Abstract
That Christianity has been the
scapegoat of the environmental crisis of our modern times is a given in the
contemporary ecological conversation. A
positive response from the Christian perspective to this popular premise is
desperately needed. However, the
Scriptures show that before a positive statement of the Biblical truth of a
matter is able to be properly heard, a thorough critique of the presuppositions
of the prevailing pagan paradigm is a priority.
Biocentrism is that prevailing pagan paradigm in the environmental
conversation of our day. Biocentrism,
however, cannot provide a proper philosophical framework for restoring the
creation. The necessary metaphysical,
moral, and epistemological preconditions for the intelligibility of a
responsible, viable ecological basis are nowhere to be found in terms of
biocentrism. Therefore, the first step
in a Christian proactivity in creation’s restoration is a demonstration of
biocentrism’s absurdity.
Creation’s
Restoration, Step One: A Critique of Biocentrism
Bishop
(1991) begins his defense of a basis for a responsible ecology in Christian
perspective with a statement of fact, “Christianity has often been a scapegoat
for the environmental crisis.” Many
cultural priests are quite ready to place their hands on the head of the
Christian-scapegoat in transference of the guilt for our ecological sins.
Feminist Andrée
Collard believes that “Genesis presents the view that God created everything
and gave it to man [and not just in the generic sense!] to dominate” (Bishop,
1991, brackets original). Ian McHarg
also believes the Bible sanctions a careless and cavalier treatment of the
environment. He states, “In [the
Bible’s] insistence upon dominion and subjugation of nature, [it] encourages
the most exploitative and destructive instincts in man…Here can be found the
sanction and injunction to conquer nature” (Bishop, 1991, brackets added). Perhaps the most influential work in this
regard is that of Lynn White Jr.’s 1967 article “The historical roots of our
ecologic crisis.” Therein, White
criticizes the popular Christian view of nature and argues for a return to
Eastern biocentrism (i.e. moral value and autonomy centered equally on all life
forms [Schaeffer, 1992, pp. 13-14]) with a Franciscan glaze.
In summary, White
(1967) claims that “Christianity bears a huge burden of guilt” in the
ecological crisis (p. 139), because, he believes, God’s intention in creation was
that it had the singular end of serving man’s purposes, and is thus grossly man-centered
or anthropocentric (p. 134). Christianity promotes a sharp dualism between
man and nature, and it is God’s will for man to exploit nature for his own
desires and ends (p. 135). Granting
these things, White is incredulous toward science and technologies having the
answer, as they are grounded in Christian presuppositions (pp. 139-140). What the ecological crisis needs is a
paradigm shift, which is religious in nature.
This religious shift is toward a spiritual biocentrism, which is hardly
different than Eastern pantheism (pp. 140f).
Amid the noise of these
dissenting voices, the claim must be heard that a thoroughly Christian approach
to the creation’s restoration is not simply one option among many, but the only
cogent approach available to us. However,
as the Scriptures teach us, before the truth of the Christian perspective is
proclaimed, the prevailing pagan presuppositions of the environmentalist
conversation must be carefully deconstructed (e.g. Acts 14, 17; Rom. 1:18ff). The first step in a Christian proactivity in
the creation’s restoration is negative; it is a careful critique of the
presuppositions of the prevailing environmental paradigm in our culture, namely
biocentrism. This essay will endeavor to
argue, therefore, that biocentrism, as a philosophical paradigm, is absurd, because
it fails to provide the necessary metaphysical, moral, and epistemological
conditions of a responsible, viable ecological perspective.
Biocentrism, Explained and Critiqued
Biocentrism explained.
Biocentrism views
the earth as a single, autonomous, self-regulating organism (Bishop,
1991). In this, man is simply one of
many biotic parts that make up the whole, and thus has no greater intrinsic
value than all other life forms. “Every
living creature is unique, and lives in its own way for its own good. This implies that one species cannot know
more about what is good for another species than that species itself,” states
Taylor (Biocentrism, n.d.). Biocentrism finally reduces humanity to the
worth of grass (Bishop, 1991).
Aldous Huxley’s
final novel presents a vignette of a future utopia, in which the first lesson
learned by schoolchildren is that of elementary ecology. He likewise perceived the logical end that,
in such a world where biocentrism rules, “Elementary ecology leads straight to
elementary Buddhism” (Schaeffer, 1992, p. 22).
Biocentrism, whether sterilized by secular terms and connotations or
explicitly spiritualized, is simply a form of Westernized pantheism, which
Schaeffer coined “Pan-everything-ism” (p. 31).
A critical analysis, however, demonstrates that biocentrism or Western
pantheism cannot stand on its own two philosophic feet.
Biocentrism critiqued.
Biocentrism is metaphysically absurd.
Biocentrism cannot
provide a metaphysical basis to support itself.
