The Sacred Universe

(1994,1998)

THE UNIVERSE itself is the primary sacred community. All religious expression by humans should be considered participation in the religious aspect of the universe itself. We are moving from the theology and the anthropology of religions to the cosmology of religions. Throughout the twentieth century in America, there was an intense interest in the anthropology of religions, particularly the sociology of religions, the psychology of religions, the history of religions, and comparative religion. Because none of these forms of religious consciousness has been able to deal effectively with the evolutionary story of the universe or with the ecological crisis that is now disturbing Earth’s basic life systems, we are being led to a cosmological dimension of religion both by our efforts at academic understanding and for practical issues of physical survival on a planet severely diminished in its life-giving capacities.

What is new about this mode of consciousness is that the universe itself is now experienced as an irreversible time-developmental process, not simply as an eternal, seasonally renewing universe. We are focused not so much on cosmos as on cosmogenesis. Now our knowledge of the universe comes primarily through our empirical, observational sciences rather than through intuitive or deductive reasoning processes. We are listening to Earth tell its story through the signals that it sends to us from outer space, through the light that comes to us from the stars, through its geological formations, and through the vast amount of data that the biosystems of Earth give us.

In its every aspect, the human is a participatory reality. We are members of the great universe community. We are not on the outside looking in; we are within the universe, awakening to the universe. We participate in its life. We are nourished by this community, instructed by this community, governed by this community, and healed by this community. In and through this community we enter into communion with that numinous mystery whence all things depend for their existence and their activity. If this is true for the entire universe, it is especially true given our human dependence on Earth.

From observable scientific evidence, we understand the story of the universe as an emergent process with a fourfold sequence: the galactic story, the Earth story, the life story, and the human story. Together these constitute for us the primordial sacred story of the universe.

The original flaring forth of the universe carried the present within its fantastic energies just as the present expresses those primordial energies in their articulated form. This includes all of the aesthetic, psychic, and spiritual developments that have occurred across the centuries. The universe, in its sequence of transformations, carries within itself the comprehensive meaning of the phenomenal world. In recent secular times, this meaning was perceived only in its physical expression. Now we perceive that the universe has been a spiritual and a physical reality from the beginning. This sacred dimension is especially evident in those mysterious moments of transformation the universe has passed through during its fourteen billion years of existence. These are moments of great spiritual and physical significance: the privileged moments in the Great Story. The numinous mystery of the universe now reveals itself in a developmental mode of expression, a mode never before available to human consciousness through observational processes.

Yet this seems not to mean much to our contemporary theologians. They remain concerned with scriptural interpretation, spiritual disciplines, ministerial skills, liturgy, the history of Christianity, the psychology of religion, and religious pedagogy. None of these areas of study has a direct concern for the natural world as the primary source of religious consciousness. This is one of the basic reasons why both the physical and spiritual survival of the Earth has become imperiled. Presently, we in the West think of ourselves as passing into another historical period, in a continuation of the long series of historical transformations that have taken place in the past and that are continuing on into the future. This perception is understandable. If we think, however, that the changes taking place in our times are simply another moment in the series of transformations that passes from classical-Mediterranean times through the medieval era to the industrial and modern periods, then we are missing the real magnitude of the changes taking place. We are, in fact, at the end of a religious-civilizational period. By virtue of our new knowledge, we are changing our most basic relations to the world about us. These changes are of a unique order of magnitude.

Our new acquaintance with the universe as an irreversible developmental process can be considered the most significant religious, spiritual, and scientific event since the emergence of the more complex civilizations some five thousand years ago. At the same time, we are bringing about a devastation of Earth such as the planet has never experienced in the four and a half billion years of its formation.

We are changing the chemistry of the planet, we are disturbing the biosystems, and we are altering the geological structure and functioning of the planet, all of which took some hundreds of millions and even billions of years to bring into being. This process of closing down the life systems of the planet is making Earth a wasteland, and we hardly realize that with each species of life on Earth we lose we also lose modes of divine presence, the very basis of our religious experience.

Because we are unable to enter into the new mystique of the emergent universe, we are unable to prevent the disintegration of the life systems of the planet taking place through the misuse of that same scientific vision. Western religions and theologies have not yet addressed these issues nor established their identity in this context. Nor have other religious traditions been any more successful. Mainstream religions have simply restated their belief and their spiritual disciplines in a kind of fundamentalist pattern.

