Theology of Catholic Environmentalism, Part 2

In Part 1 of this series, I set out to show that it is by no means "phony theology" to millions of Catholics such as I — and GOP presidential contender Rick Santorum also, who has used that phrase in advancing a markedly different view — to say that our Church teaches us (among all the many things it has to say) to have due concern for the natural environment.

In what way can the Catholic Church justify human environmental concern?

Ideas Drawn from Catholicism, by Fr. Richard P. McBrien

Father Richard P. McBrien's large compendium of the Catholic faith, Catholicism, contains an overview of the Church's thought concerning the environment.

In McBrien's chapter on "Foundations of Christian Morality," in his section on "The Relationship [of the Faithful] with the World: Stewardship," the author refers to (p. 948) the same words from Pope John Paul II's 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus that I picked up on in Part 1 of this series, saying that the pope:

... refers ... to the "senseless destruction of the natural environment," rooted in the erroneous belief that we "can make arbitrary use of the earth, subjecting it without restraint to [our] will as though it did not have its own requisites and a prior God-given purpose, which humankind can develop but must not betray" ... . 

The pope reflects Catholicism's essentially sacramental vision when he deplores the human desire "to possess things" and our concomitant lack of an "aesthetic attitude that is born of wonder in the presence of being and of the beauty which enables one to see in visible things the message of the invisible God who created them. In this regard, humanity today must be conscious of its duties and obligations toward future generations" ... .

"Catholicism's essentially sacramental vision"? What does this phrase mean? In Catholic belief (according to McBrien's glossary) a "sacrament" is "a visible sign of God's invisible presence." In Catholic doctrine there are seven official sacraments — Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Penance (a.k.a. "confession"), Marriage, Holy Orders (by which bishops, priests, and deacons are ordained), and the Anointing of the Sick (formerly, Extreme Unction; popularly, "last rites"). These seven sacraments shape the life of the Church and all its faithful. In addition, there is the broader "principle of sacramentality":

The fundamentally Catholic notion that all reality is potentially and in fact the bearer of God's presence and the instrument of divine action on our behalf.

Accordingly, there are "grace-bearing signs, e.g., holy water, a crucifix" that are duly called "sacramental." Officially, these do not "so fully express the nature of the Church as a [full-fledged] sacrament does," as they do not "carry the guarantee of grace associated with the seven sacraments."

We Catholics, then, are extremely sacramentally oriented.

Nature and Grace

Notice, above, the use of the words "nature" and "grace." The "nature of the Church" per se is clearly crucial to this discussion. So, too, is the Catholic idea of "grace" — and, by extension, the "nature" of the human person.

To understand what "grace" means to a Catholic, it is necessary to think broadly and comprehensively about ... well, about the nature of "nature." Fr. McBrien says in his section on "The Problem of Nature and Grace" (pp. 180-184) that, specifically, we need to inquire into human nature, for the Church has it that our God-given human nature must be, and is, "radically open to, and capable of receiving, grace" (p. 181).

What, then, is grace? According to Fr. McBrien, it's:

... essentially God's self-communication to us, and, secondarily, the effect(s) of that self-communication. (p. 180)

Our human existence "apart from God's self-communication and [its] divinizing effect(s)" can be thought of as, subject to further qualification, our basic "nature." We start out with an inbuilt need to receive God's self-revelation, and there is fundamentally that within us that is intrinsically capable of responding in the affirmative to it. That is our  basic "nature." God's "grace" lies in the fact that He does freely provide to us the self-communication that we can then freely accept ... or not.

There are, then, certain "grace-bearing signs" of God's self-communication. Some specific ones, such as holy water or a crucifix, are found in every Catholic Church or household. A fair question is: can we consider the whole of creation itself to be a "grace-bearing sign"?

