This article examines the exchange of ideas between Merton and Ruether on creation. Merton’s sacramental views and Ruether’s eco-feminist perspectives rooted in an incarnational spirituality can serve as a corrective to those who regard the Earth as an object of consumerism, which leads to the degradation and the desacralization of matter. I will examine how the way out offered by Merton and Ruether reflects an integral eco-spirituality responsive to and in resonance with the supreme reality that permeates everything. As Rosemary Ruether, Sallie McFague, Elizabeth Johnson, and other Christian eco-feminists have described in metaphorical language, the world may be conceived of as a kind of self-giving activity of God’s body in feminine terms. According to this view, a constant birth of life is taking place in a universe ultimately rooted in the cosmic womb of divine love to which Ruether referred as the Great Mother. I will show examples of their writings where both Merton and Ruether highly emphasized the importance of seeing the good creation reflecting God’s love for all creatures. I will conclude by pondering on the ecological implications of their writings, where they address the environmental threats that global warming and climate change caused by humans pose to Mother Earth.
Cristóbal Serrán-Pagán y Fuentes (Sun,) studied this question.