The Christian Future and the Fate of Earth, by Thomas Berry (Orbis Books. 2009).

I read this book as the UK faced severe weather events. Media coverage of flooded homes, storm-lashed coasts, and crippled transport infrastructure were a vivid illustration of the growing challenge of climate change, and the urgent need for us to work with nature, rather than fight a losing battle against it. So it seems increasingly important that the message contained in Thomas Berrys book is understood and embraced.

Thomas Berry died in 2009 and this book was published posthumously. A collection of ten essays, written between 1987 and 2000, it is a good introduction to the work of a great thinker and a great spirit.

As a Catholic priest of the Passionist, order Berry had a deep Christian faith, but this supremely gifted man was much more than a priest, and his faith was much bigger than an adherence to one narrowly defined creed. As a scholar and a teacher, to describe his approach as holistic would be true, but also an enormous understatement. He rejoices in diversity, and his inclusive philosophy and spirituality embraces not only other religions, scriptures, and cultures, but science and the entirety of Creation.

Berry, who studied both Chinese and Sanskrit languages, took inspiration from an enormous range of sources, but had a particular affinity for St Thomas Aquinas, from whom he took his clerical name, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit priest who trained as a palaeontologist and geologist.

A quote from Aquinas illustrates how startlingly relevant ancient writings can be in our modern age. The "perfection of the universe" lies in its diversity, says Aquinas,

"For goodness, which in God is simple and uniform, in creatures is manifold and divided; and hence the whole universe together participates in the divine goodness more perfectly and represents it better than any single creature whatsoever."

Taking this as his starting point, Berry infers that consequently there is no area of human knowledge or experience which should remain outside the remit of a Christian. He is saddened when his own Church claims to have a monopoly on truth, and asserts, "When the religious traditions are seen in their relations to each other, the full tapestry of the revelatory experience can be observed."

With the advancement of scientific understanding of how the earth and humanity came into being he says, "For the first time the entire human community has, in this story, a single creation or origin myth. Although it is known by scientific observation, this story also functions as myth." So he believes that for the first time in human history humanity can unite in a truth which is relevant to all and includes all.

For Thomas Berry, the natural world and the human community are seen as "a unified single community with an overarching purpose: the exaltation and joy of existence, praise of the divine, and participation in the great liturgy of the universe." So the degradation of the earth and mans alienation from nature is seen as a tragedy, and spells certain death for the planet if we do not change our ways. For the Church, which Berry feels has in the past been part of the problem, it is an urgent necessity to become part of the solution. In fact he says it is "the fundamental task of the Church in the twenty-first Century."

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