Cosmology
Growing by Encountering God in the Universe
"The ultimate destiny of the universe is in the fullness of God,
which has already been attained by the risen Christ,
the measure of the maturity of all things"
Pope Francis, Laudato si', no. 83
which has already been attained by the risen Christ,
the measure of the maturity of all things"
Pope Francis, Laudato si', no. 83
God's Dream - A Prayerful Meditation
Long before iPads and cell phones
before Voyager blasted off for Mars before Earth was a planet or the Milky Way a galaxy 13.7 billion years ago a fireball of energy burst forth from one single point unfurling in every direction creating space we call home. This is how the heart of God gives birth to all that is. After a billion years gravity pulls gases together into stars and stars into galaxies, all afire with light in the night of space. In the Milky Way an old star bursts into supernova and gives birth to our solar system, to iron, the red in our blood, to calcium, the white in our bones. On a green-blue planet bacteria in the seas turns sunlight into food, And fish grow backbones to protect their nervous systems. Creatures grow ready to leave the sea. If we imagine the 13.7 billion years of the universe as one year, then on December 28 Earth bursts into color with flowers and birds begin to fly and mammals evolve that carry their young ones within. About 10:30 p.m. on the last day of the year the first humans emerge, hunting and gathering food until they learn from Earth to grow crops and build villages. At one minute to midnight, Jesus Christ is born of Mary to participate with all creation in our unfolding Sacred Story and show us all we can become. |
God and the Mystery of the Universe
Scroll down to learn more about Guy Consolmagno SJ, his work, and his vocation.
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In the second of his series of articles for Thinking Faith, Vatican astronomer, Guy Consolmagno SJ, traces how our understanding of the Universe has developed over the centuries, and the place of God both in this Universe and in this understanding.
In the opening words of the Creed we claim to believe in a God who created heaven and earth. That idea comes directly to us from Genesis, which also tells us that at each stage of creation, the Creator looked at this creation and said it was Good.
In the Psalms, we’re told “the heavens proclaim the greatness of God.” In Baruch, we’re told how at their creation “the stars shone in their watches, and were glad; he called them, and they said, ‘Here we are!’ and shone with gladness for Him who made them.” And in Paul’s Letter to the Romans we’re told that “since the creation of the world God’s invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made.” And so it is very natural that those who believe in Genesis – the Jews and the Christians and the Muslims – should also support science as a way of getting to know God. That’s the irony of the so-called war between science and religion: science itself is actually borne out of religion. Read More. |
Father George Coyne, astronomer, promoted science-theology dialogue
Jesuit Father George V. Coyne, who led the Vatican Observatory as its director for 28 years, got his start in the field of astronomy as a young student in formation for the priesthood by secretly studying under his blanket, flashlight in hand.
Throughout his life, Coyne, who died Feb. 11 in Syracuse, New York, at age 87 from bladder cancer, credited a forward-thinking professor of classical Greek for nurturing his passion by arranging for him to borrow astronomy books from a local library. That foresight led Coyne to become one of the world's most respected and well-known Jesuit scientists. Read More. |
The Cosmic Story
BRIAN SWIMME AND BR. DAVID STEINDL-RAST, OSB
It’s important to begin with the universe as a whole. Indeed, I think that our difficulties today are rooted in the way we are caught up in a human world. We can’t seem to break out of this anthropocentrism. To ask, “What’s the best story we can tell?” is a great starting point. That’s what cosmology basically is: It’s the fundamental story that people live within. Margaret Mead said that every culture she looked at had a “cosmic sense” and needed to know how it related to the cosmos as a whole, how it related to the sun or the sea. Mircea Eliade claimed that for the tribal people, their central organizing pattern is the cosmogonic myth, the creation story. A living cosmology enables the human being to hold these immense realities in mind. Without a cosmic story, they escape us.
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Brian Thomas Swimme
Brian Thomas Swimme is Director of the Center for the Story of the Universe and a professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. He brings the context of story to our understanding of the 13.7 billion year trajectory of the universe. Such a story, he feels, will assist in the emergence of a flourishing Earth community.
Swimme is the author of The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos and The Universe is a Green Dragon. He is co-author of The Universe Story, which is the result of a ten year collaboration with cultural historian, Thomas Berry. Swimme is also the creator of three educational video series: Canticle to the Cosmos, The Earth’s Imagination, and The Powers of the Universe. Most recently he co-wrote and hosted the 60 minute film Journey of the Universe, broadcast on PBS television stations nationwide.
