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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
This article introduces Bernard Lonergan to environmental ethics through a conversation with Willis Jenkins. Jenkins represents a ripe dialogue partner for Lonergan because of his attentiveness to methodological questions within environmental ethics, as in his incisive critique of Lynn White's influence. To pursue this conversation, this article examines Jenkins's critique of White and then turns to Lonergan's thought to supplement and refine this critique. From this engagement, the article identifies the need for a “practical cosmology”: an ongoing Christian practice that can affectively motivate care for creation. It proposes that the Christian liturgy, through its rich symbolism and distinct cosmology, offers one such practice and thus can weave that care seamlessly within Christian identity. To test this conclusion, the article briefly considers the import of this conversation for contemporary ecclesial responses to the ecological crisis, such as in Laudato si’.
1 See Dalton, Anne Marie, A Theology for the Earth: The Contributions of Thomas Berry and Bernard Lonergan (Ottawa: University of Ottawa, 1999)Google Scholar; and Gerard Whelan, S.J., “Communitarian Solutions to the Ecological Crisis: Michael Northcott, Bernard Lonergan, and Robert Doran in Dialogue,” in Everything Is Interconnected: Towards a Globalization with a Human Face and an Integral Ecology, eds. Ogbonnaya, Joseph and Briola, Lucas (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University, 2019), 97-116.Google Scholar
2 For a description of “dialectic,” see Lonergan, Bernard J.F., Method in Theology (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972), 235-266.Google Scholar
3 White, Lynn, “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis,” Science 155 (1967): 1203-1207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4 White, “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis,” 1205.
5 White, “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis,” 1205.
6 White, “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis,” 1204-1205.
7 For a critique of White's reading of history, see Whitney, Elspeth, “Lynn White, Ecotheology, and History,” Environmental Ethics 15 (1993): 151-169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a response to White's biblical exegesis, see Clifford, Richard, “Genesis 1-3: Permission to Exploit Nature?”, The Bible Today 26, no. 3 (May 1988): 133-137.Google Scholar
8 Northcott, Michael S., The Environment and Christian Ethics (New York: Cambridge University, 1996).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
9 See Berry, Thomas, “The New Story,” in Teilhard in the 21st Century: The Emerging Spirit of the Earth, eds. Fabel, Arthur and John, Donald St. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2003), 77-88.Google Scholar
10 Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim, Ecology and Religion (Washington, D.C.: Island, 2014), 183.Google Scholar
11 See Stone, Christopher, “Moral Pluralism and the Course of Environmental Ethics,” Environmental Ethics 10, no. 2 (1988): 139-54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
12 Jenkins, Willis, “After Lynn White: Religious Ethics and Environmental Problems,” Journal of Religious Ethics 37, no. 2 (2009): 283-309,CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 291.
13 Jenkins, “After Lynn White,” 291.
14 Jenkins, “After Lynn White,” 292, 297.
15 Jenkins, “After Lynn White,” 299; cf. Boff, Leonardo, Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor, trans. Berryman, Phillip (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1997), esp. 104-114.Google Scholar
16 Jenkins, Willis, The Future of Ethics: Sustainability, Social Justice, and Religious Creativity (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University, 2013), 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
17 Jenkins, Willis, Ecologies of Grace: Environmental Ethics and Christian Theology (New York: Oxford University, 2008), 11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
