In his work ‘The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis’ Lynn White, Jr. accuses Christianity as the driving theosophy of the degradation and destruction of nature. He readily makes this sentiment apparent as he writes,
“Christianity, in absolute contrast to ancient paganism and Asia’s religions (except, perhaps, Zoroastrianism), not only established a dualism of man and nature but also insisted that it is God’s will that man exploit nature for his proper ends.”
White argues that the Christian movement destroyed animist sentiments towards other forms of life and land, thus rendering the abiotic and biotic communities of the planet dead and available for exploitation. Certainly, these driving moral and philosophical forces underlie our use and abuse of nature. However, White does not provide a substantial example of an alternative theosophical system that regards nature and other living organisms as divine. He mentions Zen Buddhism, but accuses it of being, “deeply conditioned by Asian history as Christianity is by the experience of the West.” White then continues to briefly convey his affinity for Saint Francis of Assisi, going so far as to, “propose Francis as a patron saint for ecologists.” While he intends well, White demolishes the fundamentals of Christianity and leaves the ruins to turn to dust. He does not consider any alternatives to this worldview to the depth that he debunks Christianity.
Since White will not wade into the depths of an ecologically driven spiritual system, I will. The question I propose for this week: What characteristics of a spiritual movement define it as ecologically sound?
I propose pantheism as a theosophical system that embraces ecologically healthy virtues. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines pantheism as: “the view that God is identical with the cosmos, the view that there exists nothing which is outside of God, or else negatively as the rejection of any view that considers God as distinct from the universe.” In this way, pantheism makes sacred the nuclear fusion taking place within the sun as well as the leaf plucked from the nearest tree outside. Since all that is is God, no discrimination between holy and unholy may be made. Identifying the Universe with God means that life on Earth (as far as we know) contains the most amazing complex systems of this holiness. Furthermore, we humans have the capacity to experience this unity and oneness throughout the Universe, identified by Einstein in his article Religion and Science:
“I shall call it cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to elucidate this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it.”
Einstein identified that this experience of unity with the Universe breaks down social and cultural barriers in a human being and that it forces him or her to confront their ultimate origin. Hints of this sentiment also appear in remarks made by astronauts, particularly Edgar Mitchell as he describes his return to Earth:
“Every two minutes, a picture of the Earth, the Moon, and the Sun — a 360-degree panorama of the heavens — appeared in the spacecraft window. And I’d studied astronomy, and I’d studied cosmology, and I fully understood that the molecules in my body and the molecules in my partners’ bodies and the molecules in the spacecraft had been prototyped in this amazing generation of stars — in other words, it was pretty obvious … we’re stardust.”
Pantheism automatically transverses the duality of human and nature forged in so many other religious traditions. With its immediate declaration of Universe as God, this system allows for people to base ethics upon existence itself.