Review of The Great Work: Our Way into the Future

The Great Work: Our Way into the Future. By Thomas Berry. New York: Bell Tower, 1999. 241 pages. $14.99 (paper).

Thomas Berry’s final book is even more relevant today than when it was published at the turn of the century. Throughout this ecological manifesto Berry calls for radical changes to the way humans relate to the Earth and to all of her inhabitants. In the initial paragraph of the introduction he makes the book’s intention clear: “We need to understand where we are and how we got here. Once we are clear on these issues we can move forward with our historical destiny, to create a mutually enhancing mode of human dwelling on the planet Earth.” (ix) If Berry wastes no time getting down to business, it is painfully obvious that the majority of humans and most importantly those comprising the techno-industrial nations have not taken heed of his call to participate in this Great Work which he has identified and to which he directs our attention toward.

Berry begins the book by describing historical antecedents such as the classical Greeks initiating the institutions of Western humanism and the spiritual traditions of India which invited direct experiences of time and eternity and relating them to the Great Work which stands before us at the present moment, namely “to carry out the 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.” (3) This current Great Work is different, however, in that all of humanity is being called to and must participate if we are to succeed.

After briefly outlining the intensification with which Western civilization (beginning ten thousand years ago with the inception of agrarian lifestyles in the Mediterranean region) has strained the capacity of the Earth to support life, Berry addresses the root cause of our predicament—an ontological orientation that recognizes humans alone as subjective beings and renders all other forms of life as objects to be used by humans as they see fit. In subsequent chapters the author recounts a childhood experience that informed his ethical stance regarding ecosystems. He then situates the story of the Earth within the broader historical context of the continually unfolding and emergent universe to which, as “the only self-referent mode of being,” humans ought to orient themselves. (18) Lacking this recognition and practices to embody it as most indigenous people have and continue to do, peoples in the West, will exist estranged from and will continue to disrespectfully and destructively engage with the Earth community, but remembering that humans are integral components manifesting ever-present aspects of the universe just like all other beings relieves the pressure of having to figure it out all on our own. It is our amnesia of relational and intimate modes of engagement, not our inherent nature as humans, that has left us teetering on the precipice of catastrophe, and Berry reminds that we are not alone, for “the work before us is the task not simply of ourselves but of the entire planet and all its component members.” (20)

Berry also calls attention to Western humanity’s insistence on controlling, dominating, and thereby destroying the wild rather than revering this sacred force of creativity from which all human material needs are met and from which new guiding stories have and will arise. Pointing out that the survival of humanity and other-than-human beings requires functioning biosystems seems fairly obvious, but knowledge without accompanying action will get us nowhere. With the ways industrialized society’s economic and judicial systems are applied, running counter to rather than supporting our generative life systems, a radical shift in education, especially at the university level, which considers wild nature as “the primary educator” (64) through a “renew[ed]…intimacy with our local bioregion…but also with the planet Earth itself” (89) is and will be necessary. Berry expands on each of these topics and more in later chapters like “The University,” “Ecological Geography,” and “The Extractive Economy” before leaving us with a “fourfold wisdom…to guide us into the future: the wisdom of indigenous peoples, the wisdom of women, the wisdom of the classical traditions, and the wisdom of science.” (176)

Our situation today, nearly twenty years since The Great Work was published, is ever-more dire. Across the globe the results of our inaction in dealing with issues of climate change and the poisoning of ecosystems is increasingly evident with raging fires, droughts and their attendant famines, intensified destructive weather patterns, loss of critical species due to habitat loss and environmental toxins, and sea level rise from melting ice resulting in increased coastal flooding and loss of habitable and arable land. A recent report from the United Nation’s IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) released on October 8, 2018 calls for urgent action to halt the devastating effects of anthropogenic climate change. In this report leading climate scientists from around the world set a twelve year deadline for humanity to drastically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions if we are to keep average global temperature rise at or below the 1.5 degrees Celsius mark that will avert even more devastating effects of worldwide climate breakdown. The researchers suggest many technological fixes, but if we are to avoid creating further unintended consequences I stand with Thomas Berry in calling for radical shifts in perspective and in our relationships with the community of life that will inform how we organize our human societies on all levels. 

What a blessing that Berry, eminent geologian and integral ecologist, left us with this book filled with cultural, political, and spiritual analysis, suggestions for structural  frameworks to bring about new modes of human engagement, and inspiration such as the following to achieve this immense task.

We cannot doubt that we too have been given the intellectual vision, the spiritual insight, and even the physical resources we need for carrying out the transition that is demanded of these times, transition from the period when humans were a disruptive force on the planet Earth to the period when humans become present to the planet in a manner that is mutually enhancing. (11)

This book ought to be required reading for all.

This review was originally written in fall 2018.

Thomas Berry, American Catholic priest and "ecotheologian." Photo by Caroline Webb licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.