Narrating a Sacred Universe. A Study of The Universe Story through the Hermeneutics of Paul Ricoeur

Abstract

This essay examines the use of language in narrating a sacred universe, focusing specifically on the text of The Universe Story by Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme. It applies the narrative hermeneutics of Paul Ricoeur, who argued for the role of narrative in influencing a life through its creation of a world, to the text. It focuses specifically on Ricoeur’s five traits of a phenomenology of the sacred. This step in Ricoeur’s hermeneutics is a reminder that religious language has been shaped by demythologisation, and this in turn impacts any attempt to articulate in language what is interpreted as an experience of the sacred. In designating the universe as sacred, The Universe Story is confronted with the task of narrating such an experience. In examining the language of the text, this essay analyses how this is preformed and the effectiveness of such an approach.