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Thomas Berry
Thomas Berry, CP, PhD (November 9, 1914 – June 1, 2009) was a Catholic priest of the Passionist order, cultural historian and ecotheologian (although cosmologist and geologian – or “Earth scholar” – were his preferred descriptors). Among advocates of "ecospirituality" and the "New Story," he is famous for proposing the idea that a deep understanding of the history and functioning of the evolving universe is a necessary inspiration and guide for our own effective functioning as individuals and as a species. He is considered a leader in the tradition of Teilhard de Chardin.
Read More. “Here we might observe that the basic mood of the future might well be one of confidence in the continuing revelation that takes place in and through the Earth. If the dynamics of the universe from the beginning shaped the course of the heavens, lighted the sun, and formed the Earth, if this same dynamism brought forth the continents and seas and atmosphere, if it awakened life in the primordial cell and then brought into being the unnumbered variety of living beings, and finally brought us into being and guided us safely through the turbulent centuries, there is reason to believe that this same guiding process is precisely what has awakened in us our present understanding of ourselves and our relation to this stupendous process. Sensitized to such guidance from the very structure and functioning of the universe, we can have confidence in the future that awaits the human venture.”
Thomas Berry, “The New Story,” in The Dream of the Earth, p.137. Learn More About Thomas Berry, his work and find many quotes from his writing. |
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a Jesuit paleontologist who worked to understand evolution and faith. He was born May 1, 1881, and died on April 10, 1955. Between these days Teilhard fully participated in a life that included priesthood, living and working in the front lines of war, field work exploring the early origins of the human race, and adventurous travels of discovery in the backlands of China. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin also participated fully in an intellectual life through the development of his imaginative, mystical writings on the evolutionary nature of the world and the cosmos.
“It is through the collaboration which he solicits from us that Christ, starting from all creatures, is consummated and attains his plenitude. St. Paul himself tells us so. We may, perhaps, imagine that Creation was finished long ago. But that would be quite wrong. It continues in still more magnificent form in the highest zones of the world….Our role is to help complete it, if only by the humble work of our hands. This is the real meaning and the price of our acts. Owing to the interrelation between matter, soul, and Christ, we lead part of the being which he desires back to God in whatever we do. With each of our works, we labor automatically but really to build the Pleroma, which is to say we help towards the fulfillment of Christ.” (“The Divinization of Our Activities” in Modern Catholic Thinkers [Vol. 1], New York: Harper 1960.)
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There is a communion with God, and a communion with the earth,
and a communion with God through the earth. Teilhard de Chardin, Writings in Time of War, New York, 1968, p. 14 |
The Vatican Astronomer | This is the Day
Brother Guy J. Consolmagno, SJ, talks about how he discerned his vocation to religious life as a Jesuit brother, and shares his daily duties as a Vatican Astronomer.
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Talking science and God
with the pope's new chief astronomer Q: Does God get in the way of doing good astronomy?
A: Just the opposite. He is the reason we do astronomy. I would say that is true even if you don't believe in God. We do it first of all because we can, because the universe acts according to laws. That is a religious idea. The Romans, on the other hand, believed in nature gods that intervene according to whim—but if you believe in that you can't be a scientist. Believing in a supernatural god is different. You also have to believe that the universe is real and not an illusion. You have to believe that the universe is so good that it is worth spending your life studying it, even if you don't become rich or famous. That sense that gets you up every morning is the presence of God. Read more. |
Cosmology: Making Sense of the Universe
Guy Consolmagno SJ, Astronomer and Curator of Meteorites, Vatican Observatory, Castel Gandolfo, Vatican City State
Presented as the initial lecture in the University of Arizona College of Science's Spring 2011 lecture series, "Cosmic Origins." Our "cosmology" is the sum of our assumptions and deductions of how the universe behaves. With the advent of modern physics, the term has been appropriated by physicists and astronomers to represent a scientific description of the origin and nature of the physical universe. But cosmologies can also be outlined in ways that don't use physics and astronomy. Indeed, there is continual feedback between prevailing nonscientific assumptions about the universe and the scientific picture, with each influencing the direction of the other. We'll look at a series of historical cosmologies, and discuss the sometimes hidden assumptions that underlie modern astronomy. |
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