12 Principles For Understanding the Universe and the Role of the Human in the Universe Process
Thomas Berry
1.The Universe, the solar system, and the planet Earth in
themselves and in their evolutionary emergence constitute for the human
community the primary revelation of that ultimate mystery whence all things
emerge into being.
2.The Universe is a unity, an interacting and genetically-related
community of beings bound together in an inseparable relationship in space and
time.The unity of the planet Earth is
especially clear:each being of the
planet is profoundly implicated in the existence and functioning of every other
being of the planet.
3.From its beginning the Universe is a psychic as well as physical
reality.
4.The three basic laws of the Universe at all levels of reality
are differentiation, subjectivity and communion.These laws identify the reality, the values
and the directions in which the Universe is proceeding.
5.The Universe has a violent as well as a harmonious aspect, but
it is consistently creative in the larger arc of its development.
6.The human is that being in whom the Universe activates, reflects
upon and celebrates itself in conscious self-awareness.
7.Earth, within the solar system, is a self-emergent, self-propagating,
self-nourishing, self-educating, self-governing, self-healing, self-fulfilling
community.All particular life systems
in their being, their sexuality, their nourishment, their education, their
governing, their healing, their fulfillment, must integrate their functioning
within this larger complex of mutually dependent Earth systems.
8.The genetic coding process is the process through which the
world of the living articulates itself in its being and its activities.The great wonder is the creative interaction
of the multiple codings among themselves.
9.At the human level, genetic coding mandates a further
trans-genetic cultural coding by which specifically human qualities find
expression.Cultural coding is carried
on by educational processes.
10.The emergent process of the Universe is irreversible and
non-repeatable in the existing world order.The movement from non-life to life on Earth is a one time event.So too, the movement from life to human form
of consciousness.So also, the transition
from the earlier to the later forms of human culture.
11.The historical sequence of cultural periods can be identified as
the tribal-shamanic period, the Neolithic village period, the classical
civilization period, the scientific-technological period and the emerging
ecological period.
12. The main human task of the immediate future is to assist in
activating the inter-communion of all the living and non-living components of
Earth's community in what can be considered the emerging ecological period of
Earth's development.