**7.3 Counter-modernism in theology**

If separation between being and world is the key motif of a Cartesian philosophy and the separation between the animate and inanimate the key motif of Cartesian anthropology, then separation between God and world is the key motif of Cartesian theology. Shifting to a participatory paradigm in philosophy, as discussed above, means bringing being and world back together in dynamic relation. In anthropology it means understanding life as a function of the relation between beings. In theology it is to do with understanding God's Being-in-the-world and the world's being-in-God.5 The separation of God from world is as fundamental to Cartesian epistemology as the separation of mind and body. Descartes did not deny the existence of God. On the contrary, the notion of God featured quite largely in his philosophy. But he identified God with the idea of an Infinite Mind. The influence of such thinking in the creation of a separate, secular realm, the realm of this world, cannot be underestimated. The typical form of God conceived of in the Cartesian framework is Deism—the notion of a distant Originator that has no direct involvement in the world. Where there exists a concept of God in modem science and philosophy it has, until recently, always been this notion. To conceive of God as participant in the world, one has once again to turn to a worldview that does not have the Cartesian influence. Theologically this means turning to the sacramental theology of Eastern Orthodoxy, the mystical traditions, Process Thought, and Panentheism.

Panentheism is basically a compromise between pantheism, where God is completely, without remainder, in the world, and theism where God totally transcends the world. The former sacrifices transcendence for immanence and the latter immanence

<sup>5</sup> An excellent articulation of this notion is to be found in the work of Phillip Clayton and Arthur Peacock [19].

*Indigenous Religions as Antidote to the Environmental Crisis: Surveying a Decade of Reflection DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.105209*

for transcendence. Panentheism attempts to restore to the world God's immanent presence and expose God to a vulnerable relationship within it. It rejects the notion of aseity, the denial that God responds to events outside of Godself, and emphasizes a mutuality between God and world. Consistent themes in Panentheism are the cosmos as God's body and as sacrament; the language of "in and through," denoting the idea of inextricable intertwining, rather than "above and beyond," denoting the language of transcendence; the dependence of God on the cosmos; the intrinsic, positive value of the cosmos; and the possibility and ability of God to suffer.

#### **7.4 Counter-modernism in science**

Process thinking has also influenced the counter-modernist trend in science. It has become a unifying force between science and religion, which is one of the guiding aims of the Center for Process Studies under the leadership of scholars such as John Cobb Jnr and David Ray Griffin [20]. However, a prominent scholar in the field of science studies, Bruno Latour, stands out as one of the most vociferous and articulate contemporary proponents of the Gaia hypothesis, which proposes the earth as a living organism interacting with other living organisms to help maintain conditions for life on the planet. In essence, the Gaia hypothesis not only reestablishes the notion of interdependence but also opens the way for us to understand the earth as a being with whom we have to relate, populated by other beings, only some of whom are human. Latour has produced a spectacular body of work that challenges many of the axiomatic assumptions of Western modernity. In his early book with the provocative title *We Have Never Been Modern* [21], he argues that the cleavages that modernity has brought to our way of understanding the world are artificial, and we need to experience our world in the way that our "primitive" ancestors did, that is as a seamless and interdependent whole. He is also one of the inventors of Actor Network Theory, a tool for scientific analysis that takes into consideration the potential for the action of the entire panoply of entities that are assembled in the field of study both animate and inanimate, human and nonhuman.6