In principled terms of a biocentric view, only the unity of the
particulars, including grass and men, can have meaning and moral value. “A meaning to particulars does not exist philosophically
in any pantheistic system, whether it is the pantheism of the East or the
‘pan-everything-ism’ in the West” (Schaeffer, 1992, p. 31). If Golden-cheeked Warblers, for example, are
particulars, and particulars independent of the unity have no meaning, then
their extinction as a species is ultimately meaningless. For that matter, the same is true of any
other particular species. Biocentrism
would find this rationale repugnant, but they cannot deny that it is rational, as
it is the logical outworking of their own presuppositions.
Further, to
suggest that man is particularly endowed with the capability of directing his
environment toward the biocentricists’ end is to introduce the notion of
purpose into the ecologic equation, and such a teleology has no place in the biological
world (Moule, 1964). We must look
elsewhere for a metaphysical basis for the creation’s restoration.
Biocentrism is morally absurd.
Moreover biocentrists,
such as White and Means, following Schweitzer, argue that the ecological crisis
is really a moral crisis (pp. 15f).
Where, though, we may ask, within this closed, autonomous organism that
is the biocentricists’ world, might we find a morality with the universality
necessary to obligate people, individually or collectively, to treat any part
(or the whole) of nature this way or that?
There is no answer.
Moreover, if the
unity of the natural world is all that is, then from the natural world must
come a universal morality. But morality
is not a natural phenomenon; it is not found in the oceans, growing on trees,
or in the marsupial pouches of kangaroos.
The observation of nature can tell us what the case is, but it can never
tell us what the case ought to be.
Therefore, if the ecological crisis is a moral crisis, and biocentricists
argue man is morally obligated to act for the sake of creation, then
biocentrism’s most basic presupposition that the unity of the natural world is
all that is cannot be true. We must look
elsewhere for moral basis for the creation’s restoration.
Biocentrism is epistemologically absurd.
Returning to
Taylor’s (n.d.) remark above, it was stated, “[Biocentrism] implies that one species cannot know more about what is good for another
species than that species itself” (Biocentrism,
italics and brackets added). This is
an epistemological statement; it makes a strong declaration regarding the
nature and extent of our knowledge. If
Taylor’s premise is admitted, for sake of discussion, then we may rightly
wonder how we know that protecting
the endangered Golden-cheeked Warbler is a good thing for its species. How can we know that fighting a forest fire,
threatening a grove of majestic redwoods in northern California, is a good
thing? That is something that the
redwoods must determine for themselves; we cannot know such things, according
to biocentrism. Further, if we cannot
know more about what is good for particular species more than those species can
themselves, then how much more can we know nothing about what is or is not good
for all biotic life. To put it simply,
if biocentrism is true, then we cannot know that biocentrism is good for the
environment! Biocentricists’
presuppositions bring their position to its philosophic knees. The truth of biocentrism makes man a bunch of
know-nothings. A cogent epistemology,
which provides the knowledge base necessary for the creation’s restoration,
cannot be found in biocentrism; we must look elsewhere.
Conclusion
The
above critique of biocentrism suffices to demonstrate that it is an absurd
paradigm for the restoration of creation.
Metaphysically, it so elevates the unity of nature that the particulars
are stripped completely of meaning; the extinction of any given species is
meaningless, which is absurd.
Biocentrists are correct that the environmental crisis is a moral
one. But, if the natural world is all
that is, morality is non-existent. This
self-contradiction within the biocentric view leads to moral absurdity. Finally, we have seen that the
epistemological presupposition that we cannot know more about what is good for
any other species than it does itself means that not only can we then not know
that preserving individual species is good but further we cannot even know that
biocentrism is good at all. This too is
self-contradictory, and thus absurd.
Christians
must be prepared to face the pagan culture in general and the prevailing pagan
environmental culture in particular with a careful critique of biocentrism,
because biocentrism utterly fails to provide the philosophical preconditions of
an intelligible paradigm for the restoration of creation. This is the first step in a Christian
proactivity in the environmental conversation and the restoration of
creation.
References
Biocentrism. (n.d.).
The Environment: A Global
Challenge. Retrieved from http://library.thinkquest.org/26026/Philosophy/biocentrism.html,
July 3, 2011.
Bishop,
S. (1991). Green theology and deep
ecology: New Age or new creation? Themelios, 16. Retrieved from http://www.theologicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/ecology_bishop.pdf.
Moule,
C. F. D. (1964, March). Man and Nature in the New Testament: Some
Reflections on Biblical Ecology. Retrieved
from http://theologicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/nature_moule.pdf.
Schaeffer,
F. A. (1992). Pollution and the Death of Man. Wheaton,
IL: Crossway Books.
White,
L. Jr. (1967, March). The historical
roots of our ecologic crisis. Science, 155. Reprinted in Schaeffer, F. A. (1992).
Pollution and the Death of
Man. Wheaton, IL: Crossway
Books. Appendix A, 121-144.
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