Some revolutionary changes have taken place within the sciences in recent years so that a variety of interpreters of science are now suggesting that the “New Story” that science is telling might actually support many of the ways of conceiving of reality found within the Judeo-Christian biblical tradition. ( See books by Bruce Sanguin and Diamuird O’Murchu)After years of estrangement, there is much excitement in the thought that scientific descriptions might actually turn out to be allies in communicating Christian insights and would help us communicate our faith without having to resort to an outdated narrative and worldview.  It is becoming increasingly apparent to many that though the story may change, the experience of “Mystery”--a deep and pervading presence and an underlying wholeness does not.

Here is a brief description of five major themes that have come to the fore as a “New Story” in recent years.

1. 1)The Cosmos is alive and all life is interconnected. We have moved beyond the Newtonian idea of the reduction of all things to lifeless matter.
   

Over the last centuries, men and women have often worried that scientific theories will eventually eliminate all that matters to us: values, human intentions, conscious experience, even the uniqueness of life. Some final theory in physics, it was feared, may someday steal from us the things that we hold most dear, leaving only inert particles, “matter in motion,” and nothing more.

But the key results of the last one hundred years have actually pointed in the opposite direction. The natural world seems not to work like a Newtonian Swiss watch, where all the pieces turn together like clockwork to produce the illusions of thoughts, wishes, and values. Instead, interpreters of science now describe cosmic evolution as much more like a symphony, in which the individual players contribute to the results—or perhaps even like a jazz improvisation session! Within the new view, evolution is not predetermined but involves the continual emergence of novelty, of new and unexpected phenomena. This view emphasizes the place of humans and other living things as unique actors within cosmic evolution, whose thoughts, actions, and moral convictions help the universe to become what it will become. After many years of existential alienation, human beings are emerging within the scientific story as creative and conscious agents of evolution--dare we say--the co-creative partners that the Judeo-Christian tradition has envisaged all along. This is one way that we can authentically begin to speak about the importance of Jesus. (See Judy Cannato, Field of Compassion: How the New Cosmology is Transforming Spiritual Life. c. 2010)

2. 2)Reality as not only objective but also subjective. As Thomas Berry said “The world is a communion of subjects.”
   

For most of the modern era science was said to herald the victory of objectivity over subjectivity. Human aspirations and values, it was claimed, would ultimately give way to cold, unfeeling statements of “the facts and nothing but the facts.” The real explanation of things would finally be given in terms of objective laws and physical particles, leaving no place of importance for the human subject. And seeing the whole planet as merely an object for our use and exploitation.

In fact, however, the new story of science seems to have turned in the opposite direction. Physicists now talk about bits of information as the ultimate reality, rather than bits of matter. Fields of energy come first, and physical particles emerge only later. Some physicists believe that human observations and measurements help to make the physical world the way it is. And leading cosmologists speculate that,before the Big Bang occurred, perhaps there was only Mind. Hmmm. Whose mind?  Along with this there is an emergence of a primal recognition that not only are they subjects--they are subjects with agency. In other words, plants act upon us just as we act upon them.

Surely this is a paradigm shift if ever there was one! One can’t help but sense that this new acknowledgement of the role of subjectivity has great potential to strengthen Christian life and practice.

3. 3)The concept of direction and purpose is being reconsidered. What is being suggested is that the universe is neither pre-planned nor random--the two only options previously considered. Rather, the universe is creative and seems to have preferences! For instance, unlike Monsanto, the universe actually prefers diversity!! And, according to Elisabet Sahtouris, it always moves towards increasing complexity and co-operation
   

Modern science was said to be the enemy of all purposive language. When the evidence was finally in, it was thought, all talk of purpose would be replaced by purposeless laws and forces. Talk of values would suffer a similar fate. But the New Story suggests the opposite conclusion. Many of the new accounts of cosmic history allow for, and some even demand, the language of pattern, of directionality, of value. Human intentions and aspirations therefore, far from being irrelevant, seem to play an important role in this cosmic narrative. These results suggest a new significance for the type of prophetic and justice oriented work for which the United Church is well known. Christian mission may actually be strengthened in the context of the “new story.” We are beginning to realize that we can learn from nature and that if we mimic some of nature’s “inventions” we can hope to get ourselves out of the mess in which we find ourselves. (See Janine Benyus, Biomimicry:Innovation Inspired by Nature c. 1997)

4. 4)The ancient and quite biblical idea of the immanence of the divine is coming into the foreground again.
   

Out of the New Story have arisen new modes of conceiving the divine. Theologians and philosophers, recognizing the implications of this paradigm shift, have begun to emphasize ways of speaking about divine immanence in a more radical way. Many of these new approaches fall under the heading of panentheism—the belief that the world is located within the divine and the divine is within the world, although God is also more than the world.

