The
following article is extracted from Stratford Caldecott’s book The Radiance of Being
(Angelico Press, 2013). It forms part of a chapter entitled Saving the
Planet, in which the author explores “the relation of ecology to the
Christian notion of redemption.” In this passage, the way he deals with
humanity in relation to the animal kingdom shows the fruitfulness of the
dialogue Caldecott was engaging in between metaphysical concerns and the issues
raised by ecologists.
In the
history of the Latin Church, it is, of course, not only the Franciscans who
have contributed to the development of Christian ecological awareness. The
Celtic saints and the Benedictines are often mentioned in this connection.[i]
But Pope John Paul II made St. Francis, not St. Benedict or St. Columba, the
patron saint of ecology in 1979, and he did so for understandable reasons. One might
ask, however, why more saints and teachers of the Church have not been obvious
candidates for this position. Deborah Jones, in her book The School of Compassion, points to the disconcerting indifference
if not hostility towards the non-human creation on the part of many Christian
teachers and authorities, for whom animals and the rest of nature were merely
for man’s use and would have no part in any resurrection. This applies even to
the great Franciscan theologian Bonaventure. In the Breviloquium, where he treats of the resurrection, he argues that
the animal and vegetable creation will be
saved only in man, who “has a likeness to every kind of creature.”
Such a
conclusion can be seen as the legacy of a misunderstood or imperfectly
assimilated Platonism, or even a kind of Gnosticism that values the spiritual
at the expense of the corporeal. Rather than criticize the tradition along
these lines, however, I prefer to remember that the Church is like “a
householder who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old” (Matt.
13:52). Historical circumstances and the challenges that arise may provoke a
development of doctrine.
In fact
there are at least three areas where it is pretty obvious that Catholic
teaching is currently undergoing development. One is the “theology of the body”
(the term popularized by John Paul II in his series of Wednesday talks
concerning gender, marriage, and sexuality); another is over the question of
religious pluralism and the urgent dialogue between traditions of faith, and
the third concerns nature and the environment. In my view all three are
related, and they each require a “return to metaphysics”; that is, to a renewed
appreciation of ontology and symbolism. But this time around, we must find a
place for the rest of nature in our philosophy, in the spirit of St. Francis
himself, whose instinct was to make special provision for the feeding of birds
and cattle on Christmas Day.
The
Revealing of the Sons of God
In Paul’s
Letter to the Romans (8:18–23), the Apostle writes:
I
consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with
the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager
longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to
futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope;
because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and
obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God.[ii]
We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until
now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of
the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our
bodies.
This
passage is quite dense, and has been much commented upon. It seems to imply,
first, that the “revealing of the sons of God” will liberate the natural
creation as a whole from entropy, death, suffering,
and decay, and, next, that this revelation of the sons of God is equivalent to
our "adoption as sons” and with the “redemption of our bodies.” But what is the
link between adoptive sonship and the
redemption of our bodies, and how can a spiritual process like this affect the
whole of creation? I don’t have time here to explore all the eschatological
implications of the passage, or the intriguing
questions raised by the notion of a “cosmic fall.” My emphasis will be on
spiritual anthropology. I will interpret the “revealing of the sons of God” in
terms of humanity’s role as microcosm and mediator.
This idea
has a long history. Right up until the time of Francis and Bonaventure and
indeed the age of industrialism, the world was viewed as an organic whole,
ordered from within, possessing a sacred and spiritual value by virtue of its
creation by God and the continued divine presence within it. The stars were
thought to be angelic creatures, the movements of their dance helping to determine
the pattern of events unfolding below. The physical elements themselves were
imagined as conscious beings, participating in a cosmic intelligence. It is
quite in keeping with this ancient tradition for the Bible in the Canticle of
Daniel to call upon all of creation to bless the Lord, including the sun and
moon, stars of the heavens, clouds of the sky, showers and rain.[iii]
The animals, plants, and minerals, the stars and elements, can be said to “praise”
their Maker, either simply by their very existence, or else through man, who
gives them a voice they do not possess in themselves. (This is in fact the tradition
to which Bonaventure appeals when he describes man as containing the essences
of all other creatures.) In this view, the human being occupies a central place
in the universe, but he does so as a microcosm containing all the elements of
nature, and faculties or powers corresponding to both animals and angels. Adam’s
role in the cosmos is a priestly and mediatory one, radically compromised by
the Fall, but restored in Christ, who by assuming human nature assumed the
whole of nature by taking on a body.[iv]
St.
