For Garcia-Rivera our spiritual life with God is less about building the City of God than creating the Garden of God. The Garden of God takes Christ's self-revelation that he came to bring us life and "life abundant" as a clue to that enduring, habitable world. While Teilhard de Chardin focused on the growth of consciousness as the essence of the evolution of matter being raised to the spiritual, Garcia-Rivera probes the conditions and process that lead to "life abundant." In doing so, The Garden of God offers new insights into the question of evil and suffering, the doctrine of the resurrection of the flesh, the nature of matter and of spirit, the Incarnation, the role of the Holy Spirit in creation, the end times, the role of evolution in theological thought, and a new spirituality of creation.
