A Theology for the Earth: The Contributions of Thomas Berry and Bernard Lonergan

CHAPTER FIVE: BERRY'S PROPOSAL FOR THE ECOLOGICAL CRISIS

CHAPTER FIVE BERRY'S PROPOSAL FOR THE ECOLOGICAL CRISIS Introduction While most of the relevant categories of Bernard Lonergan's thought will be employed in more detail below, some comments about his distinction between two language categories (description and explanation ) shed initial light on the nature of Berry's proposal. Succinctly stated, description deals with things as they relate to us; explanation with things as they relate to each other.1 So, for instance, to speak of a wheel as round is to describe the wheel as we see or feel it; that is how the wheel relates to us. On the other hand, to speak of wheels in terms of the relationship of radius to circumference in a mathematical formula is to explain the roundness of wheels. Generally, accounts of human experience, whether UFO sightings, love at first sight, witnessing a crime or simply tasting good food, are descriptive. Explanation, when required, may sound quite unlike the description of any of these experiences. All the mystery, fear or excitement associated with the UFO may dissipate in the scientific language explaining something like a meteor shower. An account of the chemistry of taste is not going to sell cookbooks;rather it functions for the curious or more technical-minded chef to explain the relationship between the taste buds and the composition of the food. The two kinds of languages and their functions are quite different. 108 A THEOLOGY FOR THE EARTH Description and explanation are related to each other, however, in both genetic and complementary fashion. Explanation grows out of description, but description does not dissolve. On the one hand, the descriptive accounts of witnesses to a crime give way to the explanation of what actually happened; on the other, the descriptive accounts remain not only as integral elements of the explanation, but also as independent and vitally important controls or checks on the explanatory accounts put forward. A story is a descriptive account; it may often be given a theoretic explanation. Theology is a case in which theoretic language arises from the stories of the Bible. The explanation , however, is very unlikely to accomplish what the story accomplishes in terms of motivation, inspiration or even changing lives. Conversely, a descriptive language may be employed to teach or communicate abstract concepts that appear initially in explanatory language . Thus, the different languages maintain an integrity of their own. To paraphrase Lonergan, explanation abstracts from data, which describes experience. Description also mediates explanation into the ordinary, common-sense world. Another way of understanding the relationship of description and experience is to think in terms of questions. I may describe an experience of a celestial event in terms of lights, shapes, duration and effect on me. I say what I saw, heard and felt. I then ask what exactly it was I saw and why it appeared in that way. The answers are explanation. Berry's "new story," his proposal for dealing with the ecological crisis, is primarily descriptive. It is a story of the experience of the universe itself, of our new scientific knowledge of the universe and of how the phenomenal facts of the evolution of the universe relate to us, particularly within the horizon of the ecological crisis. The task we are attempting is to explain Berry's descriptive account. Since Lonergan derived categories for the explanation of experience, his categories will be used in that task. For the present, however, we will examine Berry's proposal seeking the meaning he intended by his terms and statements. A sentence of Lonergan, in which he related description to explanation, is especially pertinent here. He wrote: The two [description and explanation]arenot independent, forthey deal with the same things and, as we have seen, description supplies, as it were, the tweezers by which we hold together things while explanations are being discovered or verified, applied or revised.2 Thus, we will expect Berry's descriptive account to give rise to questions for explanation. We will not expect that Berry usually addressed them in explanatory categories. Such was not his intention. He did, BERRY'S PROPOSALFOR THE ECOLOGICAL CRISIS 109 however, call on the academic disciplines to do the theoretical work needed to explain and appropriate his proposal.3 Such explanations are not meant to replace the language and effect of Berry's "new story" itself; rather, they assist in its appropriation by academic disciplines , especially by theology. As is the...