Francis is the “patron saint of the environment” partly because he spoke to the
birds and was kind to animals, but also because he understood and lived this
mediatory role. The particular originality of his approach was to address not
only the animals but even the elements of nature as his brothers and sisters; a
spirituality expressed in the Canticle of Brother Sun, and exemplified in the way
he spoke to Brother Fire and the other elements on various occasions. This was
no mere sentimental romanticism (though he was certainly extremely romantic).
His espousal of poverty brought him into the closest contact with the physical
elements, and made him intensely aware of his dependence on them, under divine
providence. He was conscious both of the presence of God within and through
them, and of their infinite difference from God as mere creatures.
This love
of nature was different from pagan animism, as G.K. Chesterton writes in the second
chapter of his biography of Francis. The Celtic saints and Desert Fathers, and
the Benedictine monks, had prepared the ground, but St. Francis was the
beginning of a new stage in our relationship with nature (one that, it might be
argued, has not yet been totally fulfilled). Chesterton writes of a necessary “purge
of paganism” in the early Church, until at last the flowers and stars could
recover their first innocence, and fire and water “be worthy to be the brother
and sister of a saint”:
For water itself has been washed. Fire
itself has been purified as by fire. Water is no longer the water into which
slaves were flung to feed the fishes. Fire is no longer that fire through which
children were passed to Moloch. Flowers smell no more of the forgotten garlands
gathered in the garden of Priapus; stars stand no more as signs of the far
frigidity of gods as cold as those cold fires. They are like all new things
newly made and awaiting new names, from one who shall come to name them.
Neither the universe nor the earth have now any longer the old sinister
significance of the world. They await a new reconciliation with man, but they
are already capable of being reconciled. Man has stripped from his soul the last
rag of nature worship, and can return to nature.[v]
What
Chesterton leaves out of account here is the Eastern Church, which had become
separated from the West, but preserved in its liturgical theology and in its
iconographic tradition a cosmic vision that we must take into account. Our
present historical age requires us to breathe with two lungs, if we are to have
a hope of responding to the new post-Christian, post-religious mentality to
which the West has
given birth. And of the Eastern Fathers, St. Maximus the Confessor gave perhaps
the most sophisticated theological expression to the view of man as mediator.
Pope Benedict summarized the teaching of Maximus as follows:
God entrusted to man, created in his image
and likeness, the mission of unifying the cosmos. And just as Christ unified
the human being in himself, the Creator unified the cosmos in man. He showed us
how to unify the cosmos in the communion of Christ and thus truly arrived at a
redeemed world. Hans Urs von Balthasar,one of the greatest theologians of the
20th century, referred to this powerful saving vision when, “relaunching” Maximus—he
defined his thought with the vivid expression Kosmische Liturgie, “cosmic
liturgy.” Jesus, the one Savior of the world, is always at the center of this
solemn “liturgy.” The efficacy of his saving action which definitively unified
the cosmos is guaranteed by the fact that in spite of being God in all things,
he is also integrally a man and has the “energy” and will of a man. . . . Jesus
Christ is the reference point that gives light to all other values. This was
the conclusion of the great Confessor’s witness. And it is in this way, ultimately,
that Christ indicates that the cosmos must become a liturgy, the glory of God,
and that worship is the beginning of true transformation, of the true renewal
of the world.[vi]
Balthasar’s
book on Maximus, to which the Pope refers, makes the point that the Confessor overcame
the tendency in Christian thought to make the corporeal world of nature merely
a ladder to heaven that will one day be kicked away, by positing an indestructible
relationship between spirit and matter, an “apologia for finite, created being
in the face of the overwhelming power of the world of ideas.”[vii]
The unity of the many depends on the parts and their relationship to each other.
