The Garden of God: A Theological Cosmology

by Alejandro Garcia-Rivera

Overview

For Garca-Rivera our spiritual life with God is less about building the City of God than creating the Garden of God. The Garden of God takes Christ's self-revelation that he came to bring us life and "life abundant" as a clue to that enduring, habitable world. While Teilhard de Chardin focused on the growth of consciousness as the essence of the evolution of matter being raised to the spiritual, Garca-Rivera probes the conditions and process that lead to "life abundant." In doing so, The Garden of God offers new insights into the question of evil and suffering, the doctrine of the resurrection of the flesh, the nature of matter and of spirit, the Incarnation, the role of the Holy Spirit in creation, the end times, the role of evolution in theological thought, and a new spirituality of creation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780800663582
Publisher:	1517 Media
Publication date:	09/21/2009
Series:	Theology and the Sciences
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Alejandro Garcia-Riverais Professor of Systematic Theology, Jesuit School of Theology, Berkeley. An award-winning writer, his books include Living Beauty: The Art of Liturgy (with Tom Scirghi, S.J., 2007), A Wounded Innocence: Sketches for a Theology of Art (2003), and St. Martin de Porres: The "Little Stories" and the Semiotics of Culture (1995).

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Acknowledgments xiii

1 At Home in the cosmos 1

What Is a Theological Cosmology? 5

The Rising Call for a Theological Cosmology 6

Outline for a Theological Cosmology 10

A Theological Cosmology 21

2 The Human Phenomenon: Teilhard de Chardin's New Significance 23

Complexity, Interiority, Christology and the Cosmos 25

The Relationship of the Human and the Cosmos 29

The Christ 38

Where Is Jesus Now? 42

Theological Aesthetics 46

Summing Up 50

3 Heaven and Earth 53

Is Nature or Theology Enough? 54

The Need for Salvation 61

The Ascension 64

Whatever Happened to Place? 65

A Place for the Invisible 70

At Home in the Cosmos Again 72

What Is Home? 74

4 Endless Forms Most Beautiful 81

Beauty in the Living World 82

Toward a New Understanding of Form 86

The Entangled Bank 89

Beauty and the Deep 93

5 The Garden of God: Toward a Theological Cosmology 105

Where Heaven and Earth Intersect 110

Beauty, Ever Ancient, Ever New 114

A Garden Trail 119

The Tragic Choice 120

In Search of Eden 123

A Disciplined Spiritual Technology 126

The Garden of God 130

Notes 133

Index 153