Man and nature
This is an excerpt of the book I'm preparing.
Feel free to criticize :)
I think we all recognise how important the concept of stewardship was relatively to the relation between us and the environment. And I consider this as the initial stage of experiencing nature and creation in the sense it is a gift we are invited to welcome and co-create, especially through technology. However, as pointed by theologian John Zizioulas, this has its limitations. Namely, if we are “managing” nature, we risk considering it as object, mitigating its subjective element, and given the transformative character of nature, it is a limitation when we attempt to conserve what is permanently changing. Ultimately, we need a relational model that overcomes these limitations and explores deeper levels of understanding reality, beginning with the notion of ourselves as persons.
Who are we as persons?
Despite being nature, what is our particularity within nature?
The book of Genesis states we are made in God’s image. And in Jesus we realize God as Trinity (Jo 10, 30; 16, 13), therefore, persons-in-communion. Thus, if the image of “-in-” is understood as “-as-”, being an image of God implies we are persons-as-communion. The word communion is the underlying hermeneutical key to understand ourselves, according to the book of Genesis, as having the triple vocation of being: i) called to communion with God; ii) called to communion with others; iii) called to communion with the natural world (see Laudato Si’, 240). But, what are the implications of understanding ourselves “as-communion”?
The first is that we are not self-existing beings, but it is in communion we become at all. Thus, being as communion is not some personal particularity of human beings, but it is constitutive of them. John Zizioulas states (and I agree) our “uniqueness … is established in communion … which renders a particular being unrepeatable as it forms part of a relational existence in which it is indispensable and irreplaceable”. Therefore, while the most commonly accepted modes of relation between man and nature are anthropocentric and biocentric (with all their problematics), or ecocentric (where the whole risks missing from its sight the value of its parts), a communiocentrism is proposed suggesting that we focus our ethics on relations.
A second implication is related with our particularity within nature. If we are persons-as-communion, it means that human action should always be oriented toward becoming who we are, thus, toward establishing ever greater bonds of communion. In fact, this is the underlying reason in a previous work an attempt is made to redefine sustainability as “the result of exercising the ability of establishing bonds of communion between ecosystems, generations and culture, ensuring their capacity to endure”. Because of these bonds of communion emerges human’s creativity that always wishes to make things new. This desire comes from the consciousness of our freedom subjected to its conditions of possibility although we aspire to the absolute freedom characteristic of God. We are finite beings in a finite world with the desire of being infinite beings in an infinite world. And this sensibility to the absolute expressed through creativity is our particularity within nature. But what is a potentiality could easily become a danger if not oriented toward what is good, true and beautiful. This makes ethics of fundamental importance.
In terms of man’s relation with nature, John Zizioulas has been proposing that we experience being “Priests of Creation”, not only in a liturgical sense, but also on an anthropological level. Experiencing ourselves as priests of creation guides our ethics from a managerial approach to a more existential one, which is a major step to understand the ontological side of what it means to preserve nature. In fact, the word “priest” has more a sense of service than a sense of manager, like in stewardship.
What do you think?
Having established this background: what is the path proposed in the Mystery of Jesus-Eucharist and its implications for the understanding and awareness of our role in creation?
