Spring 2009 Stories

The scientific debate is settled concerning the fact that modern human activity has direct effects on the biosphere of our planet. Our industrial processes, transportation networks, and building projects are influencing climate change and causing the extinct ion of species.

Certainly, human communities have always adapted to local environmental conditions through the use of technology (hunting, agriculture and animal husbandry, the production of tools, clothing, shelter, other goods and services) in order to survive and flourish in the most diverse climates. These typical human activities have always had effects on local environments, whether it was clearing forests or draining swamps to gain farmland, or releasing waste into streams and rivers. Since the Industrial Revolution, however, there has been an acceleration of the changes caused by humankind and a broadening of the scope of these changes. Presently, we find ourselves wondering how we will develop new technologies to enable us to “live and breathe and have our being” amidst the changing conditions of the planet. Even as we confront myriad specific and unique problems, it would seem that the present moment of our living on earth also affords us the opportunity—perhaps it even obliges us—to re-examine holistically the way in which we interact with our world. “Sustainability” has become a watchword in scientific, political, economic and social conversations. It has also entered into the theological conversations of people in churches, temples, synagogues, shrines and mosques around the world.

fpIt is quite appropriate that some of the same people who consider our current environmental situation under the rubric of secular disciplines also do so via theological considerations. This is apt because religious outlooks deeply affect how most people on the planet make sense of reality. Because most human beings are religious, broadly defined, religion is typically a preeminent way in which people accept that their challenges are not merely technological nor only political. Humanity wants and needs to ask such questions as, “What is the proper relationship between human beings and the world?” “Do non-human living creatures have any moral standing, any intrinsic worth, beyond their mere usefulness to human beings?” “What are the long-term consequences of the choices and decisions we make today?” If our religious considerations of the ecological crisis lead us to conclude that we must make certain sacrifices in terms of our comforts and conveniences, and if we must devise new ways of living that are truly sustainable, then perhaps religious reflection has a crucial role to play in ecological conversations, for theologians do know something about “sacrifice.” And as the largest single religious organization in the world, and as an essential source and guide to western and world opinion and behavior, the Catholic Church has a special obligation to contribute to the global conversation that is taking place on this most pressing topic.

To recast the three questions posed above in religious language, Catholics could well ask, “Is our wanton disregard for non-human creatures sinful? Is the seeming enmity between human beings and the rest of creation as recounted in the Book of Genesis (3:14-19) the result of sin? And what of the divine command to exercise dominion over other creatures (Genesis 1:26)? Does this permit humanity to ride roughshod over the whole planet? Does it deny non-human creatures intrinsic moral worth? And if God in Christ has worked the salvation of human beings, reconciled Heaven and Earth, and opened for us the way to eternal life, what is the final destiny of non-human creatures?” As is befitting of all Christian theology, we must look at scripture and tradition through the lens of the person of Christ, and examine all reality in the light of the Christ event. In so doing I hope that these reflections offer some food for thought.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being” (John 1:1-3). With these words, St. John begins his account of the coming of the Messiah in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. This theological prologue to the words and deeds of Jesus speaks volumes, for in the simplest Greek, the Beloved Disciple is inspired by the Holy Spirit to frame the two great redemptive mysteries he will recount, viz. the Incarnation and the Resurrection, within—and as the completion of—the first great redemptive mystery, Creation. The Triune God, from all eternity a community of love, chooses to create, redeem and sanctify a universe, within which human beings are essential to the divine project. John writes that everything came to be through Sus tainabi l i ty at Santa Clara Univer s i ty explore the Logos, i.e., the Christ, who exists as the beloved Son of the Father “before” the Creation, the Incarnation and Resurrection, the seminal events that lend velocity to salvation history, the divine project which is co-extensive with the history of the universe. Thus, when the Son puts off divinity and puts on human flesh to come to dwell within creation, it is all of creation that welcomes him as the one through whom it all came to be. And while human beings are central to the creative and redemptive project of God, and thus the most noble of all the creatures, it is ironic that human beings alone possess the possibility, because of free will and the propensity to sin, of having the blessing and the burden of choosing to accept or reject him.

The Son takes human flesh from the Virgin, who knit him together in her womb, and who herself, as creature, is totally enmeshed in creation. Once born, the Son of Man must eat and drink, breathe air and warm himself by the fire, clothe his body and wear sandals on his feet. Indeed, like us in all things except sin, the Christ depended on non-human creatures in order to be able to live a human life. His daily bread came from the wheat that grew on the hillsides. The roast lamb and bitter herbs he ate every Passover as a child were products of the earth and of human labor. Jesus also depended on the 500 or so species of microorganisms that lived in his digestive tract, helping him to metabolize food, fight off diseases and live in relatively good health until the time came for him to go up to Jerusalem. Like us, the incarnate Word was enmeshed in creation and totally dependent on it to sustain him. Further, the Christ needed the mustard plants and the fig trees and the fish in the seas in order to figure out the reign of God, just as he needed the quiet of the desert in order to figure out his role as Messiah. And after his resurrection, when he appeared to the disciples gathered in the upper room, to help them overcome the fear that paralyzed them, he ate a piece of dried fish. Even as the glorified Lord, the risen Christ was encountered by his disciples as fully present to and inextricably bound up with creation—until the time of his ascension. Was Jesus’ relationship with nonhuman creation more than merely utilitarian? Did he demonstrate affection for the lilies of the field, whose task was simply to be delightful? Did Jesus thus lend a second ineffable dignity to all creatures, all of whom came to be through him, and upon whom he depended during his earthly life?

I propose that we answer yes to those three questions and see where it gets us. Non-human creation has long had a utilitarian role to play in the life of human beings. It is undeniable that the many relationships we have with other species—for food, for clothing, for labor —have been necessary for our survival and development as a species. But beyond the mere nourishment and protection of our bodies, it is also true that nature has also played an essential role in our moral, aesthetic, spiritual, and religious development as a species. Our relationship with God has grown steadily throughout salvation history, which unfolds in the world. Nature is the necessary context in which humanity meets the Triune God, chooses to accept grace, manifests faith, and lives out faith’s consequences. This certainly suggests a foundation for an anthropocentric argument in favor of wise human policies aimed at the sustainability of our interactions with nature; we need to leave a habitable world for our grandchildren, so that they too may meet the living God in the context of creation. It also suggests that non-human creation, henceforth called ‘nature’ in heuristic distinction to human beings, has a second (if chronologically prior and in this regard essential) worth and dignity per se, being also the direct object of God’s creative activity. Only by having its own essential dignity can nature be the means through which God can manifest God’s self in gracious selfrevelation to human beings. If nature has an essential goodness, lent it by God, then this would suggest a second, non-anthropocentric foundation for the dignity and worth of nature, one that is theocentric. Our present exploration seeks to found a renewed human respect and responsibility for nature by prioritizing the anthropocentric and the theocentric, thus clarifying the proper relationship between human beings and nature in conjunction with the proper relationship between human beings and God.

An anthropocentric impetus for a specieswide human commitment to ecologically sustainable practices in every aspect of human living rests upon the essential worth and dignity of every human being. The claim that human beings enjoy an inalienable right to respect is a religious claim, based upon divine revelation in sacred scripture: “Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness’” (Genesis 1:26). To say that human beings are creatures in imago Dei is to say that they receive and reflect something of the essence of God, are deeply, inalienably good, worthy of love and respect, and are capable of inspiring awe by acting as a means for God’s selfcommunication as grace in the midst of creation. As image and likeness of God, every human person is lovable as the object of God’s love and as the vehicle of God’s love. This religious insight founds the Catholic belief in and advocacy for a seamless respect for human life, from conception to natural death. This respect for human life demands of us not merely an attitude of respect but also practical actions and personal engagement in creating and sustaining the conditions for the possibility of dignified human life: education and health care, meaningful work and just wages for all who can work, humane correction for those who go astray, religious freedom, and respect for inviolable human conscience. It happens that, in the West, there is more respect for certain negative rights (freedom from censorship, freedom from oppression) than for positive rights (food, clothing, shelter, health care, etc.). Yet both types of rights adhere to the human person in a Catholic worldview. Further, a Catholic social imagination rejects the utilitarian individualism that has long dominated social discourse in the United States in favor of a Christian personalism that would see the human being not in isolation, nor in competition, but rather as enmeshed in a great web of mutually life-giving relationships that sustain communities of faith, hope and love. If such an anthropology informs an anthropocentric approach to the current environmental crisis, it would demand of us that all human beings have an obligation to interact with nature in such a way that we protect and improve the ability of all human beings to have a sustainable, life-giving relationship with nature as well. And this obligation to care for all human beings by being careful about how we interact with the biosphere extends not only across the entire face of the planet today but also well into the future. The ecological vocation elicits a regard for the well-being of future generations of humanity as well.

