dynamism brought forth the continents and seas and atmosphere, if it awakened life in the primordial cell and then brought into being the unnumbered variety of living beings, and finally brought us into being and guided us safely through the turbulent centuries, there is reason to believe that this same guiding process is precisely what has awakened in us our present understanding of ourselves and our relation to this stupendous process. Sensitized to such guidance from the very structure and functioning of the universe, we can have confidence in the future that awaits the human venture.”
Thomas Berry, “The New Story,” in The Dream of the Earth, p.137.