God Is Green. - Review - book review

Commonweal, April 20, 2001 by James E. Huchingson

At Home in the Cosmos
David Toolan
Orbis Books, $25, 257 pp.

David Toolan, S.J., a former book review editor for Commonweal and now an associate editor of America, has written a rich and suggestive book, one with Olympian reach. At Home in the Cosmos brings together a multitude of figures and perspectives taken from physics, ecology, technology, economics, and philosophy and joins them with biblically based theological insights. The aim of the book, he says, "is to 'rethink' and 'refeel' our place within nature and our common destiny with nature as a whole." The emphasis is clearly on rethinking. Each of its five parts is a premise in an extended argument with the conclusion that "The Great Work" of the human species is to enter into a new contract with the earth, pledging to employ our considerable power and knowledge in ways that will restore and even improve upon nature.

In part 1 Toolan first responds nicely to the "dominion" issue in the book of Genesis initially raised by the historian Lynn White Jr. by examining the Priestly and Yahwist strands of authorship woven into the book. The role of "steward" is emphasized in the Priestly narrative, while the Yawhist author prefers the image of the "servant." Both images are required to smooth out the distortions of White's thesis. Toolan then looks for a positive biblical image for our ongoing relation to an evolving cosmos and finds it in "the root metaphor of the promising journey."

Part 2 is an evaluation of the worldview of modern science, especially as it derives from the genius of both Newton and Darwin. Newtonian science led to the model of the cosmos as a dumb and determined machine governed by physical laws that neutralized the importance of time and therefore of history. Darwin gave us a vision of nature as the arena for a continuing struggle in which the survivors are selected without pity, hence robbing us of the comforting "arcadian" interpretation of nature as a peaceful, pastoral Eden. The ideas of Newton and Darwin (along with those of Rene Descartes, Francis Bacon, Adam Smith, and a host of others) gave rise to an "imperial ecology" that effectively devalued the world, contributed to the harsh ideology of industrialization, and redefined God as a pale cosmic clockmaker suffering from excessive transcendence.

All this is just half the story. In part 3 Toolan assesses "The State of the Earth," by first asking the question "Is there an environmental crisis?" His answer is "Yes." He continues by addressing the larger questions of the limits of the tolerant global ecosystem for our profligate behavior based on notions of an unlimited resource base, an infinite capacity of the sky and earth to absorb the garbage of a burgeoning world population, and the imperative of endless economic growth.

If modern science provided the philosophical grounding for this unsustainable material growth, do the new sciences of complexity, chaos theory, holistic ecology, and self-organizing systems recommend a different cosmology that is more hospitable to nature? Toolan certainly believes so. In part 4, he argues as much and then weaves theological notions into the suggestions provided by these new sciences. He skillfully combines the sense of divine transcendence in the future as promise (the major theme of the theology of hope) with a vision of the cosmos as fluid rather than fixed, open rather than closed to novel developments. Ours is a universe rife with a playful chaos that allows for freedom and creativity in its creatures.

What does all this add up to? By holding the Bible in one hand and a current account of the "new cosmology" revealed by contemporary science in the other, we acquire a new synoptic vision. This is the theme of part 5. The universe is an open system of great promise, "a great experiment, an adventure story." As "citizens of the earth" we are the central characters in this account. Far from being a determined narrative, the cosmic story unfolds in highly unpredictable ways, but the focus is on us. "It is our responsibility...to say what the purpose of the earth shall be." To "do the earth justice" we must make it beautiful.

This is not triumphant anthropocentrism. Granted, our technological prowess places us in the position of being both stewards and servants. But, as creatures who are a part of it all, we are responsible for making sense of a project in which we have this unique and defining role. It is as if the cosmos spawned us from its cacophony, its gracious "noise," to compose a symphony out of the raw material of the discordant notes.

The goal of improving upon nature is laudable, but it would puzzle many environmentalists. Other than achieving a just and sustainable society, what other improvements are envisioned? Toolan appeals to the elemental openness of the universe and says that its purpose is to give rise to a species (ourselves) whose purpose is to propose its purpose! But the material form of this task, its content, remains vague. Perhaps we can resolve the puzzle this way. Nature, on its own, is beautiful, but nature's human component, acting with arrogant independence, befouls the earth. To improve upon nature we must repair ourselves. Then, surely, the inclusive whole of things, nature plus humankind, will be beautiful.