Modern Creation Myth

Stories about the creation of the universe and of man contain the values by which a society abides and on which a culture rests; they are the myths which have always been formulated by a scientific type of mind, but never before our own day has their content been ideological rather than metaphysical. Religion and the arts do not now play their traditional role in the shaping of these myths; and though philosophy still lends its hand, it does so in the guise of epistemology rather than ethics, of psychology rather than ontology. This condition is quite likely no more healthy for science itself than for society.

For whatever reason, our modern cosmological myths are devoid of moral and spiritual content: they picture a universe in which human thought and action are rich but irrelevant details, a material order which nowhere partakes of the sacramental. Despite the somberness of the tale, however, it has not lacked tellers. Four recent books essay this often attempted task, not with complete success. One of these volumes is by a journalist, one by a biologist, one by an astronomer, and the remaining one by a physicist. None is an uncolored account. Each author presumes, consciously or not, to interpret the meaning of the universe. Yet none thinks it necessary, we may be sure, to examine critically the myth which underlies his work.

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Donald Cowan

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Stories about the creation of the universe and of man contain the values by which a society abides and on which a culture rests; they are the myths which have always been formulated by a scientific type of mind, but never before our own day has their content been ideological rather than metaphysical. Religion and the arts do not now play their traditional role in the shaping of these myths; and though philosophy still lends its hand, it does so in the guise of epistemology rather than ethics, of psychology rather than ontology. This condition is quite likely no more healthy for science itself than for society.

For whatever reason, our modern cosmological myths are devoid of moral and spiritual content: they picture a universe in which human thought and action are rich but irrelevant details, a material order which nowhere partakes of the sacramental. Despite the somberness of the tale, however, it has not lacked tellers. Four recent books essay this often attempted task, not with complete success. One of these volumes is by a journalist, one by a biologist, one by an astronomer, and the remaining one by a physicist. None is an uncolored account. Each author presumes, consciously or not, to interpret the meaning of the universe. Yet none thinks it necessary, we may be sure, to examine critically the myth which underlies his work.