Sustainability
The complex interactions among the different dimensions of
sustainable development
Environmental and Community Sustainability
A Christian Perspective
Sustainability is a major possible application area for Christian /
Dooyeweerdian philosophy, especially his notion of irreducible aspects.
It recognizes the special nature and responsibility of humankind while
seeking holistic balance with all the Creation. It promises to avoid the
extremes of, on the one hand, 'deep ecology', and on the other, seeing it
all in financial terms - or any other extremes that might appear.
Understanding Sustainability
The basic notion is based on the Shalom Hypothesis, that if we function
well in all aspects, in harmony, then there will be positive benefit for all,
both human and non-human, both individual and community/society,
both short and long term. If the Hypothesis is correct, then any poor
functioning in any aspect will jeopardize overall sustainability.
For example, obviously, if we threaten our ability to feed ourselves
or keep healthy then sustainability suffers, if our economy
collapses, then sustainability suffers. But, less obviously, if the
social climate is one of hatred, the moral climate is one of
selfishness, or the community or society has zero morale, then here
too perhaps sustainability could suffer.
This is because the aspects:
-are irreducible to each other, and hence we cannot afford to
ignore any but must attend to all,
-are intertwined, so that each contains echoes of the others and
later aspects depend on earlier ones - in short,
interconnectedness!
The Shalom Hypothesis
What is Good? What is Success, Prosperity, Health, Well-Being, etc? What is
Evil, Failure, Destitution, Sickness, etc.? Does it relate only to the individual,
or can (should) it relate also to others, and even to the whole of Creation?
Does it relate to Sustainability? What about the high failure rate of
information system? These are questions that what we call the Shalom
Hypothesis tries to address.
There is no single English word for what we are talking about. So, instead we
use the Hebrew word shalom, which speaks of this holistic, full, rich wellbeing, often translated 'peace', but with strong root meaning of 'whole' or
'complete'.
The Shalom Hypothesis is based in, and is a consequence of, Dooyeweerd's
notion of aspects and its religious root.
The Hypothesis
Dooyeweerd's notion is that
We function in all (or most) aspects, responding to their laws. That is, our
human living is multi-aspectual in nature. There are repercussions of our
functioning, in each aspect.
If we go with the laws of an aspect then the repercussions will be positive and
will promote success, prosperity, health, etc. in that aspect, whereas if we go
against the laws of an aspect then the repercussions will be negative in that
aspect.
Since all aspects are irreducible, the total repercussion of any activity will be
the bringing together of repercussions in all aspects.
Therefore for optimum success, prosperity etc. in the broadest sense, we
should function well in every aspect.
Functioning poorly in any aspect jeopardizes the sustainability, success of the
whole.
Use of the Hypothesis
Therefore we might evaluate a situation according to our total functioning in each
aspect. Visually, we can then plot a summary of this as an Aspect Tree as follows: