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1 VALUING THE GOODNESS OF CREATION Since the inception of environmental philosophy as an academic field, scholars have struggled to construct an adequate theory of valuing other species, ecosystems , and the greater biosphere. J. Baird Callicott, a leading contributor to this effort , has identified value theory as the “central and most recalcitrant problem” for environmental ethics.1 Among the important questions with which philosophers have grappled are: (1) Should other-than-humans be valued instrumentally as means to human ends, as Bryan Norton insists,2 or intrinsically as ends in themselves , as Callicott, Holmes Rolston, Arne Naess, and others argue?3 (2) If otherthan -human entities are valued intrinsically, does their value originate and persist in them to be discovered by humans, as Rolston argues,4 or is value something that humans create and attribute to other-than-humans, as Callicott proffers?5 (3) Is one ethic or set of ethics capable of adjudicating conflicts between valued beings, or is a plurality of diverse ethical systems required?6 As Clare Palmer explains, each of these questions raises others while scholars work toward cogent ways of thinking about valuing other species, ecosystems, and the larger biosphere.7 Theologians can benefit from philosophers’ identification and refinement of issues regarding the value of the other-than-human beings that constitute Earth. Their work can be particularly helpful to scholars of the world’s religions who are striving to develop systematic ways of addressing ecological issues from the data of their various traditions. A particularly fruitful concept to explore in the Christian tradition is the goodness of creation. As demonstrated in this chapter, thinking about the physical world’s goodness is deeply embedded in patristic and medieval texts by some of Christianity’s most eminent theologians, including Augustine of Hippo, John Chrysostom, and Thomas Aquinas. They suggest a theologically based theory of valuing from which broad behavioral norms can be discerned and subsequently reworked to reflect current scientific findings. From this process emerges a religiously motivated rationale for intrinsic-instrumental valuing of the physical world’s constituents for themselves, their relationships with one another, and their 17 common good. This valuation is realistic, relevant, and meaningful for Christians because of their relationship with the ultimate bestower of value who is God. This opening chapter begins by exploring various teachings about the goodness of creation in representative texts by Augustine, Chrysostom, and Aquinas. The major dimensions of their teachings center on the goodness of natural beings , gradations of goodness among creatures, the greater goodness of the totality of creation, the common good of creation, God’s valuation, and human valuing. Subsequently explained is the need to reconstruct this concept to reflect the current scientific understanding of the world. The goodness concept is reconstructed and compared positively with parallel thinking among secular philosophers who have been struggling with unresolved dilemmas pertaining to intrinsic and instrumental valuing. Ending the chapter is the identification of behavior patterns that are suggested when beginning from a basic faith in God and embracing the reconstructed goodness of creation concept. Patristic and Medieval Texts Throughout the patristic and medieval periods, Christian theologians taught that God created the universe of many diverse animate and inanimate beings, they are all good, altogether they constitute a superlative goodness, and they are valued by God. The context of their teachings and the nuances of their reflections varied as some theologians responded to the heresies of their times, others commented on the first but more recent of the two stories of creation that appear in the Book of Genesis,8 and a few wove their understanding of the goodness of creation into systematic treatments of God’s relationship with the world. All shared a faith perspective that is profoundly monotheistic: God is the creator of all the natural beings that constitute the universe, each animate and inanimate being has a God-given purpose, and the entire universe is utterly dependent upon God for its existence. The Goodness of Natural Beings For Augustine of Hippo (354–430) nothing exists that does not derive its existence from God, the “supremely good Creator”9 who created ex nihilo the universe of “good things, both great and small, celestial and terrestrial, spiritual, and corporeal .”10 Some people do not understand that every natural being is good, he wrote against his former companions, the Manicheans, but “Catholic Christians” recognize that there are “generic good things to be found in all that...

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