(2nd of 5 parts)
(Third Talk delivered at the annual holy retreat of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, held at the Monastery of the Transfiguration in Malaybalay City on the theme “Synod Spirituality: Embracing Ecology in the Light of Laudato Si’ and Laudate deum” on July 2-4, 2024)
3. Fighting Anthropocentrism
One of the most basic ecological concerns that the church needs to address today is the prevailing anthropocentrism that operates in its ministries, projects and programs. How many of them are responsive only to the human interests and social concerns? Even in its existing ecological ministries, how many of them are still anthropocentric or mainly motivated by human interests and social security?
“Fighting anthropocentric views seemed the natural starting point for any environmental ethics,” said Andrew Light and Holmes Rolston III.[1] In environmental ethics, a perspective is anthropocentric when it prioritizes those attitudes, values, or practices that give “exclusive or arbitrarily preferential consideration to human interests as opposed to the interests” of nonhuman beings.[2] Anthropocentrism boils down to “human-earth relations” which is, according to Thomas Berry, “the most basic issue of our time.”[3]
In Laudato Si,’ modern anthropocentrism has been identified as one of the “human roots of the ecological crisis” (see LS #115-136). Pope Francis describes it as “an inadequate presentation of Christian anthropology [that] gave rise to a wrong understanding of the relationship between human beings and the world” (LS 116). This is the context when he categorically declares: “There can be no renewal of our relationship with nature without a renewal of humanity itself. There can be no ecology without an adequate anthropology” (LS 118). Let us unlock the meaning of this crucial statement.
4. Cosmological Conversion
To correct the errors of anthropocentrism, many eco-theologians have turned to Thomas Berry who was influenced by Teilhard de Chardin’s awareness of the universe “as an unfolding cosmogenesis.”[4] The Brazilian liberation theologian Leonardo Boff, whose eco-theological insights have influenced Pope Francis in writing the Laudato Si’, creatively appropriated many of Berry’s cosmological views. Thus, through Boff, many of Berry’s “insights about the environment made their way into Laudato Si’.”[5]
For Thomas Berry, we need to renew not only our ecology and anthropology but also our cosmology. He claims that “ecology is a functional cosmology” which controls our world.[6] He argued that “Our world is not presently controlled as such by its philosophy but rather by its cosmology.”[7] Thus, a renewed cosmology (or more accurately, a cosmological conversion!) is needed to overcome the engrained anthropocentrism.
It is unfortunate that western Christianity has inherited from the ancient Greek and Hebrew sources a cosmological tradition that is excessively anthropocentric. For many centuries, the dominant pre-Copernican cosmology erroneously puts human beings at the center of creation. This western tradition narrowly interprets human beings’ dominion over all earthly creatures.
Western Christianity has been rightly blamed for supporting an anthropocentric perspective that has largely contributed to the present ecological crisis.[8] Although today’s Christian anthropology has already decidedly departed from the outdated geocentric cosmology, its aftermath remains entrenched in the minds of many people and its remnants still operate in our cultures and imaginations.
Inspired by Thomas Berry’s cosmogenetic anthropology, many religious houses and seminaries have creatively integrated the habit of “Cosmic Walk” in their ecological formation. In St. John Vianney Theological Seminary of Cagayan de Oro, for instance, the community has put up fourteen stations that critically appropriate the evolutionary stages of cosmogenesis as told in Berry’s Universe Story.[9] It is hoped that by doing the Cosmic Walk regularly, the seminarians would be able to experience a cosmological conversion.
5. Cosmogenetic Anthropology
The cosmology of cosmogenesis tells the story of the emergence of human being as part of the larger story of an evolving universe which started 13.7 billion years ago. It tells the story of how the Earth gradually prepared the suitable conditions for the emergence of human beings. Geological history implies that the well-being of the Earth is a prior condition for the well-being of the human. This was the context when Berry declared “The well-being of the Earth is primary. Human well-being is derivative.”[10] For him, it is simply an affirmation that the Earth can survive without humans, whereas “humans cannot do without Earth.”
Every creature, including human creature, respectively “contributes to cosmogenesis according to its own subjectivity.”[11] In other words, together with other creatures, “humans are here for the perfection of the Earth.” For Berry, this means that “the special gifts bestowed upon the human are given, not primarily for the human, but for the perfection of the entire universe. … Humans exist for the integral community of existence.”[12] To reverse it (i.e., to say that “the Earth is here for the perfection of human”) is anthropocentric as it assumes that humans are here to exploit the Earth, as if God created it solely for them. For Berry, to give the Earth a consciousness of itself is its particular perfection owing to human presence.
To reiterate, the anthropology based on cosmogenesis recognizes that the Earth is primary while “humans are derivative.” Expectedly, the theological discussions on this cosmogenetic anthropology has evoked magisterial concerns as it appears that “humanity was being asked to assume a lesser role than ‘nature.’”[13] In his time, John Paul II was already apprehensive that this might fail to recognize the God-given unique role of human beings in the proper flourishing of the rest of creation.[14]
To understand this theological concern, let us find out what Pope Francis considers an “adequate anthropology.”
TOMORROW: The Ecological Anthropology of Laudato Si’
————-
(Fr. Reynaldo D. Raluto has been serving as parish priest of Jesus Nazareno Parish in Libona, Bukidnon since 2021 and has been leading the Integral Ecology Ministry of the Diocese of Malaybalay since 2022. From 2011 to 2021, he served as Academic Dean of St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Cagayan de Oro where he also teaches fundamental/systematic theology and Catholic social teaching. Among his ecological advocacies are planting/growing Philippine native trees, mountain climbing, and active participation in the cultural and ecological activities of the Indigenous People Apostolate of the Diocese).
[1] Andrew Light and Holmes Rolston III, “Introduction: Ethics and Environmental Ethics” in Andrew Light and Holmes Rolston III, eds., Environmental Ethics: An Anthology (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), 1-10, at 7.
[2] Tim Hayward, “Anthropocentrism: A Misunderstood Problem,” in Environmental Values 6 (1997): 49-63, 51.
[3] Thomas Berry, The Sacred Universe: Earth, Spirituality, and Religion in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Mary Evelyn Tucker (New York: Columbia Press, 2009), 89.
[4] Mary Evelyn Tucker, “Biography of Thomas Berry,” Minding Nature (December 2009), 22-29, on p. 26.
[5] Peter Feuerherd, “Renamed Passionist Retreat House Reflects Berry’s Call to Heal the Earth,” National Catholic Reporter (April 2, 2021).
[6] Berry, The Sacred Universe, 137.
[7] Berry, The Sacred Universe, 137-138.
[8] See Lynn White, “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis,” Science 155 (1967): 1203–1207.
[9] See Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry, The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era. A Celebration of the Unfolding of the Cosmos (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1992).
[10] Swimme and Berry, The Universe Story, 243, 257.
[11] O’Hara, “Reframing Ecotheological Anthropology within a More Integral Ecology,” 150.
[12] Thomas Berry, The Christian Future and the Fate of the Earth, edited by Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim (New York: Orbis Books, 2009), 48.
[13] O’Hara, “Reframing Ecotheological Anthropology within a More Integral Ecology,” 146.
[14] See John Paul II, Centesimus Annus (Vatican City, VA: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1 May 1991), no. 38.