THEOGENESIS
Acentric Theology
by
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GRACE SUPPOSES NATURE: This philosophical/ theological truism has a specific meaning for me. It tells me personally, that study of nature and research into grain science open the trustworthy door into grace as well as into authentic grain care and valuation. My “Right-as-Grain” science takes me back to the scientific/ theological insight of Isaiah, “All flesh is grass”. The “right-as-grain” grace of nature opens to a root sense of Eucharist and the Presence of Divinity in the Sacrament of Nature. If we do not identify with the grace of nature, we do not respect nature’s place in human/ divine connection. The flesh and blood linking of humankind and God owes to the “divinely maternal”, the ground-state consciousness of femaleness in the Commons and cosmic evolution. To get right with self and God we need to get right with God/ Woman/ Nature. The life journey of humankind hasn’t yet found the true sense of this essential link, the covenant basis of the Naturalis Sacramentum Ordinis. But perhaps we have at least now come to the crossroads realization of misguided turns taken in the past. We’ve got to do better, and we can. The three-layered millstone of ignorance, arrogance and obsession can be shed, and must be. Compassion, stunted by self-obsession, can be kindled; and the urgency of mutuality can uplift humankind from its dizzy, narcissistic myopia. We can respond to “God’s Lament” and be done with millstone fixations in dualism, centrism and sexism. Openness to evolution, as Vatican II says, is “a matter as important as can be.” (Constitution IV, “Gaudium et spes”, Introduction)
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About the Book
Reduced to elemental terms, THEOGENESIS is about the universal dynamic of communication, consciousness, conscience and wisdom. These correlate to each other as cause and effect. The dynamic of evolution in enlarging wisdom is by way of TRIMORPHIC RESONANCE, the continued harmonizing of faith, hope and love, by way of communication, consciousness and conscience — the process of Symbiotic Evolution. If NOVOGENESIS is about communication, and METAGENESIS is about consciousness, and THEOGENESIS is about conscience, then CHRISTOGENESIS is about wisdom. And what is wisdom? It is Eucharistic Altruism, the intentional giving-over of self to other in interests of common wellbeing. Ultimately, faith/ hope/ love come to Eucharistic Altruism. Evolution’s trajectory (cogitata perficiendo, cogitando sic perfecta) is forward toward altruism, self-reflective CHRISTOGENESIS — the intentional choosing to be sacrificial. This is the point and purpose, not just of Christianity, but of Nature’s Symbiotic Altruism, other-directed — what is the authentic conscience of faith and reason, common to all authentic religion.
About the Author
FROM THE AUTHOR How could anyone, except a naïve person, dare to take on medieval culture and Catholic history, but especially, a non-professional Roman Catholic lay person? When I chose the life work of reconciling faith and reason (back in 1957), I couldn't really know the magnitude of the challenge; thirteen books later is an indicator. "THEOGENESIS, Acentric Theology" book thirteen, is the last take on my faith journey. I come to this conclusion: the Roman Catholic Church is cemented in time with one foot planted in Medievalism and the other in Postmodernity. The church's dogmatic fixation in dualism, centrism and sexism is the medieval foot, the cosmology, philosophy and theology of the Councils of Trent and the First Vatican. The Second Vatican Council represents the step forward into Postmodernity. But, the medievalists still have a foot stoutly planted in medieval pietism. The last two popes, John Paul II and Benedict XVI have been collaborating (co-conspiring?) to frustrate Vatican II Liberation Theology in favor of commercial pietism. Totally out-of-balance, the church seems unable to move either foot, and the laity is utterly frustrated with a church that cannot find its way. The Wheel of History doesn't stop. Nor can people allow themselves to be dragged down by an out-of-touch church. As the Latin writer Lothair I says, “tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis” (times change and we change within them). And so it is. The POETREE Trilogies witness the changing times and how we are changing in them. A way of reconciliation and liberation is presented that keeps the best of history, but which is future oriented. Sylvester L Steffen