I call upon You, Lord, God of Abraham and God of Isaac and God of Jacob and Israel, You who are the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God who, through the abundance of your mercy, was well-pleased towards us so that we may know You, who made heaven and earth, who rules over all, You who are the one and the true God, above whom there is no other God; You who, by our Lord Jesus Christ gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit, give to every one who reads this writing to know You, that You alone are God, to be strengthened in You, and to avoid every heretical and godless and impious teaching.

St Irenaeus of Lyons, Against the Heresies 3:6:4


Creation’s Restoration, Step One: A Critique of Biocentrism by Fanny Stevenson


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.

No comments:

Post a Comment