We cannot resolve the difficulties we face in this new situation by setting aside the scientific venture that has been in process over these past two centuries, especially during this twenty-first century. It will not go away. Nor can we assume an attitude of indifference toward this new context of earthly existence. It is too powerful in its total effects. We must find a way of interpreting the evolutionary process itself. If interpreted properly, the scientific venture could even be one of the most significant spiritual disciplines of these times. This task is particularly urgent, since our new mode of understanding is so powerful in its consequences for the very structure of the planet Earth. We must respond to its deepest spiritual content or else submit to the devastation that is before us.

I do not consider that fundamentalist assertions of our former traditions can themselves bring these forces under control. We are not engaged simply in academic inquiry. We are involved in the future of the planet in its geological and biological survival and functioning as well as in the future of our human and spiritual well-being. We will bring about a physical and spiritual well-being of the entire planet or there will be neither physical nor spiritual well-being for any of our earthly forms of being.

The traditional religions have not dealt effectively with these issues nor with our modern cosmological experience because they did not originate in nor were they designed for such a universe. Traditional religions have been shaped within a dominant spatial mode of consciousness, that is, a mode of consciousness that experiences time as a renewing sequence of seasonal transformations. Although Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have a historical-developmental perspective in dealing with the human process, they lack an awareness of the development of the universe itself. They seem to have as much difficulty as any other tradition in incorporating an understanding of the developmental character of the universe.

Although antagonism toward an evolutionary universe has significantly diminished in Christian theology, our limitations as theologians in speaking the language of this new cosmology is everywhere evident. If much has been done in process theology in terms of our conceptions of the divine and the relations of the divine to the phenomenal world, this has been done generally in the realm of systematic theology. Little has been done in the empirical study of the cosmos itself as religious expression.

To envisage the universe in its religious dimension requires that we speak of the religious aspect of the original flaming forth of the universe, the religious role of the elements, and the religious functioning of the Earth and all its components. Since the human in its religious capacities emerges out of this cosmological process, then the universe itself can be considered the primary bearer of the religious experience. As Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) tells us: “The order of the universe is the ultimate and noblest perfection in things.”¹ Although Thomas was thinking of the universe in terms of its renewing seasonal sequence and not as an emergent sequence of irreversible transformations, the same principle applies. The universe is the primary referent in all human understanding.

This way of thinking about the emergent universe provides a context for the future development of the world’s religious traditions. Indeed, the peoples of the world, insofar as they are being educated in a modern context, are now able to identify themselves in time and space in terms of the universe as this is presently described by our modern sciences. The problem is that they are not learning the more profound spiritual and religious meaning also indicated by this new sense of the universe.

This story of the universe is at once scientific, mythic, and mystical. Most elaborate in its scientific statement, it is among the simplest of creation stories. Most of all it is the story that we learn from the universe itself. We are finally overcoming our isolation from the universe and beginning to listen to the universe’s story. If until recently we were insensitive in relation to its more spiritual communication, this is no longer entirely true. In this understanding, we have an additional context for understanding all the religious traditions, just as our more recent cosmologies do not negate but add to the Newtonian worldview and enable us to deal with questions that could not be dealt with in the Newtonian context. Now we have additional depth of spiritual understanding through our listening to the universe in ways that were not available through our traditional insights. Just as we can no longer live simply within the physical universe of Newton, we can no longer live spiritually in any adequate manner simply within the limits of our earlier religious traditions.

The first contribution this new perspective on the universe makes to religious consciousness is the sense of participating in the creation process itself. We bear within us the impress of every transformation through which the universe and the planet Earth have passed. The elements out of which Earth and all its living beings are composed were shaped by supernovae. We passed through the period of stardust dispersion resulting from this implosion-explosion of a first-generation star. We were integral with the attractive forces that brought those particles together in the original shaping of the Earth. We felt the gathering of the components of the earthly community and experienced the self-organizing spontaneities within the megamolecules, out of which came the earliest manifestations of the life process and the transition to cellular and organic living forms. These same forces that brought forth the genetic codings of all the various species were guiding the movement of life toward its expression in human consciousness.

This journey, the sacred journey of the universe, is the personal journey of each individual. We cannot but marvel at this amazing sequence of transformations. No other creation story is more fantastic in its account of how things came to be in the beginning, how they came to be as they are, and how each of us received the special characteristics that give us our personal identity. Our reflexive consciousness, which enables us to appreciate and to celebrate this story, is the supreme achievement of our present period of history. The universe is the larger self of each person, since the entire sequence of events that has transpired since the beginning of the universe was required to establish each of us in the precise structure of our own being and in the larger context in which we function.

