THE THEOLOGY OF ECOLOGY
—a review article of: Celia Deane-Drummond, ECO-THEOLOGY, London (Darton
Longman and Todd: 2008).
Donal Dorr
Ecology has become a topic of major general interest in recent years. It is not
surprising, then, that a lot of work has been done on various aspects of an
ecological spirituality. But a spirituality of ecology needs to be grounded in a
solid and widely-accepted theology. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say
that as yet we do not have such a generally-recognised theology. In fact the
theology of ecology has largely remained on the sidelines of theological studies.
Perhaps the main reason for this is that a genuinely ecological perspective
requires such a radical re-visioning of the whole body of traditional theology that
many of the more established theologians are unwilling to undertake it. It calls
for a shift from an almost exclusive focus on the relationship between God and
humanity, to a perspective which takes the whole process of evolution far more
seriously and situates humans in the much wider context of the billions of years’
history of our universe. Furthermore, a lot of the new thinking in this area comes
from feminist theologians. The fact that some of these writers have used
goddess language or Gaia language may have led mainstream theologians to
neglect or marginalize the whole topic.
Most of the current writing on ecology sets out to raise our awareness and
invites us to take an ethical stance on such issues as global warming and genetic
modification. Celia Deane-Drummond, professor of theology and the biological
sciences at the University of Chester, has written a very different kind of book. It
is true that she devotes the first two chapters to a wide-ranging but condensed
survey of these and other pressing practical ecological issues; and she has a
short postscript on ‘eco-praxis’. But the intervening ten chapters offer us a very
thorough exploration of the strictly theological issues in ecology—for instance:
its biblical basis; its Christological dimension; how ecological theology relates to
trinitarian theology; how dreadful pain in the non-human world and in the
process of evolution can be reconciled with God’s love and care for all creation;
and whether or to what extent non-human creatures are to partake in the
renewed creation at the end of the world as we know it.
This book is a very valuable resource for students and for any reader who
has a serious interest in the topic. In some respects it is an introduction to the
various important and difficult theological topics the author explores. But as I
waded through some of the more dense material it felt at times more like an
advanced-level course. The general reader could perhaps feel swamped at times
by the summaries and critical evaluations by Professor Deane-Drummond of the
views of so many different authors. The book has the feel of one written on the
basis of the author’s class-notes for a year-long course of lectures. I say this not
as a criticism but to convey a sense of the kind of book it is. Indeed I would
have loved to have had the opportunity to sit in on her lectures and take part in
the dialogue which they must have stimulated. I have the impression that she
could have written a whole book about the material she covers in each of the
twelve chapters and the postscript. In fact she already has written extensively
about most of these topics in previous works—as indicated by the five books and
various articles listed under her name in the bibliography. Because she has set
out to cover so much material in one relatively short book (185 pages apart from
notes etc), some of her summaries of the views of other theologians are so
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compressed and dense that they remain rather obscure; at times she merely
alludes to some point which she or another author has spelled out in far more
detail in some other study (e.g. p. 50 at note 19, p 112 at note 56; p. 120 at
note 29; p.155 at note 48).
Professor Deane-Drummond covers so much material in this book that I
found I had to take it in slow stages. I would advise readers to spread their
reading and study of it over several months, just as though they were Professor
Deane-Drummond’s students following her course. This would allow them to
focus on one chapter and one topic at a time, not just reading what she has to
say but also consulting some of the many books and sources which she refers to
in each chapter. When I was a teenager some slightly disreputable booksellers
sold line-by-line translations of Latin and Greek texts and brief summaries of the
books we were supposed to study. These could be used by lazy students to avoid
the work they were supposed to do for themselves. There is a danger that the
present book could be used in somewhat the same way by students or interested
readers. So they would be allowing Professor Deane-Drummond to do all the
work of critical evaluation of the many authors whose work she summarizes. The
result could be the very opposite of what the author would wish. The readers
would gain a rather superficial familiarity with the many topics she covers but
would not have taken time to really ‘let it in’ and to reflect on all the implications
of the material she covers in the book. It is evident that she wants to avoid this
kind of short-cutting by students and other readers, because she provides lists
of books and articles for further study at the end of each chapter and, towards
the end of the book, she devotes three pages to offering sets of questions for
discussion in relation to each of her chapters.
There are 34 pages of useful endnotes in the book. What a pity that these
notes did not take the form of footnotes. I found it quite irritating to have to turn
so frequently to the end of the book to consult the notes.
Following on from these remarks about the book in general I now go on to
comment briefly on some of the topics covered in individual chapters. There is a
treasure-trove of useful information on ecological issues in the first chapter.
There are also plenty of references to sources for more detailed background on
the dozens of problems she treats—for instance, how oceans could change from
being carbon ‘sinks’ to carbon emitters (p. 5), and how a tenfold increase in
pesticides has not reduced the loss of crops to pests (p. 11). The author also has
interesting comments on the difficulty of moving from factual knowledge of how
ecosystems work to value-judgements about how we ought to behave (p. 12).
‘Economics and environmental justice’ is the topic in the second chapter.
Especially useful here is Professor Deane-Drummond’s account of the problems
associated with genetic modification of organisms and her treatment of the issue
of the patenting of life-forms. Towards the end of this chapter she offers an
interesting evaluation of the two major theories of justice—that of John Rawls
and that of Amartya Sen.