A theocentric approach to the same ecological crisis points us in the same direction and elicits from us the same creative engagement but is based upon a deeper fundamental truth of faith. To return to the prologue of John’s Gospel, we hear in the first words an echo of the first words of Genesis, “In the beginning.” In fact, John the Evangelist makes a deliberate grammatical error in the first line, omitting the definite article (In [the] beginning was the Word…”) to make clear his reference to the Hebrew text of Genesis—Hebrew doesn’t have definite articles. John wants the reader to appreciate the triune character of all God’s actions, including those that are done for our salvation. As well, John signals God’s deep and abiding relationship with all of creation. As we said above, the Christ enters into that which came to be through him. The Father creates through the Son in the Spirit; the Father sends the Son into the world, through the power of the Holy Spirit; the Spirit leads us to the Son, who shows us the Father. John presents the mystery of the person of Jesus both within and beyond the context of creation so that we find in him the means of understanding and accepting our (healed) relationship with God and the world. Christ comes into the world, and it knows him not (John 1:10), yet it does respond to his command as he calms storms, turns water into wine, cures diseases, feeds the multitudes, praises the birds and delights in the prodigious power of mustard seeds and yeast.

It would seem that Christ’s attitude towards the world is not only different from that of modern people but also from that of folks of his own time. Where others saw illness as the work of the devil, Jesus saw it as an opportunity for God’s compassion to be made manifest, to such an extent that Jesus calls himself a physician of souls (Luke 5:30). Where others discounted the birds of the air as neither useful nor productive, Jesus saw them as the recipients of God’s providential care and concern (Matthew 6:26). And to describe the deep connectedness that he offered to his disciples, he called himself the true vine, whose branches are those who abide in him and are bound to him in love, and while his Father trims the branches, the vine, wellrooted in the earth, gives life to the branches and allows them to bear fruit (John 15). In these and in many other figures of speech, parables and symbolic prophetic actions, Jesus signaled the overturning of the original curse, the result of the original sin of Adam and Eve, their estrangement from each other and from God, their enmity with the rest of creation (Genesis 3). The authors of Genesis capture well the sinful human propensity to denigrate nature, to instrumentalize it, to disregard its beauty and to overlook its wonderfulness. Jesus overturns these sinful attitudes and restores nature to its rightful place in the order of creation and in the process of redemption.

A theocentric worldview would lift our regard from our own individual self-interest (an egocentric view), and from the interest of our clan or cult only, to an altruistic regard for the good of all humankind, and in turn contextualize that anthropocentric worldview in the final and lasting frame of reference that alone gives meaning and purpose to all of reality, the human capacity and desire to fix our hearts on God, in whom we live and move and have our being—as does all of creation. What is the proper attitude towards God? As a response to God’s proffered love, we return love in the form proper to creatures who worship and adore their creator: gratitude, reverence, awe, and trusting obedience. How would this attitude enlighten our regard for all other human beings? In the matter of our use of the goods of nature, it would broaden our vision and open our interest to the needs of all, and it would temper our systemic and habitual disregard for consequences. A theocentric world view would afford us the possibility of contemplating creation from the divine perspective, God who creates all that is and pronounces it ”very good.” Such a stance would oblige us to close the loop on our production and distribution systems so that the basic needs of all are met before the luxuries of a few are entertained. And it would extend our regard well into the future, leading us to ask and to answer the hard questions about the long-term consequences of our choices, actions and inactions, our sins of commission and our sins of omission, against generations unborn. And how would this in turn lead us to a more than utilitarian attitude towards the rest of creation? Perhaps it would lead 21st Century human beings to recover some of that practical wonder, some of the reverential fear, some of the mysterious delight that our ancestors took in contemplating the works of God.

The person of Jesus allows us, finally, to understand and properly carry out our charge by God to exercise “dominion over creatures” (Genesis 1:26-30). God remains the master and sustainer of the universe. We serve in the household of the Lord, carrying out God’s will and caring for each other, all humans, and all creation as God’s stewards. We have in Christ the perfect model, for in him we find perfect obedience to the Father and universal love for all creatures. And in addition to Jesus’ actions and attitudes as the pattern of the good human life, we have his assurance that we, along with all the other creatures, are on a common pilgrimage. For do we not as Christians believe in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come? Do we not hope for the renewal and the perfection of creation, the new and eternal Jerusalem? For eternal life to have meaning for us human beings, the resurrection of the body is necessary, for only thus can we live on as embodied spirits in the presence of God and in the communion of the saints. For us to sit at the wedding feast of the lamb, we will need the context of a renewed and perfected universe. And just as our eternal life overlaps with our mortal life, so too does our care for creation overlap with God’s final perfection of the universe.