Inspires you to discover your own place in the story of the universe, challenges you to rethink life in new ways, and enables you to express yourself in words that make sense—to an evolutionary God.
William Cleary
Afterword by Diarmuid O’Murchu, SJ
Hardcover
6 x 9, 208 pp | 978-1-59473-006-1
Your image of God has evolved from a distant, all-knowing father to a creative force of the universe. Now it’s time to update your prayer, too.
An evolutionary God is the one whose fingerprints and embraces and music we find in the evolutionary patterns in the unfinished world around us, the elusive mother and inventor of this ever-changing milieu. It is a God who pretends—for some purpose we do not comprehend—not even to exist, but whom we can reach out for and give thanks to, if we wish—as most of our race has done throughout its history.
—from the Introduction
In this unique collection of eighty prose prayers and related commentary, William Cleary invites you to consider new ways of thinking about God and about the world around you. Inspired by the spiritual and scientific teachings of Diarmuid O’Murchu and Teilhard de Chardin, Cleary reveals that religion and science can be combined to create an expanding view of the universe—an evolutionary faith.
Prayers to an Evolutionary God inspires you to discover your own place in the story of the universe, challenges you to rethink life in new ways, and enables you to express yourself in words that make sense—to an evolutionary God.
“Sure to intrigue thoughtful readers.”
—Quest Magazine
“Karl Rahner once said that the Christian of the future will be a mystic, or nothing at all. Bursting with energy, full of deep wisdom, these prayers do more than address God in the light of evolution. They set the heart on the path of mysticism, beautiful and awesome.”
—Elizabeth A. Johnson, CSJ, professor of theology, Fordham University; author of She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse and Women, Earth, and Creator Spirit
“If prayer means (as W. H. Auden said) ‘paying attention to something larger than yourself,’ these prayers by William Cleary invite us to pay attention to the largest thing imaginable, the creativity that resides at the core of our Cosmos, teaching us to speak with reverence in this post-Newtonian universe. Faith and science embrace happily in these pages, to the betterment of both.”
—Rev. Gary Kowalski, author of Science and the Search for God
“Good theology is rooted in worship and prayer. In Bill Cleary’s book, the ‘God of evolution’ is not an abstract topic of theological reflection but the focus of meditation, prayer, and praise. In a unique and creative way, the author brings the insights of science into contact with the very heart of religious experience. I think Teilhard de Chardin would smile on this bold project.”
—John F. Haught, Thomas Healey Professor of Theology, Georgetown University