18 Jenkins, The Future of Ethics, 4, 8. See also Ecologies of Grace, 11.
19 Jenkins, “After Lynn White,” 301-302.
20 Jenkins, Ecologies of Grace, 14.
21 Jenkins, Ecologies of Grace, 16.
22 Jenkins, Ecologies of Grace, 17.
23 Jenkins, Future of Ethics, 11.
24 Jenkins, Future of Ethics, 4, 8; and “After Lynn White,” 296.
25 Jenkins, “After Lynn White,” 304.
26 Lonergan, Bernard J.F., “Letter of Bernard Lonergan to the Reverend Henry Keane, S.J.,” Method: Journal of Lonergan Studies, n.s. 5, no. 2 (Fall 2014): 23-40Google Scholar, at 33. See also Komonchak, Joseph A.. “Lonergan's Early Essays on the Redemption of History,” in Lonergan Workshop 10 (1994): 159-179.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
27 Doran, Robert M., Theology and the Dialectics of History (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1990).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
28 See Briola, Lucas, “Hearing and Answering the One Cry of Earth and Poor: An Integral Ecology, Eucharistic Healing, and the Scale of Values,” in Everything Is Interconnected, 119-131.Google Scholar
29 See Ormerod, Neil and Vanin, Cristina, “Ecological Conversion: What Does it Mean?” Theological Studies 77, no. 2 (2016): 328-352.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
30 Lonergan, Bernard J.F., “The Absence of God in Modern Culture,” in A Second Collection (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1974), 102.Google Scholar
31 See Neil Ormerod, Re-Visioning the Church: An Experiment in Systematic-Historical Ecclesiology (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2014), 78-82; cf. Bernard J.F. Lonergan, “Healing and Creating in History,” in A Third Collection, ed. Frederick Crowe (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1985), 100-109.
32 See Doran, Theology and the Dialectics of History, 94, 208, 395, 403, 410, 416-17, 474.
33 Bernard J.F. Lonergan, “The Subject,” in A Second Collection, 69-75.
34 Bernard J.F. Lonergan, “Insight Revisited,” in A Second Collection, 269.
35 See Lonergan, Bernard J.F., Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan (CWL), vol. 3, eds. Crowe, Frederick E. and Doran, Robert M. (Toronto: University of Toronto, 2005), 570.Google Scholar
36 Lonergan, Insight, 570.
37 Lonergan, Method in Theology, 65.
38 Lonergan, Method in Theology, 64.
39 Lonergan, Method in Theology, 67.
40 Lonergan, “An Interview with Fr. Bernard Lonergan, S.J.,” in A Second Collection, 225.
41 Doran, Theology and the Dialectics of History, 59. See also See Doran, Robert M., Subject and Psyche: Ricoeur, Jung, and the Search for Foundations (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1977)Google Scholar; Psychic Conversion and Theological Foundations (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981)Google Scholar; and Theological Foundations, Volume One: Intentionality and Psyche (Milwaukee: Marquette University, 1995).Google Scholar
42 Doran, Theology and the Dialectics of History, 185, 211, 251.
43 For Lonergan's treatment of “dramatic bias,” see Insight, 214-27.
44 Lonergan, Method in Theology, 267-333.
45 Lonergan, Method in Theology, 105.
46 Lonergan, Insight, 745.
47 See Lonergan, Bernard J.F., The Redemption, CWL 9, trans. Shields, Michael G., eds. Doran, Robert M., Monsour, H. Daniel, and Wilkins, Jeremy D. (Toronto: University of Toronto, 2018), 197, 205.Google Scholar
48 Doran, Theology and the Dialectics of History, 252. See also L, Matthew L.. , Solidarity with Victims: Toward a Theology of Social Transformation (New York: Crossroad, 1982)Google Scholar; and Ward, Kate, “Scotosis and Structural Inequality: The Dangers of Bias in a Globalized Age,” in Everything Is Interconnected, 39-56.Google Scholar
49 Loewe, William P., Lex Crucis: Soteriology and the Stages of Meaning (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2016), 6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
50 Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium [Dogmatic Constitution on the Church], November 21, 1964, §11; and Sacrosanctum Concilium [Dogmatic Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy], December 4, 1963, §14.
51 See “Heaven and Earth Are Full of Your Glory: A United Methodist and Roman Catholic Statement on the Eucharist and Ecology,” United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue, Roman Catholic and U.S. Methodist Church Dialogue Round 7, Origins 41, no. 47 (May 2012).
52 Somplatsky-Jarman, William, Grazer, Walter, and LeQuire, Stan L., “Partnership for the Environment among U.S. Christians: Report from National Partnership for the Environment,” in Christianity and Ecology: Seeking the Well-Being of Earth and Humans, eds. Hessel, Dieter T. and Reuther, Rosemary Radford (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 2000), 581.Google Scholar Grazer similarly stresses the need to embed care for creation “within the spiritual and sacramental context of Catholic theology” (574).
