Everything is alive - we live in an 'animistic' universe, ultimately consisting of Beings in Relationships.
This truth is missing from pretty-much all Christian theologies; and even those which explicitly recognize the animistic universe (e.g. Rudolf Steiner, Owen Barfield, William Arkle) will often lapse-away-from their purported animism into abstractions - e.g. talking as if 'forces' or 'tendencies' - rather than motivations, relationships etc. - were primary realities; or talking of 'consciousness' abstractly, as if it could ever be separated from the specific consciousness of a specific Being.
Although I assume that Mankind began as unconsciously (implicitly) assuming that 'everything was alive' and reality was made-of was 'Beings'; it seems that the categorization of much of reality as notalive 'things' began very early in human history (many thousands of years ago), at least in some places of which there are records - and that this has been a cumulative trend.
Initially, it seems, only some small scale things like some 'minerals' were regarded as notalive - but in the twentieth century more and more of reality of reality became regarded as notalive.
From mid-century, it began to be assumed that plants and animals were notalive (being composed entirely of chemicals and their reactions); and in later decades (especially since computers were conceptualized and developed) that even humans were notalive.
This assumption of notaliveness is mostly implicit; rooted in the widespread assumption (including in mass media) that whatever makes us distinctly human could, in principle, be combined with computers ('cyborg'), instantiated in a computer ('downloaded'), or replicated by some kind of 'Artificial Intelligence'.
The point is not that this is really possible - it is not; but that many/ most people believe it to be possible; which indicates that there is no distinction between the alive and the notalive, and that in practice every-thing is regarded as notalive
It therefore seems that, through history (and this trend is broadly repeated in the development of each individual human being) we have gone from assuming everything is alive; to assuming nothing is alive: not even our-selves.
Christian theology, typically, tries to inhabit a half-way house on this issue. It is sure that Men are alive; but tends to be indifferent to whether plants and animals are really alive - because these are regarded as outwith the plan for salvation. And Christianity follows the general culture of many centuries in assuming that the mineral world is notalive.
What results from this perspective is (to put it simply) a drama of the salvation of living Men and a transcendent God, that takes place against the backdrop of a notalive world.
This is a deeply alienating and unrooted view of Man's life on earth. To my mind it explains the somewhat shallow, 'two-dimensional' quality that I detect in even the very best of Christian lives.
Such unsatisfactoriness of the normal (non-animistic) Christian theology is not wholly to do with the inevitable corruption and partiality of mortal life; because I believe it applies even to what can be imagined.
I think that the only wholly satisfactory life we can imagine is one where there are no 'things', all is alive and conscious, nothing is notalive*.
Furthermore, beineg alive and to some degree conscious; all Beings are part of 'the drama of salvation' and capable of theosis.
My belief is that this trajectory from all-alive to all-notalive needs to be regarded as incomplete and incoherent; and therefore the process should be completed by recognizing that this is a living Universe; that the ultimate reality is one of Beings in relationships; but this time doing so by a deliberate act of choice.
Whereas in the past we unconsciously took for granted that we inhabited a world of living Beings; now we should consciously choose to recognize that reality.
Indeed if we desire this to happen, we not only can but must choose. If we are passive, and do not make an active decision and effort; then we will continue passively to assimilate the deep and pervasive cultural assumption of universal notaliveness.
In other words; the answer lies in our own hands - or rather minds. We may make the decision to regard everything as alive; and then begin the (long, perhaps life-long) effort to make this perspective normal, habitual.
*I suggest that this - in combination with a harmony among all these living Beings - is the special appeal of some fantasy races and settings, such as the elves of Lothlorien.
