Chapter Three - Domination and Political Theology - Section Four

An Emerging Environmental Theology

The point of this discussion is to briefly indicate that contemporary political theology is concerned to both redress the distortion of humanity's interactions with nature wrought by misguided, indeed ideologically loaded as well as anthropocentrically arrogant, uses of biblical texts to legitimate human domination of nature, and indicate the way towards a theologically literate environmental theology which is both Christian and critical. What Christians who take this emerging environmental theology seriously would do is an open question, but it is clear that humanity's interactions with nature have to change. It seems perfectly congruent with a committed Christian political perspective for Christians to act in the world to protect the environment from human depredations, because it is God's creation, because humans are supposed to be stewards of it under God, and because human domination of nature contributes so much to reinforcing and extending domination and distorting what Christians take to be humanity's right relationship with itself under God. As noted earlier, it may have been more appropriate to commence a discussion of contemporary political theologies by briefly examining how some political theologians approach the creation, and with humanity's relations with nature, understood theologically as God's creation. But, as has been shown, political theological eschatology puts Îthe last things1 first and at the centre of Christian hope, action and suffering. Nevertheless, if only because they offer a refutation of centuries of allegedly biblically legitimated human domination of nature, as well as connecting with contemporary political concern with the environment, mention of how political theologians understand humanity1s interaction with nature will be made here. Also, as Horkheimer and Adorno essentially argued in Dialectic of Enlightenment, the basis of humanity1s domination of itself lay in humanity1s desire to dominate nature, firstly through myth and religion, and then through art and science (Adorno & Horkheimer, 1973; Leiss, 1972; 1990: 74 ­ 85). Men have always had to choose between their subjection to nature or the subjection of nature to the Self. With the extension of the bourgeois commodity economy, the dark horizon of myth is illumined by the sun of calculating reason, beneath whose cold rays the seed of the new barbarism grows to fruition. Under the pressure of domination human labor has always led away from myth ­ but under domination always returns to the jurisdiction of myth (Horkheimer & Adorno, 1973: 32). Political theologians have sought to specifically address alleged biblical legitimation for humanity1s wholesale domination of nature. From the general perspective of political theologians, here is no scriptural basis whatsoever to argue that God legitimates humanity's wholesale domination of nature in a way analogous to a builder turning a completed dwelling over to an owner, leaving the owner to do what they like with the dwelling. Rather, the Biblical relationship between humanity and nature under God as described in Genesis 215 is analogous to that of a custodial steward or, as Moltmann puts it, a gardener: Nothing is said about predatory exploitation. It is true that the will to achieve power, to expand and progress, which is the hallmark of modern civilization, has often been theologically legitimated with the help of the biblical doctrine of creation; but this subsequent legitimation has no foundation in the Bible itself (Moltmann, 1985: 30). It is important to note here that Christians are not called upon to do nothing in the garden of which they are stewards. It would be an irresponsible steward who left their master1s property to degenerate. Stewardship is not a mandate for wholesale exploitation and destruction. Theological literacy couples biblically­grounded ethics with human actions in and on the world, and it is for Christians who take those ethical standards seriously to develop for themselves their approach to nature. This necessarily leads to a consideration of the relationship between the environment and economics because use of the environment forms the basis for economic relations between people. Jürgen Moltmann recognises the connections between the contemporary capitalist ethos, the domination of some people by others, human domination of nature, and the environmental crisis and argues that the connections mean that Christians must break with economic values and practices considered routine in modern so­called developed society. We can take it as our premise that for Christianity it is not the will to power and to domination over the earth that makes man the image of God, but that the very reverse is true: because man is made in the image of God, his rule over the earth has its bounds and its responsibilities... There are always correspondences between the social relationships of people with one another and the relationship between the social system and the natural environment. For a long time the system of domination and suppression affected slaves and animals in the same way. Changes in the social relationship of people to one another will therefore also bring in their wake changes in the relationship between human societies and nature (Moltmann, 1977: 173 ­ 174). Because those social groupings seeking to dominate other people required some sort of religious legitimation for their activities, the