Vico was keen on showing how the past influences the present.
And then Barry saw how that shaping of periods of time,
using the concept of ages then, affected all dimensions of that age.
And so he brought that understanding to a sense of both human history,
cultural history, and then an Earth history.
And also, a universe history.
So that's one theme we're exploring in the first week.
>> Indeed, in the next week,
we're going to talk about his interests in world cultures and religions,
which of course shaped us as well, but Thomas had a very early interest in China.
He went there in 48, 49 to study the culture and their religions.
He wrote a book on India, The Religions of India, that was published in 1972.
Later, he developed in keen interest in Native American traditions and
had a whole library,
a room of books of native traditions in his research center in Riverdale.
We invite you on this week to look at the forum website on World Religions and
Ecology, as well as visit the Yale Art Gallery through their website,
to see this interaction of culture and religion.
>> In the next week then, we take up a central theme of a major influence
on Thomas Barrie's thought from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin,
whose dates are 1881 to 1955.
Teilhard de Chardin was a paleontologist, a study of old life forms,
especially human life forms.
And he was also a Jesuit, so this interaction of evolution and
religion was a struggle and a set of ideas that Teilhard was very early in exploring.
And Berry interacted with that influence in a both in a appreciative way and
in a critical way.
So he very much appreciated especially Teilhard's sense of
a story embedded in the telling of how the universe emerged.
And he also had a critical take on Teilhard and
his sense of the human as culminating evolution, Berry saw beyond that.
But Berry also was very committed to his thought and
directed the American Teilhard Association from 1974 to 1987 and
we've directed it since then.
So, it's helpful to look at the Teilhard websites.
And that's will ask you to do both the British, French and
American American websites.
>> In the next week, we're going to invite you to explore this critical essay called
The New Story, which has had immense influence.
It was published in 78, Berry was in his early 60s.
He was trying to speak about how we are caught between stories.
A scientific story of evolution and
religious stories from scriptures and tradition.
So how can we tell, he asked, an engaging story that orients us and
grounds us in our contemporary period?
He wasn't calling for a singular narration of the story but
realize many tellings will arise.
And the influence on Journey of the Universe is very clear.
We invite you this week to look at that website of the Journey of the Universe.
>> In the following then, we'll take up this relationship of cosmology and
ecology in the Thomas Berry's thought.
And that especially relates to the new story article that you've mentioned.
And his concept of new story was a holistic view of the cosmos,
which is both affirming differentiation, as well as unity throughout the cosmos.
So, Berry was interested in that relationship and
dialog and conversation between science and the humanities.
Actually, I think it was, for Berry, more than just a dialogue, but
a mutually informing and enhancing conversation.
>> Absolutely.
In the final week of the course, we'll invite you to explore his ideas of
the great work, he wrote a book of this title.
And also the Ecozoic Era, which he named our era.
So Berry suggests that we're in a period of transformation.
He speaks of this as an Ecozoic era that requires the great work of humans.
Now, by great work, he means the work that's needed for sustainability
in areas such as agriculture, economics, education and policy.
The Ecozoic era is what we're moving into now in relation to the Cenozoic era,
the previous 65 million years of Earth history
where there was a great abundance of life.
And now we know that abundance is in the midst of a six extinction period.
The others caused by climate change perhaps, even an asteroid, but now, by us.
So he's saying, this is a definitive moment.
And we're going to invite you to explore the great work in a world views journal
that's devoted a whole issue to this idea.
And we'll ask you to read a chapter there and to look at the emerging Earth
community website to see how these various projects come together.
Journey of the Universe, forum on religion and ecology, and
the Earth all influenced by Thomas Berry.
>> So, these sequence of weeks bring us to a understanding of the relationship
that Thomas Berry's thought to the Journey of the Universe project.
We've been planning this film with Thomas Berry and
Brian Swimme for 40 years and more.
And it's really interesting to think that Thomas was 61
years old when he wrote the story essay.
And in fact much of his major work in this field was done in the latter part
of his life.
>> And he was 66 when he met Brian in 82.
And Brian had this tremendous science training,
especially on the early universe, mathematical cosmology.
When Thomas came back from Chicago where Bryan was teaching,
he walked in the door of the Riverdale Center and he said, I met my Plato,
[LAUGH] someone who could help translate this work of Socrates so to speak.
And he realized that a new dialogue of science and humanity,
this conversation that he would carry on for
many years, we on the humanity side and Brian on the science side.
Brian was on fire with his desire to tell the universe story.
And in addition to Teilhard's fast evolutionary perspective, Brian was also
inspired by Whitehead who said in his last public lecture, it's impossible to
fully understand anything without reference to its infinite background.
This was Brian's passion and Thomas' commitment as well.