The legacy of Trinitarian cosmology in the Anthropocene

Abstract

If our perception and concept of nature changes, also our image of God and our beliefs will change. Since the 1970s theology and religious studies have established a dynamic field of studies of religion and the environment, and a mobilisation of ecotheology has taken place in academic and pastoral theology as well as in the ecumenical movement. Ongoing discourses on climatic change and the Anthropocene are catalysing this development further. This article explores how the interpretation of late antiquity Cappadocian theology in this context can produce constructive insights for a contemporary reconstruction of late modern belief in the Creator and the tension of creation and salvation.

Notes

1. Bergmann and Eaton, Awareness Matters, 1.

2. Moltmann, God in Creation; Altner, Naturvergessenheit; Liedke, Im Bauch des Fisches.

3. Radford Ruether, Gaia and God; McFague, The Body of God; Halkes, New Creation; Grey, Sacred Longings.

4. Boff, Ecology and Liberation; Bergmann, Geist, der Natur befreit/Creation Set Free.

5. Niles, Resisting; Limouris (ed.), Justice, Peace.

6. Deane-Drummond, A Handbook; Deane-Drummond, Eco-theology; Northcott, The Environment; Northcott, A Political Theology; Scott, Political Theology of Nature.

7. The Forum on Religion and Ecology <http://fore.research.yale.edu/>, The International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture <http://www.religionandnature.com/society/>, The European Forum for the Study of Religion and the Environment <http://www.hf.ntnu.no/relnateur/>, Canadian Forum on Religion and Ecology, Forum On Religion and Ecology <http://artsonline.monash.edu.au/fore/>. Cf. also the Alliance of Religions and Conservation <http://www.arcworld.org/>.

8. Conradie et al. (eds.), Christian Faith.

9. Cf. the volumes of the Religions of the World and Ecology Book Series, edited by Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim and distributed by Harvard University Press, 1997–2004.

10. Cf. The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature.

11. The document from the European Ecumenical Assembly in Basle 1989, Peace with Justice for the Whole Creation is available at: <http://oikoumene.net/eng.home/eng.regional/eng.reg.basel/index.html>.

12. Steffen et al., The Anthropocene.

13. Latour, An Inquiry.

14. Latour, Facing Gaia.

15. Bergmann, Fetishism Revisited.

16. Cf. Duchrow and Hinkelammert, Transcending Greedy Money.

17. Cf. Conradie (ed.), A Mosaic; Conradie (ed.), A Companion; Conradie, Saving the Earth?

18. One of my three Doktorväter, Lars Thunberg (1928–2007), developed a brilliant – and far too little acknowledged – scheme for soteriology that consists of three parts: a) the state where one is in the need of being liberated from something, liberation-from, b) the state of being liberated, liberation-to, and c) the medium of liberation, liberation-through. See Thunberg, “Det saliga bytet”, 12f.

19. The technical term historical doctrine of the Trinity was coined by Jürgen Moltmann and applied to ecotheology in Bergmann, Creation Set Free, 309.

20. “If he who despises the poor provokes the Creator's anger, he honours the Creator who takes care of his creature … you should not believe that the Lord has created the one as poor and the other as rich … because it is not certain that such a difference comes from God. Rather – the scripture wants to tell us – both are in the same way God's creatures, even if their material states differ.” (Oratio 14.36) Gregory's sources are available in the older Patrologiæ cursus completus, Series graecae (PG) 35–38, edited by J.-P. Migne (Paris, 1886), and in the newer Sources Chrétiennes, Paris. For translations into German and English, see the bibliography in Bergmann, Creation Set Free. This text uses the same English translations as that work.

21. Congar, shows how Gregory in Oratio 31.31 unmistakeably rejects any correspondence of the divine monarchy with the earthly realities, and thus any combination of the monarchy of the Emperor with the monarchy of God. Congar, Der politische Monotheismus, 197.

22. See Bergmann, Creation Set Free, note 10, 331f.

23. On the transfiguration of creation, see Theokritoff, Living in God's Creation, 143–153, who also, formulates an aesthetic approach with regard to ecology: “The way we interact with other creatures cannot, however, be reduced simply to a set of ethical principles. Fundamental to our attitude, and therefore our behaviour, is the way we perceive the world around us.” (152f.)

24. See Bergmann, Creation Set Free, note 10, 145. The Ethics of Compassion is also central in contemporary Eastern Christian and Buddhist approaches to environmental theology, ethics and aesthetics. See Yi, Gendered Life.

25. Hauschild, Geist, 196.

26. Tracy, Theological Method.

27. Zizioulas, Being as Communion, 20.

28. On “trans-contextualisation” see Bergmann, God in Context, 49.