53 Jenkins, Ecologies of Grace, 15-16.
54 Jenkins, The Future of Ethics, 306-316.
55 Jenkins, “After Lynn White,” 302; and Ecologies of Grace, 99-100. See Lathrop, Gordon W., Holy Ground: A Liturgical Cosmology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003)Google Scholar: “Gatherings for worship will certainly imply some cosmology. That is, Christian rituals are also among the human rituals that construct a sense of world. Who and what we pray for, how we image earth and sky and all their creatures, what roles human beings are seen to have, how our social organization is seen to matter, how we share food, where God ‘is’—all these will leave us with a sense of ‘world,’ even if no mention is made of ‘cosmos’” (13).
56 See, e.g., Kenneson, Philip, “Worship, Imagination, and Formation,” in The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics, eds. Hauerwas, Stanley and Wells, Samuel (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004), 53-67, esp. 59-61.Google Scholar
57 Lonergan, Bernard J. F., “The Future of Christianity,” in A Second Collection, 157Google Scholar; and “The Notion of Sacrifice,” Latin text with translation by Michael Shields in Early Latin Theology, CWL 19, eds. Doran, Robert M. and Monsour, H. Daniel (Toronto: University of Toronto, 2011), 29-31Google Scholar, 37. See also Happel, Stephen, “The Sacraments: Symbols That Redirect Our Desires,” in The Desires of the Human Heart: An Introduction to the Theology of Bernard Lonergan, ed. Gregson, Vernon (New York: Paulist, 1988), 237-254Google Scholar; and McMahon, Christopher, “Cruciform Salvation and Emergent Probability: The Liturgical Significance of Lonergan's Precept,” in Approaching the Threshold of Mystery: Liturgical Worlds and Theological Spaces, eds. Geldhof, Joris, Minch, Daniel, and Maine, Trevor (Regensburg: Verlag Friedrich Pustet, 2015), 198-212.Google Scholar
58 Komonchak, Joseph A., Foundations in Ecclesiology (Boston: Boston College, 1995), 185.Google Scholar
59 Irwin, Kevin W., Models of the Eucharist (New York: Paulist, 2005), 41.Google Scholar Emphasis original.
60 Habgood, John, “A Sacramental Approach to Environmental Issues,” in Liberating Life: Contemporary Approaches to Ecological Theology, eds. Birch, Charles, Eakin, William, and McDaniel, Jay B. (New York: Orbis, 1990), 46-53.Google Scholar
61 Irwin, Kevin W., “Sacramentality and the Theology of Creation: A Recovered Paradigm for Sacramental Theology,” Louvain Studies 23 (1998): 159-79, at 175.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
62 See “Heaven and Earth Are Full of Your Glory,” §15-19.
63 As Kevin Irwin states: “The very liturgical use of what has been regarded as central bearers of divine revelation—water and food—may in fact bear the bad news that the goods of this good earth are no longer ‘very good.’ It is hard to sing the praises of ‘brother sun and sister moon’ when one's vision is clouded (literally) by urban pollution and smog” (in “Sacramentality and the Theology of Creation,” 167-168).
64 Jenkins, The Future of Ethics, 309.
65 Lonergan, Bernard J.F., “The Mass and Man,” in Shorter Papers, CWL 20, eds. Croken, Robert C., Doran, Robert M., and Monsour, H. Daniel (Toronto: University of Toronto, 2007), 97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
66 Francis, Laudato Si’ [Encyclical on Care for Our Common Home], May 24, 2015. In text, Laudato si’ will be abbreviated LS.
67 See Jenkins, Willis, “The Mysterious Silence of Mother Earth in Laudato si’,” Journal of Religious Ethics 46, no. 3 (2018): 441-462.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
68 See also Laudato si’, §49.
69 In his official presentation of Laudato si’, Cardinal Peter Turkson (a chief architect of the encyclical) names this feature as “the attitude upon which the entire Encyclical is based, that of prayerful contemplation…” (“Conferenza Stampa per la presentazione della Lettera Enciclica «Laudato si’» del Santo Padre Francesco sulla cura della casa commune: Intervento del Card. Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson,” Bollettino: Sala Stampa della Santa Sede, June 18, 2015, https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2015/06/18/0480/01050.html#eng).
70 Jenkins, “The Mysterious Silence of Mother Earth in Laudato si’,” 448.
71 Jenkins, “The Mysterious Silence of Mother Earth in Laudato si’,” 451.
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