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Thomas Berry Award
No full textMission and History
The mission of the Thomas Berry Foundation is to carry out the Great Work of Thomas in enhancing the flourishing of the Earth community. The Berry Foundation is dedicated to supporting the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology and the Journey of the Universe project.
Created in 1998 by Thomas Berry, Mary Evelyn Tucker, John Grim, Martin Kaplan, and Thomas\u27 sister, Margaret Berry, the Foundation has promoted Thomas’ ideas through publishing his essays and overseeing translations, initiating an archive at Harvard, and organizing the Thomas Berry Award and Lecture.
Thomas Berry Award
This Award was inaugurated in 1999 in Washington DC when the Center for Respect of Life and Environment (CRLE) at the Humane Society of the United States created the award to honor Berry’s legacy. Since then it has been presented to selected individuals who have modeled the “great work” in their teaching, writing, or public service. The Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology partnered with CRLE in presenting the Award from its early stages and now sponsors the Award
Continuing the Great Work: A Tribute to Thomas Berry
Get PDFoai:lawpublications.barry.edu:ejejj-1000Continuing the Great Work: A Tribute to Thomas Berry
by Patrick Tolan
Profound scholar and author, Father Thomas Berry, recognized and related human destiny to the destiny of the universe. In his book, The Great Work: Our Way into the Future, and in his teaching, Berry challenged humanity to enter into a new era in harmony with the universe. This article is a tribute to Thomas Berry, recognizing the importance of his contribution to a new and emerging field of Earth Jurisprudence and launching an Earth Jurisprudence and Environmental Justice Journal that will afford thinkers and scholars the opportunity to continue his great work.
Like Thoreau and Aldo Leopold, Thomas Berry shared a profound respect for the Earth and advocated a deeper understanding of the need to treat the Earth and her bountiful resources prudently and ethically. To these core values, Berry added additional wisdom, insight, and perception that captures the messages of earlier authors, but adds the dimension of spirituality. Through the lens of decades of religious studies of the East and the West, Native and indigenous traditions and established religions, Berry saw the tapestry of spiritual truth in creation and extended this understanding to the necessary interplay of humans as but one constituent element which ought to function in harmony with all of the universe. Recognizing the laws of nature trump the laws of man is critical to reorienting behavior to what is ultimately sustainable and eternal. While earlier writers acknowledge a need for a healing approach and a need for laws that both heal and restore balance, Berry understood that these needs are intrinsic as well as communal; that each individual conscious self was part of a greater universal self.
Berry asks us to re-envision human-Earth relations as we enter an Ecozoic Era where humans may not simply rely on the regenerative powers of the Earth herself, but also must engage in a cultural paradigm shift toward a viable human situation on a viable planet. Continuing the great work requires exploring and developing these opportunities for conversion. Reinventing law and governance systems so that all beings could be legally protected as subjects and not objects was at the core of his thinking. More specifically, in the field of law and jurisprudence, Berry calls for a paradigm where inherent rights exist not just for people, but “the inherent rights of the natural world are recognized as having legal status.” The challenge then, for an Earth Jurisprudence, is identifying a legal framework conducive to a mutually enhancing Earth-human relationship.
While this humble tribute can’t approach the eloquence of Thomas Berry, whose prose was “more akin to that of poetry, art, myth, or storytelling,” it can help to introduce those who don’t know Thomas Berry to his life and work, and can serve to remind those who knew him of what made him so special. It is fitting not only to reflect upon and pay tribute to his profound contributions, but also to consider pathways forward. The best way to honor Thomas Berry’s teaching is to continue in his great work. As Thomas Berry explained, “[a]ll creatures of Earth are looking to us for their destiny. Among these are our children and grandchildren, who depend on our decisions for the sustenance and flourishing of the life systems of the planet. This remains one of our primary challenges in the twenty-first century.
Portrait of T. Berry Smith, Central College Physics and Chemistry Chair
No full textBlack and white photographic portrait of Thomas Berry (T. Berry) Smith, Chair of Physics and Chemistry at Central College (now Central Methodist University), taken in August 1897, wearing a light-colored shirt, light-colored collar and tie, and a dark jacket. 4.25" x 6.5". Inscription on the back gives Smith's name, degree, date of photograph, and his position at the College
Thomas Berry\u27s Vision for the Earth Community
Get PDFThomas Berry was a historian of both western and Asian cultures who created a unique history of religions program at Fordham University. After decades of study, Berry developed a comprehensive understanding of history - human, Earth and universe. From this perspective he offered a comprehensive context for revisioning education in a time of ecological and climate challenges.
Mary Evelyn Tucker teaches at Yale University where she is co-director of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology. Her special area of research is East Asian religions, especially Confucianism. She worked closely with Thomas Berry for three decades, edited his books, and is his literary executor. She wrote his biography with John Grim and Andrew Angyal
Is Eco-theologian Thomas Berry a Thomist?
