From the late 1950s to the early 1990s, Iris Murdoch produced her own unique brand of moral philosophy which offers commentary and insight into the current debate concerning the nature of moral values. Over the years, Murdoch criticised existentialism, behaviourism, linguistic analysis and utilitarianism on the grounds that they present distorted, and at best partial, depictions of the moral life. At the root of her criticisms is the conviction that these views are out of step with experience and are too narrow to account for the reality of moral value as it manifests itself in ordinary life. Today, as the debate regarding the nature of moral values—between the realists and non-cognitivists— becomes more polarised around what have come to be defining issues, such as whether there are moral facts (moral facts being assumed to be analogous to scientific facts), her criticisms and her opposing schema continue to have validity, and offer an alternative approach to moral values and the moral life. Moreover, her philosophy contains elements which could enliven the current debate in both theology and philosophy regarding the nature of moral value.

In the field of theological studies, subdivided specialties have been separated from each other with such a watertight seal that those of us who regret such dissociation might find cause to applaud Mr. G. K. Chesterton’s assessment of what made for his success as a journalist.

As soil organisms, people depend on other soil creatures. Biologist Thomas Lovejoy observed in a recent Reith Lecture, ‘All organisms need to eat. Even green plants which use the energy of the sun have to take in nutrients to live and grow.’ All earth creatures are an interdependent soil, or earth, community. While geological evidence shows that the community flourished before the arrival of humanity, people are not as expendable as ‘ecological age’ gaia gurus would have us believe. For especially through human hands and voices, and through sustainable cultivation, the soil community praises God in an ordered, biodiverse symphony. Sustainable horticulture in and near sustainable settlements provides a foretaste, a sign or parable, of God’s awaited kingdom.