general perversion of a Biblical view of humanity's relationship with nature as one of domination was required, duly developed, and promulgated. To be sure, as demonstrated by creation spirituality represented in the work of rather unorthodox Catholic theologian, Matthew Fox, a more ecologically sustainable view of humanity1s relations with nature has also been a feature of rather unregarded Christian theology (Fox, 1983) Nevertheless, the mainstream view of humanity1s God­given right to dominate nature tended to hold sway well into the present century, until it was no longer required because secularisation had supplanted religion as a major legitimating and social stabilisation force. At the same time, the initial hope of the Enlightenment, that through reason humanity would be freed from domination required the provision of material products in sufficient quantities to free humanity from enslavement to capricious nature, was steadily transformed into the manipulation of desires and needs under an environmentally devastating capitalistic mode of production. It also ought not be overlooked that Îcommunism in practice1 has contributed to massive ecological destruction, leading to a view of environmental degradation as transcending modes of production and finding its explanation somewhere other than particular economic or social systems. No regime, mode of production, or ideology has a monopoly on environmental destruction. As this process escalates, domination of both human internal nature and external nature in the form of the exploited natural world could lead to what Horkheimer called a Îrevolt of nature1 in which inner nature, largely assumed to yearn for emancipation from domination (Horkheimer, 1974) and external nature in the form of an environmental crisis ­ on which Horkheimer never wrote ­ reacted against technological domination to bring the whole works undone. Marcuse, as was mentioned in the previous chapter, did briefly address humanity's relationship with nature in the context of discussing aesthetic reduction at the end of One­Dimensional Man (1964: 239 ­ 246). Though he is not explicit about the matter, Marcuse can be read as suggesting that if humanity were to deal with nature with more genuine respect, its liberation could be achieved along with greater human freedom. His views run parallel with what Moltmann earlier described as a biblical view of humanity's relations with nature: The aesthetic reduction appears in the technological transformation of Nature where and if it succeeds in linking mastery with liberation, directing mastery toward liberation... Cultivation of the soil is qualitatively different from destruction of the soil, extraction of natural resources from wasteful exploitation, clearing of forests from wholesale deforestation (Marcuse, 1964: 240). William Leiss drew Horkheimer's conception of a Îrevolt of nature1 together with the environmental crisis to argue that: The purpose of mastery over nature is the security of life ­ and its enhancement ­ alike for individuals and the species. But the means presently available for pursuing these objectives encompass such potential destructiveness that their full employment in the struggle for existence would leave in ruins all the advantages so far gained at the price of so much suffering (Leiss, 1972: 163 ­ 4). For Jürgen Habermas, the ecological crisis constitutes one of a series of crisis tendencies in advanced capitalist societies to which such societies cannot adequately respond without violating their own logic (Habermas, 1976: 41 ­ 43). More recently, he argued that social movements concerned with environmental problems are reacting to obvious tangible environmental problems which he described as 3... developments that noticeably affect the organic foundations of the lifeworld and make us drastically aware of the standards of livability, of inflexible limits to the deprivation of sensual­aesthetic background needs2 (Habermas, 1987: 394). Political theologians such as Moltmann, and more contemplative theologians such as the American Catholic, Matthew Fox, are issuing strong correctives to traditional Western theological and secular views of humanity's relations with nature which find significant support from so­called Înew paradigm1 science which stresses ecological interconnectedness (Fox, 1983). Creation, no longer in the pristine condition allegorically described in Genesis, is yearning for itself to be reconciled once more with the Creator. As Moltmann puts it: Anyone who perceives Îcreation1 in the present condition of the world begins to suffer with that creation, and also to hope for it... To understand Înature1 as creation therefore means discerning Înature1 as the enslaved creation that hopes for liberty. So by Înature1 we can only mean a single act in the great drama of the creation of the world on the way to the kingdom of glory ­ the act that is being played out at the present time (Moltmann, 1985: 39). Christians who take environmental theology seriously would look to their own lifestyles, and the connections between their own lifestyles, global poverty, and environmental destruction. There is much to recommend what has been called an Îintentionally simple lifestyle1 in a country like Australia, where we have the luxury of being able to simplify our lives to renounce many aspects of what has been called the dominant ÎCommodity Form1 of consumerism with its attendant environmentally destructive practices (e.g., Kavanaugh, 1982; Gill, 1989).