Given the current sense of helplessness in dealing with environmental change and other urgent issues, a new world view is needed that emphasizes the unique contribution that individual citizens can make to the common good as opposed to their individual needs and desires. In a recent encyclical on the environment, Pope Francis set forth reasons from Scripture and Church teaching for this shift in perspective, but he did not provide a philosophically based foundation for this change of heart. To fill that gap, Joseph Bracken examines key writings of process-oriented philosophers like Henri Bergson and Alfred North Whitehead along with systems-oriented thinkers like Ludwig von Bertalanffy and Ervin Laszlo to create a systems-oriented understanding of the God-world relation.

By Joseph A. Bracken, S.J.

Part One: Bergson and Whitehead on the One and the Many from a Process-Oriented Approach

1. Living in an Event-Filled World

2. Living in a Dynamically Interconnected World

3. Living in a World of Open-Ended Systems

Part Two: Failure to deal with Major Issues re the Common Good

4. Critical Evaluation of Modern Scientific Method

5. Reconciling the Truth-Claims of Science and Religion

Part Three: Reason and Revelation in Dealing with the Environmental Crisis

6. A Systems-Oriented Environmental Ethic

7. Divine and Human Personhood in a Systems-Oriented Approach to Reality

8. Linking Science and Religion within a New World View