UNBOUND God Is Love: The Heart of All Creation
Thomas Keating’s Vision of Evolution, Divine Union, and the Great Unfolding
What if love wasn’t just an emotion or even a virtue, but the fundamental structure of the universe?
In God Is Love: The Heart of All Creation, the latest volume in a series of unpublished contemplative works by Father Thomas Keating, readers are invited into a radically expansive vision of faith, one where divine love is not static or abstract but evolving, dynamic, and deeply embedded in the fabric of reality itself. With the clarity of a seasoned teacher and the humility of a lifelong seeker, Keating opens a doorway into a theology both ancient and emergent—where evolution is the language of God, and the work of transformation is ongoing.
Structured as a series of conversations with his longtime friend and fellow contemplative, Fr. Carl Arico, this book distills decades of mystical reflection and theological inquiry into accessible, yet profound, exchanges. The tone is intimate but far-reaching. Cosmic in scope, but grounded in practice.
Keating begins with what he calls “evolutionary consciousness”—the understanding that matter, life, and spirit are all part of an unfolding process. Drawing on the work of Teilhard de Chardin, Thomas Berry, and Brian Swimme, as well as quantum physics and cosmology, he argues that creation is not a finished act but a living invitation. As humans, we are not separate from this unfolding, we are participants in it. And our capacity for love, for awareness, and for surrender is part of the divine movement of becoming.
“The Divine Presence is happening in, through, and amidst every detail of our life,” Keating writes. “So it should never be left out of our conscious awareness.”
This isn’t abstract theology. For Keating, it’s personal. Throughout the book, he reflects on his own journey—from the rigidity of early religious formation to the expansive freedom of contemplative practice. He offers honest glimpses into his inner life: the joy of silence, the difficulty of letting go, the humor and humility that arrive with age and awakening.
One of the most striking chapters explores Keating’s view of divine play. He writes with gentle irreverence about God’s possible love of basketball, about hide-and-seek as a metaphor for the spiritual life, and about the humor that underlies even the darkest moments of faith. Here, we see Keating not just as a monk or mystic, but as a human being who has dared to meet the mystery with openness and awe.
At the heart of God Is Love is the practice of Centering Prayer; not as a technique or discipline alone, but as a vehicle for deep interior transformation. Silence, for Keating, is not the absence of noise but the presence of God. In silence, the false self dissolves, the ego loosens its grip, and the Divine begins to move more freely in and through us.
“The practice of silence allows God greater freedom to act in us,” he writes, “as our interior life becomes freer from our predispositions and predetermined mindsets.”
In the later chapters, Keating turns his attention to interreligious dialogue, the universal nature of Christ, and the necessity of moving beyond exclusivist theologies. His reflections are grounded in Catholic teaching (particularly the affirmations of Vatican II) but point toward a future where all wisdom traditions are honored for their role in humanity’s spiritual evolution.
He is clear: no one religion holds the whole of truth. And salvation, he insists, is not reserved for a chosen few but offered to all who open themselves to love.
“We are influencing other people by personal spiritual work on ourselves, not for our own sake,” he says, “but for the sake of the transformation in Christ of the whole human family.”
Ultimately, this book is not just about God—it’s about us. About what it means to be alive at this moment in history. About what it means to surrender, to listen, to belong to a universe that is still being born. God Is Love is not a final statement, but a living one. An offering, an opening, a reminder that the journey is still unfolding—and that the heart of it, always, is love.
