A Theology for the Earth: The Contributions of Thomas Berry and Bernard Lonergan

T.D. Regehr is a professor of history at the University of Saskatchewan.
He is the author of Mennonites in Canada, 1939–1970: A People
Transformed, The Beauharnois Scandal: A Story of Canadian
Entrepreneurship and Politics, and Remembering Saskatchewan:

Scholars often work within the methodological confines of their
particular disciplines. Scientists and theologians have had a
particularly uneasy coexistence in the 20th century. Scientists have
often seen the universe as mechanistic in origin and functioning, while
theologians regard it as a manifestation of divine creation.

In this book, Dalton examines and seeks to reconcile the work of a
prominent ecologist with that of an influential theologian. Thomas
Berry, who is primarily concerned about the damage done to the
environment by humans, argues that neither mechanistic scientific views
of the universe nor anthropomorphic Christian theology are sufficient to
deal with the modern ecological crisis. What is needed is a radically
different way of understanding the universe, a “new story” relevant
to modern problems and based on insights gained from all natural
phenomena.

Lonergan, a theologian, is greatly concerned about the seeming
irrelevance of Christian theology to modern life and the dissonance
between science and theology. From his study of “the phenomenology of
human knowing,” he concludes that the dissonance or irrelevance of
science and theology are rooted in fallacies and faulty perceptions. He
argues that there are two distinct realms of discourse: the first
describes how things relate to us and the second how they relate to each
other. Understanding and accepting both will result in what Lonergan
calls “emergent probability,” a phenomenon Dalton links to Berry’s
“new story.”

The book is carefully organized with clear introductions and an
excellent summary and conclusion. The author, a former student of Thomas
Berry, avoids much of the jargon that often mars works in intellectual
history. She explains the influences of both religion and science on
Berry’s thought and writing, and then explains how Berry’s
insistence on a new story can be met through the theological insights of
Bernard Lonergan.