In Search of a Functional Cosmology

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The New Story

• In Search of a Functional Cosmology

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Our Beginning

• You have come from the energy
• and the power thas has brought
• the universe into being
• the beginning of the Universe
• is also your beginning.
•  
• You were born from the fire
• that created the stars
• that fire is alive in you
•  
• B.Swimme

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Fire of the Beginning
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what is cosmology?

• Cosmology aims at articulating the story of the
  universe so that humans can enter fully into the
  web of relationships within the universe.
• A çosmology helps us to understand our
  relationship to the Earth, Cosmos, world.

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The need for a New Story of Creation

• It is all a question of story. We are in
  trouble because we
• do not have a good story. We are in between two
  stories.
• The old story, the account of how the world came
  to be and
• how we fit into it, is no longer affective.
• Our traditional story of the universe sustained
  us for a long
• period of time.
• We knew our place in creation and the circle of
  life.

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We need a new story

• We need a new story that will provide a context
  for our lives.
• We need a story
• about how things came to be,
• how they came to be as they are now and
• how the future can be given direction.

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THE BIBLICAL CREATION STORY

• The creation story in Genesis Chapter 1, tells
  how the world was made in seven consecutive (Gen
  1 2-4a) days. The chapter tells how humankind
  arrived on the scene (Gen 126-31).
• This account of how our world came to be is no
  longer adequate or effective in the light of
  modern science.

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It is all a matter of Cosmology
How do we see ourselves In the world we live
in. What do we see when we look at the world
around us? Hildegard of Bingen Cosmic Human
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The world of today is controlled by its cosmology

• The present Ecological crisis has everything to
  do with the cosmology that underpins our view on
  the world.
• Once we are aware of this, we will understand
  where the destruction of the Earth comes form.
• A radical reassessment of the human situation is
  needed, especially concerning those values that
  give life some satisfactory meaning.
  (T.Berry)

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The universe includes the human but is larger
than the human.Because we have not understood
this,we caused so much devastation on earth.
THE WORLDVIEW THAT HAS DIRECTED US
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Moving forward to a New Story

• We need to connect with the Dynamic Force
  behind the Universe and how through it all came
  into being.
• It is that same power that after so many ages-
  has made us aware of our place in the universe.
• If we open ourselves to that power, that Wisdom
  and that process we can look with new hope to the
  future of the human.
• Thomas Berry in The New
  Story in
• Dream of the
  Earth

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The quest of humans of all cultures and all ages

• Where do we come from?
• Where are we now?
• What are we to do?
• How are we to live our lives today?
  
• What is our destiny?
• What does the future hold for us?
•  

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Origin
In the Beginning was the Dream The Dream was with
God The Dream was God. Through the Dream all
things came to be. Origin Diana Lynne
Anderson
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A New Creation Story has evolved in the
Scientific Community

• The New Story that has been developed by Thomas
  Berry and Brian Swimme in the light of modern
  scientific knowledge, has provided us with a
  credible and acceptable story.
• This story is the context within which all other
  stories of origin find their fulfilment.

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We must begin were everything begins begins
This New Story is the greatest change in human
consciousness since the rise of human civilization
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A Story in Four Phases The Galactic story The
Earth story The Life story The Human story
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There is no moment of transition from the
material to the spiritual. All was there at once.
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SEEING EARTH FROM SPACE

• At the beginning of the 21st century we are
  beginning to see the Earth in its context of the
  universe. Because of space travel, we have been
  able to stand apart from the Earth and see it, at
  least in photographs, as a whole.
• We have become used to a new picture of the
  Earth, as a single, beautiful, blue-green planet
  shared by all living creatures.
• .

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Earth Icon of our time.
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Christian Cosmology

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A Theology that listens to Science

• Will see God as creatively at work in and through
  the whole process of the emergent universe as
  described by contemporary cosmology.
• It will see God as empowering the emergent
  universe and every aspect of it from within.
• God creates in such a way that all
  potentialities of the universe emerge from the
  primeval events

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We are born of the universe
God creates human beings As emergent creatures
We are born of the universe, constituted of the
hydrogen atoms that emerged in the early 13.7
billion years ago.
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Deep Incarnation

• The universe from its beginning had a Christ
  dimension all things were made through him and
  without him was not anything made that was made.
  
• John 1, 3

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In Jesus of Nazareth God becomes a vital part of
an ecosystem interconnected systems that support
life on Earth.
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Deep Incarnation

• Incarnation is not restricted to humans it is
  the whole interconnected world. Also the
  biological world of living creatures. The Word
  made flesh is the whole world of interrelated
  organisms.
• In becoming flesh God embraced all creatures in
  the interconnected web of life.
• 
  D.Edwards

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In and through Jesus God suffers with creation
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Christian Community

• Christian Community can be seen as integral with
  the larger story of the universe, of Earth, of
  life, and of the human community.
• The ultimate community is the whole universe
  together.
• The integral universe constitues the sacred
  community par excellence and needs to be
  recognized as such in Christian thought.
• 
  Th.Berry

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To Conclude
All that God created was already in Gods
presence before the world began, before the
beginning of time. Hildegard of Bingen ( 1098
1179)