A fair answer is: If creation — by which can be meant, variously, the world, the planet, the galaxy, the universe, the cosmos — can be experienced in a way that draws us toward Christ, it can be a sign of God's self-communicating grace. McBrien:

All creation is oriented toward the Covenant between God and the People of God, and the Covenant, in turn, toward the New Covenant grounded in the incarnation of the Son of God in Jesus Christ. The human community and the entire world in which the human community exists is oriented toward Christ and is sustained by him. ... There is no creation except in view of Christ. There is no Covenant except in view of Christ. There is no human existence, therefore, except in view of Christ and of our New Covenant in Christ. (pp. 181-182)

If it is so that "the entire world in which the human community exists is oriented toward Christ and is sustained by him," then the entire world may well be said to reveal to us God's offer of self-communicating grace.

Thomas Aquinas on Grace and Human Nature

Importantly, says Fr. McBrien, "Grace supposes the nature of the human person" (p. 182). This "Thomistic axiom" derives from the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica, written 1265–1274. Fr. McBrien says this about the axiom (p. 176):

Drawing upon Aristotle's notion of the final goal (telos) as determinative of all natures, Aquinas concluded that grace is absolutely necessary to human nature because, without it, the human person cannot achieve his or her end, namely, union with God. ...

 It was Aquinas who gave us the axiom, "Grace builds on human nature." Grace elevates and transforms human nature ... 

Clearly, God's creation itself can be an agent of this transformation. So creation — that which God has made — speaks to us of the nature of God Himself.

What Will Become of Creation?

I've just shown that our "final goal" as human persons — or, in Aristotle's Greek, our telos — is said by the Church to be "union with God." What about the telos of the rest of the created order? According to some Catholic thinkers, it, too, is divine union. The rest of creation, too, can be expected to be "divinized" at the end of time, according to this line of Catholic thought.

Along these lines, Fr. McBrien makes reference to (p. 184):

... recent theological efforts, stimulated by a dialogue with the natural sciences and the environmental movement, [which] are focusing more directly on the cosmos as the wider context for a theology of grace, emphasizing God's relationship with, and presence to, all forms of life on earth, in this universe, and beyond into the whole created order [by which I think McBrien means the cosmos per se: the universe in its sheer knowability].

Fr. McBrien continues:

One thinks here of the work of Thomas Berry (for example, Befriending the Earth: Theology of Reconciliation Between Humans and the Earth ... ). A similar approach is taken, but within an explicitly Christological framework, by Australian Catholic theologian Denis Edwards (Jesus and the Cosmos ... ).

Full disclosure: Denis Edwards and the late Thomas Berry are two theologians who have written from the theological left within the Catholic Church. I talk about another book by Berry, The Dream of the Earth, in this earlier series of posts. In my next post in this series, I'll have more to say about how Berry interprets the teachings of Thomas Aquinas. For now, here's a foretaste:

This [awareness that the present economic system is too devastating to the natural fruitfulness of the earth to long supply human needs] is not a socialism on the national scale, nor is it an international socialism, it is a planetary socialism. It is a socialism based on the Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas, wherein he deals with the diversity of creatures. Beyond planetary socialism he proposes an ultimate universal socialism where he says that because the divine goodness "could not be adequately represented by one creature alone, he produced many and diverse creatures, and what was wanting in one in the representation of divine goodness might be supplied by another. For goodness, which in God is simple and uniform, in creatures is manifold and divided; and hence the whole universe together participates in divine goodness more perfectly, and represents it better than any single creature whatever."

Whether or not we can accordingly infer that the manifold goodness of the world's biological diversity is "bound for glory" and is going to participate in our human telos of divine union, the teachings of Aquinas about the magnificent diversity of God's creatures should nevertheless give us pause.

Is Pope John Paul II right in saying we have "duties and obligations toward future generations," as concerns the natural world? Is there a "wonder in the presence of being and of the beauty which enables one to see in visible things the message of the invisible God who created them"? Then we as good Catholics need to tread lightly over, not trample, the earth and its ecological sustainability.

This is not a "worldview that elevates the Earth above man," as Rick Santorum has claimed. It is a worldview that insists on the sanctity of the Earth as a vessel of grace.