And since God is completely transcendent, the world of intellect takes us, in a
sense, no closer to him than does the world disclosed by the senses.[viii]
This opens the way for a much deeper, less timorous, appreciation of the beauty
and goodness of nature in general.
*******
The
Blessed Earth
Ecology
is therefore a serious business; a theological business. If (as I suggested)
the animals are angels—not each cat or dog, centipede or flamingo a distinct
angel, but each species or family of animals the fragmented instantiation of an
intelligent, immortal angelic force, a constituent element in the cosmos—then
surely we have to recognize a new seriousness in the heinous crime of
extinguishing a species from the face of the earth: an angel is being thrust out
of God’s creation by man.
In the
first chapter of the book of Genesis, God “saw all the things that he had made,
and they were very good” (1:31). Here is the earliest and best refutation of
the philosophical heresy of recent times (that of
David Hume and others) that separates facts from values. Implicit in Scripture
is the sense that there is something ontological about goodness: in other
words, that it is an intrinsic attribute of being. If
this means anything, it surely means that all creatures are worthy of love.
They deserve it; it belongs to them. But at the same time we have to remember
that in the traditional understanding of the word, to love something is not
just to feel warm and friendly towards it: it is to will its existence, its
life, its fulfillment. We are therefore obliged, as free creatures capable of
having a moral obligation, to love the creation in something like the way that
God loves it.
Animals
are due that love, whether they are angels or not. But now we have to ask, can
that “debt” be called a “right”—a right to be loved, to be respected, to be
nourished and helped? Is there such a thing as “animal rights”?
It seems
to be generally assumed by Christian and other philosophers that a “right” can
only be possessed by someone who is capable also of assuming obligations. But
it seems to me that it is always obligations, duties, and debts that in the
first place create the “rights” which correspond to them. You have a right to
the money I owe you because I have a debt to you, or an obligation towards you; I
do not first have an obligation to pay the money because you have a right to
it. My obligation to you is based on your prior gift to me (or simply your need
for the money), coupled with my love for you that leads me to want your good.
Gifts naturally evoke gratitude, and the desire to reciprocate. We are all
creatures, receiving all that we have, including our existence, from a divine
Source as well as from each other. We must recognize that we all start from a
position of
obligation, of gratitude, of love. Any subsequent debts we incur, as we receive
more from each other during life, simply add to this fundamental indebtedness—and
the whole moral life, inspired by love, is a joyful repayment of an endless
debt.
Rights,
then, according to this line of thought, are entirely secondary. They are a way
of describing and, ultimately, codifying our debts, both as individuals and as
members of a group. To the extent that they
enter into positive law, then it can certainly be said that “I owe you because
you have a right.” But that is only because this is the way we have defined our
obligations. Having done so, rights are used to remind us of our duties under
the eternal law of God and existence.
From that
it seems to follow that there may be creatures that (unlike humans) have rights
without having duties—simply because they generate obligations in us by their
very existence. If that is the case, it
would after all make sense to talk about “animal rights.” But we are not
talking, yet, about rights in law. The codification in law of animal and of
human rights might look very different. Animals, and the rest of the natural
world, do not enter into legal arrangements, and here the reciprocity that is
attributed to rights and duties comes into its own. To the extent that rights
are contractual, animals are not eligible for them. Perhaps there is a case for
keeping the word “rights” for these contractual or positive relationships only.
Yet I can’t help wondering if “animal rights” might still be a way of
describing part of the general obligation we possess towards the world to
maintain and preserve it, its integrity and beauty, both for its own sake (as
having intrinsic value) and for the sake of our own distant neighbors and
unborn descendants.
After
all, though animals may not enter into a contract, they do enter into a
covenant. To be specific, they enter into the “rainbow covenant” that God made
with Noah as high priest of creation (Gen.
8:20–22) and with the birds, cattle, and beasts of the earth (Gen. 9:9–17).
