A good summary of the main tenets of Creation Spirituality can be found in the 2004 book
Who Is My God?, which lists ten major principles.
- The universe is basically a blessing, that is, something we experience as good.
- Everyone is a mystic--born full of wonder and capable of recovering it at any age.
Creation Spirituality is a socially conscious, earth-centered, unorthodox Christian spiritual system formulated in the 1970s by Matthew Fox, then a Catholic priest. Fox identifies Creation Spirituality in the
Old and
New Testament, ranging from the prologue to the
Gospel of John to the
Book of Revelation. Creation Spirituality is also found in the teachings of the Greek fathers of the Church. The high point of the Creation Spirituality development was from the 12th to 15th centuries with the theories and practices of mystic-prophets such as:
Hildegard of Bingen,
Thomas Aquinas,
Meister Eckhart, and
Nicholas of Cusa. Theologian and
Episcopal priest
Matthew Fox, formerly a
Roman Catholic priest of the
Dominican Order claims that revelation is found in two places: the Bible and nature. Therefore, the bulk of his teachings and texts lie in these two foundations. It is a mystical philosophy that celebrates the universe, emphasizes creativity as a key component of the universe, and believes that all people have a divine creative impulse. It espouses a
panentheist view of God. The history of the ideology of Creation Spirituality Fox says, "is the oldest tradition in the Bible, and the way of
indigenous peoples." Fox contends that Creation Spirituality is not a new religion, but is concerned with renewing theologies and practices within religion and culture that promote personal wholeness, planetary survival, and universal interdependence. Creation Spirituality begins with the notion of creation as an original blessing as opposed to
original sin. For Fox
sin results not so much from disobedience with God's laws as it does from disconnectedness to God's creation. He compares the seven traditional sins to seven principles of Creation Spirituality:
cosmology,
feminism,
liberation,
compassion,
prophecy,
creativity, and
community. Fox formulated his beliefs in several books, including
The Coming of the Cosmic Christ and
Original Blessing.
- Everyone is a prophet, a mystic in action, who is called to interfere with anything that interrupts authentic life.
- Humans have to dig and work at finding their true self.
- The journey that marks that digging can be named as a fourfold journey: 1) via positiva: delight, awe, wonder, revelry; 2) via negativa: darkness, silence, suffering, letting go; 3) via creativa: birthing, creativity; and 4) via transformativa: compassion, justice, healing, celebration.
- Everyone is an artist in some way, and art as meditation is a primary form of prayer.
- We are all sons and daughters of God; therefore, we have divine blood in our veins, the divine breath in our lungs; and the basic work of God is: Compassion.
- Divinity is Mother and Father, Wife and Husband, Son and Daughter, Creative Mystery, History of God, and is as much encompassing all beings as filling all beings and aspects of Creation.
- We experience the Divine in all things and all things are in the Divine.