A Choice Outstanding Academic Title. “A compelling argument for a broader understanding of religion in relation to our cosmic story.”—Mary Evelyn Tucker, coauthor of Journey of the Universe Over the past two centuries scientific advances have made it clear that the universe is a story still unfolding. In this thought-provoking book, John F. Haught considers the deeper implications of this discovery. He contends that many others who have written books on life and the universe—including Stephen Hawking, Stephen Jay Gould, and Richard Dawkins—have overlooked a crucial aspect of cosmic history: the drama of life’s awakening to interiority and religious awareness. Science may illuminate the outside story of the universe, but a full telling of the cosmic story cannot ignore the inside development that interiority represents. Haught addresses two primary questions: what does the arrival of religion tell us about the universe, and what does our understanding of the cosmos as an unfinished drama tell us about religion? The history of religion may be ambiguous and sometimes even barbarous, he asserts, but its role in the story of cosmic emergence and awakening must be taken into account. “A well written book overall, and one that should prompt a more inspiring view of where we are in the Big Picture, The New Cosmic Story is highly recommended.”—Forbes.com “Haught delivers a singular contribution with his fresh, panoptic perspective on our cosmic story.”—Charles G. Conway, Reading Religion “This book, John F. Haught’s summa, will become a permanent contribution to the religion and science literature.”—Holmes Rolston, III, Templeton Prize winner

What is the Christian response to developments in the hard sciences? What do discoveries at the macro and micro levels have to say about Christian theology, about a theology of God, Christology, pneumatology, and creation? How do the developments in systematic theology that do take the advances in cosmology and the New Sciences seriously come to bear on our worship life?These are the questions that are addressed in this text. It is an initial effort to bring cosmology and the New Sciences into dialogue with developments in systematic and sacramental theology. This book also suggests some ways in which these developments might appear in our worship. Overall, the author is concerned to reduce the cognitive dissonance between our scientifically informed everyday lives and our life of faith.

The Cosmic Pilgrim is an introduction to the world of eco-theology. Based on the vision of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, it describes the nature of reality in our Cosmos that is continually unfolding within our expanding consciousness, and the journey, the pilgrimage, of the universe through space and time toward its consummate destiny within the fullness of God. This radical, evolutionary perspective is part of the new story of science and religion. Mathematical cosmologist and visionary Brian Swimme is the chosen guide to this new cosmology, and his insights form the continuing thread of the book. His mentor, Thomas Berry, is well represented here, as are other great thinkers from the realms of science and theology: Jurgen Moltmann, Alfred North Whitehead, C. S. Lewis, John Polkinghorne, and John Haught. The Cosmic Pilgrim presents a personal, easy-to-grasp map of the current interface between ecology, religion, and science. It aims to develop a spirituality that is grounded in the present struggle of moving beyond our Earth-damaging, industrial mindset toward a higher vision of vibrant planetary community. At the same time it seeks out the wider horizon of ultimate meaning and ponders the mystery of the far future and our cosmic destiny. Although the book reflects the author's Christian background, it is nonsectarian in approach and could be enjoyed by any seeker interested in developing a "green" spirituality.

This is the introductory volume of a multivolume, verse-by-verse, interfaith rereading of the New Testament letter to the Ephesians. It looks to the Tiantai Buddhist master Zhiyi and his "threefold truth" to enhance our appreciation of nascent trinitarian themes in Ephesians. And it draws upon a broad array of scientific, theological, and philosophical thinkers in aid of rejecting the epistle's ancient, geocentric cosmology and its accommodations to the misogynistic, patriarchal, and slaveholding norms of its first-century surroundings. As a whole, the work constitutes a twenty-first century apologetic for doctrinal humility and for theologizing within a global theological commons.

In this book, Daniel Scheid draws on Catholic social thought as a foundation for a new type of interreligious ecological ethics, which he calls the cosmic common good. By placing this concept in dialogue with tenets from other spiritual traditions, such as Hindu dharmic ecology, Buddhist interdependence, and American Indian balance, Scheid constructs a theologically authentic moral framework that re-envisions humanity's role in the universe.

Astrophilosopy, Exotheology, and Cosmic Religion: Extraterrestrial Life in a Process Universe applies Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy and the associated process philosophies of Henri Bergson, Teilhard de Chardin, and others to the interdisciplinary layers of astrobiology, extraterrestrial life, and the impact of discovery. This collection, edited by Andrew M. Davis and Roland Faber, asks questions such as “How have process thinkers imagined universal creative evolution and its implications for philosophies, theologies, and religions beyond earth?” and “How might their claims as to the primacy of organism, temporality, novelty, value, and mind enrich current discussions and debates across disciplines?” As experts in their fields, the contributors are informed by, but not limited to, process conceptualities. The chapters not only advance recent discussions in astrobiology, cosmology, and evolution but also consider a constellation of philosophical topics, from shared extraterrestrial knowledge and values to the possibilities or limitations afforded by A.I. technology, the Fermi Paradox, the Drake Equation, and the increasing need to nurture the cosmic dimensions of theological and religious traditions.

In a Tiantai theology, conventional truth is conventionally arisen, which means that such truth is never set once and for all, but is to be cherished and rethought in new circumstances, whether interreligious or scientific—but always in critical consonance with its ancient embodiments. Contexts shift frameworks, but life in Christ is translatable across cultures. Christian faith and theology discourage the assumption that the point of it can be clearly pinned down. God’s appearance to Elijah out of the whirlwind is an eternal reminder of the paltriness of all human perspectives. Symbolic worlds of faith and wisdom are not themselves finished products. Because it has a past and a future, the cosmos itself is unfinished. Christian creeds ought not be defended as last-word ideological positions and bastions against relativity, but instead recognized in their cultural contexts and affirmed as grammars of communal and personal assent.