Revisionist Responses

A third set of responses to the allegation of ecological bankruptcy has flourished from a 'vigorous tradition of orthodox but innovative theological reflection about environmental and related existential issues.'^[52] Santmire argues that he and other theologians whose work comes under this revisionist category have wanted to neither abandon nor defend classical Christian theology, but rather to reclaim and re-envision it.^[53]

Santmire's approach has been to return to the history of Christian theological reflection on nature and creation with a critical eye.^[54] He recognises the ambiguous ecological promise of Christian theology: there are the rudiments of a 'rich theology of nature,' but these must be separated from the contradictory or incompatible elements.^[55] He identifies several metaphors that sit within either a spiritual motif (ecologically antithetical and even hostile, the key metaphor being of ascent of the holy mountain) or ecological motif (ecologically compatible, built on metaphors of fecundity and migration to a good land) to assess the Christian theological tradition.^[56] Santmire argues that the question of ecological bankruptcy arises through the 'tendency' of the metaphor of ascent to 'repel' the other two metaphors and for the metaphors of fecundity and migration to a good land to coalesce, through dominant use and habits of thinking in the Western tradition. This has lead to the supremacy of the spiritual motif and consequent alienation of the ecological.^[57]

Santmire proceeds to assess the history of theologies of nature from Augustine to Teillhard de Chardin in the light of these motifs, observing both synthesis and antithesis with an ecological theology.^[58] While each position has much to offer, he argues that the tendency of the spiritual motif to dominate requires that we move 'beyond' in order to appropriate an ecological theology.^[59] Santmire then provides his own theocentric reading of the Bible through the perspective of the ecological motif, indicating, for example, the role of the land in the Old Testament, and the renewal of creation and cosmic lordship of Christ in the New.^[60] For Santmire, this manifests in the life of a 'martyr church' such that we

allow the love of God in Christ Jesus so to pour into our hearts by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that it overflows abundantly, not only to persons, especially those in great need, but also to all the creatures of nature.^[61]

Theology framed by the ecological motif establishes an ethical praxis in co-operation with nature.^[62]

Like Santmire, Moltmann accepts the allegation of ecological destitution albeit with amendments and qualifications, as indicated above. Unlike Santmire, however, Moltmann sees a dearth of material in the Western Christian tradition for responding to the accusation, and instead formulates his own response.^[63] This does not, however, mean that he is a heterodox reconstructionist, as his ecological doctrine of creation stands within orthodox Trinitarian Christianity. But neither is he a conventional apologist. Moltmann offers an innovative revisionist theology of nature.

Moltmann was a prisoner of war in World War II, and his work is infused by both the experience of suffering and the recognition of suffering in others (in this case, the groaning Earth). The question of theodicy is the starting point of Moltmann's theology.^[64] This is as true with his ecological theology as anywhere else: '^[f]aced as we are with the progressive industrial exploitation of nature and its irreparable destruction, what does it mean to say that we believe in God the Creator, and in this world as his creation?'^[65] Moltmann's response is to further develop his social doctrine of the Trinity with specific focus on creation as the home of God. He affirms that the eschatological new creation will be the home of God, but that creatio nova is part of a tripartite, yet coherent whole, process of creation.^[66] God's future inhabitation of creation and the present relationship of God to the world are bound together by the Holy Spirit.^[67]. Through the indwelling of the Spirit, God is in the world and the world is in God. Thus, traditional theology must be revised so that there can no longer be a separation between God and nature.^[68] This allows Moltmann to talk of an 'immanent transcendence' and a 'transcendent immanence' bound together through a social Trinitarian concept of creation.^[69] Moltmann renders a panentheism that he believes does not fall victim to pantheism.^[70] The result is an anthropology in which men and women are neither subsumed nor detached but embedded in the natural world.^[71] This can only happen, he argues, through a theocentric and Trinitarian worldview.^[72] Bouma-Prediger believes that the theocentric approach that Moltmann and Santmire advocate, each in his own manner, offers a more promising approach to a Christian ecological theology than either a cosmocentric (as with the reconstructionists) or an anthropocentric (as with the apologetic response) viewpoint.^[73]

Footnotes