Earlier periods and traditions also experienced intimacy with the universe, especially in those moments of cosmic renewal that took place periodically, mostly in the springtime of the year. Through these grand rituals, powerful energies flowed into the world. Yet it was the renewal of the world or the sustaining of an abiding universe, not the irreversible and nonrepeatable original emergence of the world, that was taking place. Only an irreversible self-organizing world like the one we live in could provide this special mode of participation in the emergent creation itself. This irreversible sequence of transformations is taking shape through our own activities as well as through the activities of the multitude of the other component members of the universe community.

This is not a linear sequence, because the component elements of the universe move in pulsations, in sequences of integration-disintegration, in spiral or circular patterns, and, especially on Earth, in seasonal expressions of life renewal. On Earth, the basic tendencies of the universe seem to explode in an overwhelming display of geological, biological, and human modes of expression, from the tiniest particles of matter and their movement to the shaping and movements of the seas and continents, with the clash and sundering of tectonic plates, the immense hydrological cycles, the spinning of Earth on its axis, its orbiting of the sun, and the bursting forth of the millionfold variety of living forms.

Throughout this confused, disorderly, chaotic process, we witness enormous creativity. The quintessence of this great journey of the universe is the balance between equilibrium and disequilibrium. Although much of the disequilibrium fails to reach a new and greater integration, the only way to creativity is through the breakdown of existing unities. This is evident in the explosion of ancient supernovae, which released the atomic elements into the cosmos and, ultimately, our atmosphere. This “destruction” of stars eventually provided the basis for life on our planet. History also shows us that disturbed periods can be creative periods, for example, the early medieval period of Europe and the period of breakdown in imperial order in China at the end of the Han period around the year 200 C.E.

So too in religion we see that great creativity is found in stressful moments. It was during a period of spiritual confusion that Buddha appeared to establish a new spiritual discipline. The prophets arose in the disastrous moments of Israel’s life. Christianity established itself during the social and religious turmoil of the late Roman period. Now we find ourselves in a period of the greatest disturbance that the Earth has ever known, a period when survival of both the human and the natural worlds in their present modes of being is threatened. The identification of our human fate with the destiny of the planet was never more clear.

This new context of thinking also establishes a new context for liturgy. Presently, our liturgies give magnificent expression to the periods of seasonal renewal and also, at times, to significant historical events or personal achievements. Especially in these moments of renewal, in the springtime of the year, the psychic energies of the human community are renewed in their deepest sources by their participation in the profound changes within the natural world itself.

But now a new sequence of liturgical celebrations is needed. Even more than moments of seasonal renewal, these moments of cosmic transformation must be considered sacred. Only by a proper celebration of these moments can our human spiritual development take place in an integral manner, for these were the decisive moments in the shaping of both our human consciousness and our physical being.

First among these celebrations might be a celebration of the emergent moment of the universe itself. This was the beginning of religion just as it was the beginning of the world. The human mind and all its spiritual capacities began with this moment. As with originary moments generally, it is supremely sacred and carries within it the high destinies of the universe in its intellectual and spiritual capacities as well as its physical shaping and living expression.

Of special import was the rate of emergence of the universe and the curvature of space, whereby all things hold together. The rate of emergence in those first instants had to be precise to the trillionth of a second. Otherwise the universe would have exploded or collapsed. The rate of emergence was such that the consequent curvature of the universe was sufficiently closed to hold the universe together within its gravitational bonds yet open enough so that the creative process could continue through these billions of years and provide the guidance and energies we need as we continue to move into the future.

This bonding of the universe, whereby every reality of the universe attracts and is attracted to every other being in the universe, was the condition for the rise of human affection. It was the comprehensive expression of the divine love that pervades the universe in its every aspect and enables the creative processes of the universe to continue.

It might be appropriate to designate this beginning moment of the universe as the context for religious celebration and even for a special liturgy that could be available to all the peoples of the planet as they begin to sense their identity in terms of the evolutionary story of the universe. A list of other transformative moments might also be selected for celebration, since these moments establish both the spiritual and the physical contours for further development of the entire world. Among these supreme moments of transformation we might list the supernovae that took place as the first-generation stars collapsed into themselves in some trillions of degrees of heat, sufficient to bring the heavier elements into existence out of the original hydrogen and helium atoms, and then exploded into the stardust with which our own solar system and the planet Earth shaped themselves. This entire process can be considered a decisive spiritual moment and a decisive physical moment in the story of the universe. New levels of subjectivity came into being, new modalities of bonding, new possibilities for those inner spontaneities whereby the universe carries out its capacities for self-organization. Along with all this came the magnificent array of differentiated elements with the capacity for all the intricate associations that we now know. Indeed, Earth as we know it, in all its spiritual and physical aspects, became a possibility.

To ritualize this moment would cultivate the depth of appreciation for ourselves and for the entire creative process, which is needed just now, when the entire earthly process has become trivialized. Right now we have no established way of entering into the spiritual dimension of the story that the universe is telling about itself, the shaping of the Earth and of all living beings, and finally of ourselves.

The human is precisely that being in whom this total process reflects on and celebrates itself and its numinous origins in a special mode of conscious self-awareness. At our highest moments, we fulfill this role through the association of our liturgies with the supreme liturgy of the universe itself. Awareness that the universe is the primary liturgy has been recognized by the human community since the earliest times. The human personality and the various human communities have always sought to insert themselves into space and time through integration with the great movement of the heavens and the cycles of the seasons. What is needed now is integration with this new sequence of liturgies related to the irreversible transformation sequence whereby the world has come into being.

A great many of the mysteries of the Earth could be celebrated. We could go through the entire range of events whereby the universe took shape and inquire not simply into the physical reality but the religious meaning and direction of these events in their more comprehensive context. The development of photosynthesis is especially important, then the coming of the trees and later the coming of the flowers one hundred million years ago. Just how we would celebrate the birth of the human species is a challenge beyond all previous considerations.

Only such a sequence of religious celebrations could enable the cosmology of religions to come into being in any effective manner. If the sacred history of the biblical world is recounted with such reverence, so too should be the recounting of the sacred history of the universe and of the planet Earth. In all of this we can observe the continuity of the human religious process with the emergent process of the universe itself, with the shaping of the planet Earth, with the emergence of life, and the appearance of the human.

We find this difficult because we are not accustomed to think of ourselves as integral with or subject to the universe, to the planet Earth, or to the community of living beings. We think of ourselves as the primary referent and of the universe as participatory in our human achievements. Only the present threats to the well-being of the human as a species and to the life systems of the Earth are finally causing us to reconsider our situation.

This leads us to a final question in our consideration of the various religious traditions: the question of the religious role of the human as species. History is being made now in every aspect of the human endeavor, not simply within or between nations, ethnic groups, or cultures but between humans as species and the larger Earth community. We have been too concerned with ourselves as nations, ethnic groups, cultures, religions. We are presently in need of a species and interspecies orientation in law, economics, politics, education, medicine, religion, and whatever else concerns the human.

If until recently we could be unconcerned with the effect of human activities on the species level, this is no longer the situation. We need more than a national or international economy or even a global human economy; we need a species economy. A species economy will relate the human as species to the community of species on the planet, an economy that will be an integral Earth economy. Already this is beginning in the awareness that the human is overwhelming the entire productivity of the Earth. The human at the end of the twentieth century was using up some 40 percent of the entire productivity of the Earth. This has left an inadequate resource base for the larger community of life. The cycle is overburdened to such an extent that even the renewable life systems are being extinguished.

We could outline the need for a species, an interspecies, and even a planetary legal system as the only viable system in the present situation. We could say the same thing as regards medicine, since the issues of species health and the health of the planet are also intimately connected. Human health on a toxic planet is a contradiction. Yet we are, apparently, trying to achieve just that. The primary objective of the medical profession must be to foster the integral health of Earth itself. Only afterward can human health be adequately attended to.

In each of these cases—economics, law, medicine—the planet itself constitutes the normative reference. There already exists a planetary economics. The proper role of the human is to foster the economics of the Earth and to see that our human economies function in relation to and in service of the planetary economy. The same thing could be said for the realms of law and governance. There exists a comprehensive participatory governance of the planet. Every member of the Earth community rules and is ruled by the other members of the community in such a remarkable manner that the community as a whole and its individual members have prospered remarkably well over the millennia. The proper role for the human is to articulate its own governance within this planetary governance.

What is arising in human awareness is our nature as a species, which has emerged out of planetary processes. This awareness is beginning to reshape our religious imagination. This concept implies a prior sense of the religious dimension of the natural world. If the Earth is an economic mode of being as well as a biological mode of being, then it might not be too difficult to think of the Earth as having a religious mode of being. This seems to be explicit in many of the scriptures of the world, although this concept is yet to be articulated effectively in the context of our present understanding of the great story of the universe. In general, we think of the universe as joining in the religious expression of the human rather than the human joining in the religious expression of the universe. This has been the difficulty in most spheres of activity. We consistently think of the human as primary and the universe as derivative rather than thinking of the universe as primary and the human as derivative.

Our best model for this new vision within the context of a spatial mode of consciousness is probably found in the classical traditions of China. Within the perspective of a time-developmental mode of consciousness, models such as that developed by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin need to be further elaborated. It may be one of our greatest challenges to develop such an integrated cosmological perspective that celebrates the human as arising from and dependent on the universe.