According to the terms of that covenant, God would not destroy the earth again
with a flood like the one that had just taken
place. The terms of the covenant also specified that the life of man was
sacrosanct, whereas animals were given to man to eat. Vegetarians might quibble
with this, but it does at least mean that animals are included as partners in
an agreement: for their part, they are required not to attack man (9:5). While
the covenant does not assign rights to the parties, it imposes duties. The fact
that animals are given to man for food also implies that they are not for
abuse. They now come under his stewardship in the way the vegetable world did
before: as entrusted to his care. He may use them for his bodily needs; but nothing
is said of his luxuries. The Bible does not envisage the grotesque abuse of
animals, for example in cosmetic experiments.
So what
do we conclude? The other day my friend’s pet was put down, after it became too
ill to survive and was living in constant pain. The same night I slapped a
mosquito that was keeping me awake,
and squashed a spider that would have frightened my children (in fact it
frightened me). I put antiseptic on a cut to kill any lurking germs. Did these
creatures, large and small, have a right to life?
They certainly had a right not to be treated cruelly, or killed without reason.
But nothing I have said actually implies that they have a right to life in the
absolute sense: the sense in which we rightly apply it to an innocent human
being. The reason for this surely lies in the intrinsic difference between the
animal and the human. The animal is worthy of love, but love must respect the
nature of the creature in question. If the goodness in things is “ontological,”
it is proportioned to their being, and to their level of being. A dog or a spider
is not in itself a person, even if the species, or the angel of the species, is
one. A human being is not merely the instantiation of a species, but a unique
individual with a unique destiny. He or she is made “in the image of God,” not
in the image of an angel, and the sacredness of human life (even in the womb)
is correspondingly of a different order. Moreover humanity has a “dominion” over
the rest of creation that it was simply not given over its own nature, this being
reserved to God alone. All of this we see reflected in the rainbow covenant.
However
we misuse it, our dominion over the animals and over the whole earth in some
way persists. The fact that the very survival of the earthly ecosystem is now
threatened by industrial and military technology demonstrates the fact. For
better or worse, it is not “speciesism” but realism to locate human beings at
the center of the world, as microcosm. But that centrality, far from implying
careless disregard and selfish irresponsibility, implies the exact opposite. That
is our fundamental obligation which we are now massively failing to fulfill:
the obligation to “dress and keep,” to “till and cultivate” the blessed earth
which sustains all our lives and speaks to us continually of the glory of God.
Stratford
Caldecott MA (Oxon.), STD (hc), the founding Editor of Humanum, was a graduate of Oxford University, where
he was a research fellow at St Benet's Hall. A member of the editorial boards
of the international Catholic review Communio, The Chesterton Review, Magnificat (UK) and
Second Spring, he is the author of
several books including Beauty for Truth's Sake, Beauty in the Word, and The
Radiance of Being.
[i]
John
Carey’s book A Single Ray of the Sun
discusses this neglected strand of Celtic and Irish thought in the legends of
the saints, the writings of Augustinus Hibernicus, In Tenga Bithnua, with its prophecy of a resurrected earth, and
Eriugena’s Periphyseon.
[ii] Literally:
“. . . the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”
[iii] Daniel
3:57–88, 56.
[iv]
Maximus
the Confessor, Ambiguum 7, On the
Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ (Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 2003), 45–74.
[v]
The
passage ends rhetorically as follows: “While it was yet twilight a figure appeared
silently and suddenly on a little hill above the city, dark against the fading darkness.
For it was the end of a long and stern night, a night of vigil, not unvisited by
stars. He stood with his hands lifted, as in so many statues and pictures, and
about him was a burst of birds singing; and behind him was the break of day.” G.K.
Chesterton, Collected Works, vol. II
(San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986), 44–5.
[vi] Pope
Benedict XVI, General Audience, 25 June 2008. (All papal speeches and documents
may be found on the web at www.vatican.va.)
[vii]
Hans Urs von Balthasar, Cosmic
Liturgy: The Universe According to Maximus the Confessor (San Francisco:
Ignatius Press, 2003), 239.