The origins and development of ‘Deep Ecology’ is dealt with helpfully in
the third chapter. Here and in later chapters there are short summaries of the
views of the main authors in the various fields she surveys—for instance, in this
chapter the views of Teilhard de Chardin and Thomas Berry. In doing this
Deane-Drummond shows that she is a very good teacher. The corresponding
disadvantage is that these authors, or their committed disciples, may feel that
her summaries and especially her brief critiques of their positions do not do
always do full justice to the views of the authors she summarizes.
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Her next topic is the relationship between ecological theology and
liberationist and indigenous theologies, including a rather brief treatment of the
work of Sean McDonagh. In chapter 5 she focuses on the approach of the
Eastern Orthodox where liturgy has a central role. Here too she introduces the
ideas of Divine Sophia and creaturely sophia, which seem to be central to her
own approach. I found the material in the following chapter quite dense, perhaps
because some of it is a condensed version of a more extended study published
elsewhere by the author.
The treatment of the biblical material in Chapter 7 is very helpful and
practical—and at times quite inspiring. She offers a rich and satisfying response
to the common accusation that the command in Genesis to ‘subdue’ the earth
gives rise to an exploitative attitude. Particularly interesting is her suggestion
that chapters 38 to 41 of the Book of Job indicate that the Earth has an intrinsic
value quite independent of humans (p. 86). I also like her idea that the Wisdom
books provide a link between the vertical and the horizontal strands in an
ecological theology (p. 93). A further valuable point is her insistence that God’s
‘rest’ on the seventh day of creation is not something passive but rather an
active appreciation of the earth not just as ‘good’ but also as ‘holy’ (p. 96).
The first few pages of Chapter 8 on Christology are very interesting and
helpful. Then she goes into a rather more detailed account and critique of the
views of Matthew Fox, Teilhard de Chardin, Jürgen Moltmann, and others; I
found this material rather heavy. But I found the final few pages of this chapter
quite valuable—especially her account of how Colossians 1:13-22 shows that all
of creation is caught up in both the creative and redemptive work of Christ as
the incarnate Wisdom (pp. 111-2).
Theodicy is the topic in Chapter 9. Here the author bravely faces the really
difficult issues about evil in the human and non-human world—and bravely
admits that there is no fully satisfying answer. One particularly helpful point is
her suggestion that in between physical evil and moral evil we should add a third
category, namely, anthropogenic evil, that is, evil caused by humans but
suffered in the non-human world e.g. industrial pollutants which have
devastating impacts on other species (p. 116). Also helpful is her remark that
‘an empathetic God is not necessarily the same as a suffering God’; and her
suggestion that ‘perhaps the pain that humanity experiences in witnessing the
suffering of other species is in a sense a sharing in Divine compassion’ (p. 122).
In the final four pages of this chapter she proposes her concept of ‘shadow
sophia’. I sense that, in a book of this type, she is reluctant to devote a lot of
space to her own view, and the result is that it is not spelled out in adequate
detail.
‘Ecology and Spirit’ is the title of Chapter 10. Here we find more of the
author’s own views. She gives a cosmic role to the Spirit as well as to the Word
and links both of them to Wisdom. The eleventh chapter, dealing with ecofeminist theology is one of the more difficult chapters in the book but also one of
the more valuable. It offers a way through the bewildering variety of approaches
by feminist writers who link ecological and feminist theology. Some of these
authors use goddess language and several make use of the notion of Gaia in one
way or another. Professor Deane-Drummond is quite critical of much of the
writing in this area. In this chapter, as elsewhere in the book, she offers a
thoroughly orthodox Christian theology, solidly rooted in the bible, while at the
same time offering a feminist corrective to traditional theological language. But
in this chapter I found myself getting rather lost in the detail of her analysis and
critique of the views of other authors. Furthermore, I found her account of the
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role of Sophia somewhat truncated and allusive—which is quite understandable
since she was attempting to summarize the much more extended account of this
topic which she has published previously.
Eco-eschatology is the difficult topic dealt with in the final chapter. She is
(rightly) more reticent about what it involves than are several of the authors
(including Hans Urs von Balthazar, Jürgen Moltmann, and John Haught) whose
views she summarizes and critiques. Being not only solidly orthodox but also
eminently sensible she is inclined to agree with those who maintain that in the
renewed creation God will not feel it necessary to resurrect every mosquito that
ever lived. She thinks it sufficient that creatures with little or no selfconsciousness be ‘inscribed’ in the memory of God. For myself, I prefer to be
even more agnostic than she is on the whole question of what the new creation
will look like. Nevertheless, I found it useful to have her lead me through this
speculative territory. Not because it gave me a clearer sense of what the final
fulfilment of our world will look like, but because it made me more aware of the
mystery that is God’s relationship with our world, and of the gift of faith that
invites me to hold on in the face of this mystery.
Having been led by the author through such an extended exploration of
difficult theological topics I found myself comforted by the final paragraph of her
postscript. There she stresses the importance of a spirit of contemplation
nourished by spending time in the natural world.
My overall impression of the book is that it provides us with a quite
detailed map of the territory of eco-theology which we may wish to explore—and
also with a reliable compass to guide us on this journey of exploration. But I
remind myself that a map and a compass, however useful, are not a substitute
for a personal journey through the territory. And what better place to begin the
journey, or to continue it, than with some of the other books or articles by
Professor Deane-Drummond which are listed in the bibliography.
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