Evening Thoughts Thomas Berry Summary

Evening Thoughts by Thomas Berry
Thomas Berry argues that a confluence of developments and ideologies of mankind has led to an end of the Cenozoic era, and that the “expansion of the life systems of earth is being terminated,” necessitating a commitment by mankind to embark upon a “transformation from an anthropomorphic norm of reality and value to a biocentric or geocentric norm,” which he describes as the Ecozoic era (43). He proposes that the underlying impetus to mankind’s troubled relationship with the natural world can be found in a spiritual outlook that has neglected the fact that “the natural world itself is the “primary economic reality, the primary educator, the primary governance, the primary healer, the primary presence of the sacred, the primary moral value,” while man is derivative (30). To this end, Berry believes that “the story of the universe expresses a functional cosmology that needs to be taught at every level of education,” making it necessary to “renew our sense of the sacred character of the universe and the planet Earth,” in an attempt to “establish a mutually enhancing mode of human-Earth relations” (21-2).
Berry begins by discussing the prevalent mindset of mankind with regards …show more content…
The first four of these directly involve spiritual beliefs, including Western Christianity’s notion of god, the spiritual nature of humans, the concept of redemption, and the transcendence of the mind, as does the sixth, the transcendent historical destiny for humans. While the fifth, our transcendent technology, is not necessarily spiritual in root, it does seem to uphold the belief of humans as a chosen creation, able to create great change through our intellectual faculties (26-7). According to Berry, these notions have fueled mankind’s continual drive to “change the very conditions of life through our scientific technologies”