Evolution and Decline: Making Wholeness in a Time of Ecological Decline

Abstract

Drawing on three key elements in Lonergan’s thought—emergent probability, the triad of progress/decline/redemption, and the law of the cross—this paper explores the struggle to remake some sense of wholeness in an era of serve ecological decline and the cost to be paid to turn it around. It identifies political action as the most urgent arena for those seeking to redeem our present situation, while also acknowledging the important of personal and cultural resistance to the forces of decline.