There is immense suffering in all social strata, rich or poor alike, produced by the present economic-financial crisis. More than amazement, it is this suffering that makes us think. It is time to go beyond the economic-financial aspect of the crisis, and delve into the fundamentals that caused it.  Otherwise, the causes of the crisis will continue creating crises, ever more dramatic, until they become tragedies of planetary dimensions.

What underlies the present crisis is the rupture of the classic cosmology that lasted for centuries but which no longer explains the transformations occurring in humanity and in planet Earth. That cosmology appeared at least five thousand years ago, when the great empires began, gained strength with the enlightenment, and reached its highest point with contemporary techno-science. It started from a mechanical and anthropocentric vision of the universe. Things are there, in close proximity, but without inter-connections, ruled by laws of mechanics.  They have no intrinsic value, but are valued only in the measure ordained by human use.  The human being places himself outside of and above nature, as her owner and master, who can dispose of her at his pleasure.  That cosmology began from a false premise: that it could produce and consume in an unlimited manner within a limited planet, that the abstraction called money represented the primary value, and that competition and the pursuit of individual interests would produce general well being.  It is the cosmology of domination.

This cosmology brought crises to the realms of ecology, politics, ethics and now, the economy. Eco-feminists made us see the close connection between anthropocentrism and patriarchy, which since the Neolithic era has used violence against women and nature.

Happily, starting in the middle of last century, coming from different Earth sciences, particularly from the broad theory of evolution, a new cosmology is prevailing, a more promising one, with potentialities capable of helping us overcome the crisis in a creative way.  Instead of a fragmented cosmos, composed of a collection of inert and disconnected beings, the new cosmology sees the universe as a gathering of relational subjects, all of them inter-retro-connected. Space, time, energy, information and matter are dimensions of a single great Whole. Even the atoms, more than particles, are understood as strings and cords in permanent vibration. Instead of a machine, the cosmos, including the Earth, appears as a living organism that self-regulates, adapts, evolves and eventually, in crisis situations, leaps in search of a new equilibrium.

The Earth, according to renowned cosmologists and biologists, is a living planet –Gaia– that articulates the physical, the chemical, the biological in such a way that the result always favors life.  Her elements are blended in a fine, subtle form, such as only a living organism can do.  Starting only in recent dec ades, and now unequivocally, it is emitting signals of stress, and loss of sustainability.  Both the universe and the Earth are guided by a purpose that is revealed in the emergence of ever more complex and conscious commands.  We ourselves are the conscious and intelligent part of the universe and the Earth.  Because we are carriers of these capabilities, we can confront the crisis, detect the exhaustion of certain cultural habits (paradigms) and invent new forms of being human, of producing, consuming, and coexisting.  It is the cosmology of transformation, the expression of a new era, the ecozoic era.   

We need to open up to this new cosmology and to believe that those energies (the expression of the supreme Energy) that have been generating the universe for more than thirteen thousand years, are also in action in the present economic-financial crisis. They will certainly force us towards a qualitative leap, towards another model of production and consumption, which would effectively save us, because it conforms better to the logic of life, the cycles of Gaia, and human needs.

- Leonardo Boff  is a theologian.  http://leonardoboff.com/

(Free translation from the Spanish sent by Melina Alfaro, done at Refugio del Rio Grande, Texas).