Of course, science cannot prove the existence of God or justify one theology over all others. But recent science has encouraged theologians to shift their attention away from traditional models of God as a distant being, somehow excluded from the world as a whole. Some people of faith now speak of the world as being located within the “womb of God,” of the world as “God’s body,” and of the mind-body relationship within ourselves as a model for re-conceiving the relationship between God and universe. These are great mysteries, and there are no absolute answers here, but exploration can be very exciting and fruitful since it is related to recent developments within the sciences. Many wondering questions can be entertained! (See Catherine Keller, On the Mystery: Discerning Divinity in Process c. 2008)

5) Humans are participants in the evolution of the universe and therefore profoundly “at home” and deeply “responsible”.

It was generally held that modern science would leave very little place within the universe for anything as subjective and unpredictable as persons. Masses and particles and physical forces and laws, it was thought, have very little to do with thinking, feeling persons—for their hopes and aspirations, their values and sufferings, their sense of justice or injustice. “The more the universe seems comprehensible,” wrote the Nobel laureate and physicist Steven Weinberg, “the more it also seems pointless.” We are the products of blind chance, wrote the biologist Monod, and all talk of the significance of human life is sheer fiction and wishful thinking.

The “New Story”, by contrast, suggests that we are “at home” in the universe. On the one hand, we are ourselves stardust; the matter that composes us was composed in the fiery furnaces of stars in the distant past, and the same fundamental energies that move the galaxies are at work in our own bodies. On the other hand, we are not merely the passive recipients of purely physical forces. What we do as persons—our moral aspirations, our creative endeavors, our efforts to make the world a better place for our children and grandchildren—are themselves part of the cosmic evolutionary process. We make a difference. Our actions are an evolutionary force.

Perhaps most shocking and inspiring of all, some science writers are claiming that what we experience in our deepest spiritual moments need not be cast off as ephemeral or illusory. Instead, they write, subjectivity is part of the pulse of the universe. Physicist David Bohn speaks about the “implicate order” that underlies all existence. Science no longer has reason to exclude the possibility that in the end a deeper Mind or cosmic Power or transcendent Source or “God” is the source of all that is. As persons, as moral and spiritual beings, we are not alone in a hostile physical world, struggling to stave off the cold of inter-stellar space for a few moments before life breathes its last and disappears. Instead, we are bone and sinew, breath and soul, of an ever-evolving Whole that is like us because it includes us as an intrinsic part of itself. (See Bruce Lipton, The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter, and Miracles. 2005) This seems more like a description of Hebrew Wisdom/Hokhmah found in the Book of Wisdom 7: 21-8:1.

Science has a great deal of authority in the West and has often inappropriately denied many religious insights and hopes. However we are now living in times when the changes in science itself are such that this denial can no longer be sustained. The “New Story” now gives much of Christian tradition a vast and largely receptive home and offers a fruitful context for further explorations of our tradition. And it comes not a moment too soon for a planet in serious peril! (See Bruce Sanguin, The Advance of Love: Reading the Bible with an Evolutionary Heart. c. 2012)

For further reading:

Berry, Thomas, The Dream of the Earth (1988)

Berry, Thomas, The Great Work (1999)

Bohm, David, Wholeness and the Implicate Order (1983)

Coelho, Mary, Awakening Universe, Emerging Personhood (2001)

Hathaway, Mark and Boff, Leonardo The Tao of Liberation: Exploring the Ecology of Transformation Orbis Books 2009

Johnson, Elizabeth A. She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse Crossroad 1993

Johnson, Elizabeth A. Friends of God and Prophets: A Feminist Theological Reading of the Communion of Saints, Continuum 1998

Johnson, Elizabeth A. Quest for the Living God—Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God, Continuum 2008

Keller, Catherine. Face of the Deep: a theology of becoming Routledge 2003

Korten, David, The Great Turning, From Empire to Earth Community (2006)

Kushner, Lawrence, The River of Light: Spirituality, Judaism and the Evolution of Consciousness (1981)

O’Murchu, Diarmuid. Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics Crossroad 1997

O’Murchu, Diarmuid. Catching Up with Jesus: A Gospel Story for our Time

Primack and Abrams, The View from the Center of the Universe (2006)

Sahtouris, Elisabet, EarthDance: Living Systems in Evolution (2000)

Sanguin, Bruce, Darwin, Divinity and the Dance of the Cosmos (2009)

Spong, John Shelby  A New Christianity for a New World: Why Traditional Faith is Dying & How a New Faith is Being Born HarperSanFrancisco 2002

Swimme, Brian, Hidden Heart of the Cosmos (1996)

Swimme, Brian, The Universe Is a Green Dragon (1984)

Swimme, Brian and Thomas Berry, The Universe Story (1992)

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