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Document Details :

Title: Deelnemen aan het goede
Subtitle: De contemplatieve politiek van de encycliek Laudato si'
Author(s): BORGMAN, Erik
Journal: Tijdschrift voor Theologie
Volume: 56    Issue: 3   Date: 2016   
Pages: 205-217
DOI: 10.2143/TVT.56.3.3197411

Abstract :
This essay discusses some of the more fundamental theological implications of the encyclical Laudato si’. This encyclical is often regarded as the roman-catholic underpinning of the pursuit of sustainability. Although the text itself is partly to blame for this, this idea does not do justice to its actual content. This article offers an assessment of the turn towards an integral ecology as it is advocated in Laudato si’. It appears to propose an idea of God as creator and redeemer, ecologically present in creation and directly influencing it. This implies a conception of the entirety of reality as a relational network. Human relationality, which has been such an important focus in catholic social thought in the last half century, is rooted in it, dependent upon it and forms an expression of it. It means humankind should not try to control the whole of creation. It should be aware of its relation to it and its place in it. As part of a universe that is, both in its parts and in its entirety, focused on God, humankind should focus on God in its own unique way. Thus it contributes to the general focus on God. This essay proposes to describe this as ‘contemplative politics’: waiting for indications that the unimaginable, which we need to live to the full, is in fact happening so we can join in.

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