Get PDFI examine the views of the renowned Catholic environmentalist, Thomas Berry, C.P., by comparing them with those of Thomas Aquinas, an author Berry frequently references. I intend to show that while the two share a number of views in common (e.g., both hold that non-rational creatures have their own inherent goodness), ultimately the two diverge on many foundational issues, resulting in differing conclusions as to how we should regard and treat the environment. Aquinas upholds divine transcendence, whereas Berry regards the notion of divine transcendence to lead to the exploitation of creation and locates the divine in the universe itself. Berry accordingly thinks that we should revere all natural things, whereas Aquinas thinks we should revere God and creatures in God’s image. Aquinas maintains that the human soul is created by God and is in God’s image. He sees our rational soul as placing us above other natural things, and from it follows our responsibility to care for nature. Berry, to the contrary, sees this affirmation of discontinuity between humans and the rest of nature to be the root of our environmental woes, as providing a justification for human exploitation of nature. For Berry, humans have no special status, but are one member alongside others in the earth community. Rather than being created by God, “humans have nothing but what they receive from the universe.” By highlighting both the similarities and differences between these authors, I hope to contribute to the project of formulating a sound environmental ethics
Is Eco-theologian Thomas Berry a Thomist?
Get PDFI examine the views of the renowned Catholic environmentalist, Thomas Berry, C.P., by comparing them with those of Thomas Aquinas, an author Berry frequently references. I intend to show that while the two share a number of views in common (e.g., both hold that non-rational creatures have their own inherent goodness), ultimately the two diverge on many foundational issues, resulting in differing conclusions as to how we should regard and treat the environment. Aquinas upholds divine transcendence, whereas Berry regards the notion of divine transcendence to lead to the exploitation of creation and locates the divine in the universe itself. Berry accordingly thinks that we should revere all natural things, whereas Aquinas thinks we should revere God and creatures in God’s image. Aquinas maintains that the human soul is created by God and is in God’s image. He sees our rational soul as placing us above other natural things, and from it follows our responsibility to care for nature. Berry, to the contrary, sees this affirmation of discontinuity between humans and the rest of nature to be the root of our environmental woes, as providing a justification for human exploitation of nature. For Berry, humans have no special status, but are one member alongside others in the earth community. Rather than being created by God, “humans have nothing but what they receive from the universe.” By highlighting both the similarities and differences between these authors, I hope to contribute to the project of formulating a sound environmental ethics
Haridas Chaudhuri and Thomas Berry, Inspiring Sources of the CIIS Mission
No full textSome seeds take root and flower dramatically: in 1967 I attended Thomas Berry’s course on Hinduism. In 1970 I went to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and Auroville, and on the way home visited Dr. Chaudhuri. In 1974 I edited a book of essays on the major works of Sri Aurobindo for which Thomas Berry wrote the essay on Sri Aurobindo’s Foundations of Indian Culture. In 1975 Dr. Chaudhuri died, Thomas Berry gave up Asian religions for ecology, and I went into study and administration of anthroposophy. But in 1990 these strands reunited: I succeeded Haridas as president of CIIS, Brian Thomas Swimme, who became a student and friend of Thomas Berry as I had been, joined the faculty. With other PCC faculty Brian and I have been weaving the Chaudhuri and Berry legacies. In the early 90s CIIS awarded Thomas an honorary doctorate and a weekend in his honor. We inherited a third of Thomas’s library that sits in a place of honor next to the library of Dr. Chaudhuri
Educación universitaria y comunidad terrestre: aproximación al pensamiento de Thomas Berry
No full textThomas Berry se inserta en las corrientes actuales de la llamada «ecoñlosoffa» norteamericana. Se auto-denomina «geo-teóloqo», pues estima necesario hacer una «teología de la tierra», que nos permita experimentar lo numinoso, es decir, lo intrínsecamente sagrado del planeta. Ello se logra cuando somos capaces de escuchar no sólo la voz de los humanos, sino la voz de la comunidad terrestre total
A Commentary on Thomas Berry’s Befriending the Earth, 33 Years on
No full textThe author was approached by the Passionists in the United Kingdom, a Roman Catholic order in which the ecological theologian Thomas Berry had been a priest, to seek an opinion on the continuing significance of his book, Befriending the Earth. Published in 1991, it was written in dialogue with a Jesuit colleague, Thomas Clarke. This article shares that opinion with a wider readership. Parts of it are written in a first-person manner, illustratively journeying on from where Berry left off. Thirty-three years (counted inclusively) is a generous generational span; symbolically, it is equivalent to the life of Christ, a kairos time of transition. Most notably, what has changed over that period is that climate change has landed firmly onto the environmental agenda. Significantly, Berry hardly mentioned it in this work, but in an era of Laudato Si his message of “befriending the Earth” speaks louder than ever, with prophetic poignancy
The jurisprudence of Thomas Berry
No full textOn June 1 2009 Fr Thomas Berry passed away at his home in Greensboro N.C. In his final book before passing, Berry challenged human society to a carry out a transition from a period of human devastation of the Earth to a period when humans would be present to the planet in a mutually beneficial manner. This 'Great Work' encompassed religion, education, science and law. In this paper I will address Berry's argument that our current legal system supports the destruction of the environment and outline two ideas he put forward for evolving law. The first idea recognises that human law operates within and should be bound by the overarching laws of the natural world. From this perspective, the laws of nature are primary and human law would receive its legal quality and authority from its conformity with this law. The second proposal was to recognise that the earth consists of subjects, not objects and that all subjects are capable of holding rights. I will consider this argument in the context of two recent enactments of 'rights for nature' legislation in municipalities in the United States and in the constitution of Ecuador.Peter Burdo
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