Co-Creating an Unfinished Universe

“Co-Creating an Unfinished Universe: Challenges and New Directions” is the topic for the upcoming talk by Ilia Delio, OSF at an event sponsored by Association of Pittsburgh Priests on Sunday, March 6 from 2 – 4 PM at the Kearns Spirituality Center, 9000 Babcock Blvd., in Allison Park next to LaRoche College.

Ilia Delio is a Franciscan Sister from Washington, DC and an American theologian specializing in the area of science and religion, with interests in evolution, physics and neuroscience and the import of these for theology.

Here is a flavor of Ilia Delio’s thinking: “Here…is our ecological question, are we becoming a new species, a techno sapiens? If so, what are the consequences for the environment? Will techno sapiens use technology more efficiently to green the earth or will techno sapiens signify a post-biological species and a post-biological world?

Without technology at the center of the ecological discussion, the quest for a greener earth is stifled. The ecological question must begin with technology and human becoming because we humans are becoming something new with technology. By this I mean that the constant use of technology is altering the human brain, diminishing distinctions between virtual and real and altering patterns of human relationships. Although the nature we are trying to preserve is the natural world, humans emerge from this natural world. We belong by birth to this cosmos which is our home. If human nature is changing with technology then, in a sense, all of nature is changing or at least being affected by technology. That is, technology is evoking new patterns of relatedness which now include an artificial device. Hence, we need an operative definition of IT as "intentional technology."

Until we come to grips with the technological evolution we have created and which is recreating us, there can be no true greening of the earth.” (Excerpted from “Why the Earth Won’t Green Without Us”, March 4, 2015, Global Sisters Report: A Project of the National Catholic Reporter.)

Ilia Delio’s recent publications include From Teilhard to Omega: Co-creating an Unfinished Universe and The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, Evolution and the Power of Love.

Plan to come to hear Ilia Delio in person. Cost for the talk is $20. Reservations can be made in advance but are not required by calling Sr. Mary Joan Coultas at 412-366-1124.

Joyce Rothermel chairs the Church Renewal Committee of the Association of Pittsburgh Priests.

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