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2 Man's Dominion and the Judaeo-Christian Heritage
- University of Georgia Press
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2 Man s Dominion and the Judaeo-Christian Heritage in this chapter I shall consider the theory that the source of our ecological problems is to be found in the Judaeo-Christian belief that mankind was created to have dominion over nature, a belief which, according to the theory, can be interpreted as implying that humans may treat their natural environment as they like. This theory has to confront the objection that ideas cannot have such a causal efficacy, and also seems to imply that the attitude to nature of the medieval West was improperly exploitative: having considered these difficulties, the second of which I claim to have substance, I proceed to consider whether the theory correctly interprets the Biblical belief in man's dominion, or whether the Old and New Testaments embody, on the contrary, the makings of a much gentler and more enlightened attitude to nature. In the next chapter I consider the evidence for these various attitudes from subsequent Christian history, and in the following chapter I survey the significance for these matters of Judaeo-Christian beliefs about the nature of man. These chapters prepare the way for the presentation of a moral theory in later chapters, as well as throwing light on the resources of Western traditions for coping with ecological problems, which I claim to be much ampler than is usually supposed. Religion as the source of the problems What Lynn White calls 'the historical roots of our ecological crisis' are held by him (in an essay with the phrase just quoted as title1 ) to be located in the Judaic and Christian doctrine of creation. More specifically they lie in the belief that man was made in God's image and shares in God's transcendence of nature, and that the whole 20 MAN'S DOMINION AND THE JUDAEO-CHRISTIAN HERITAGE 21 natural order was created for the sake of humanity. In the more recent past the roots of the crisis may be detected in the alliance of science and technology, only finally cemented in the nineteenth century; but the beliefs implicit in Genesis, or rather in the activist, Western interpretation of Genesis, underlie those distinctive products of the West, science and technology. Well before the rise of modern science in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the medieval West was technologically far ahead of the other cultures of the day, uninhibitedly harnessing natural forces for human ends: moreover this characteristically Western phenomenon was no accident, but embodied the very beliefs newly accepted when paganism was overcome by Christianity. In place of the respect for the guardian spirits of groves, streams and hills afforded by pagan animism, 'Christianity made it possible to exploit nature in a mood of indifference to the feelings of natural objects'. Indeed 'the spirits in natural objects, which formerly had protected nature from man, evaporated . . . and the old inhibitions to the exploitation of nature crumbled'.2 Such being their roots, science and technology are unfit to solve our current problems; rather the remedy must lie in religion, and we should either replace Christianity, the root cause of the problems, with a new religion such as Zen Buddhism, or, failing that, modify it by adopting the pan-psychism of St Francis, according to which all creatures, whether animate or inanimate, have souls and are designed for the glorification of their Creator. White's paper has, as Passmore observes, exercised widespread influence,3 partly because of the delayed but increasing impact of Aldo Leopold's call for a new ethic, an ethic still, in his view,lacking in the West, governing man's relation to the land and the whole biotic community associated with it.4 In particular, White's view that technology, the immediate cause of some of our ecological problems, cannot be expected to solve them alone, commands wide agreement, but there is less agreement about the nature and extent of the other social and moral changes required. More specifically his theory about the religious source of our problems and the corresponding need for a religious remedy has been challenged, not only over his theological interpretations, but also over his historical method. One possible objection in the area of historical method is that it is fallacious to locate the causes of a phenomenon in its origins, for attitudes, like institutions, may be perpetuated for reasons quite other than those which originated them. Thus it would be a fallacy [3.238.57.9] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 17:34 GMT) 22 PROBLEMS...