Forrest Clingerman

Reading the Book of Nature: A Hermeneutical Account of Nature for Philosophical Theology

How can we read nature as a revelatory text? This essay argues for a re-opening of the Book of Nature for philosophical theology. I first will summarize the traditional use of the metaphor of the Book of Nature. But this “book” was closed when science discarded the metaphor of divine authorship as unnecessary. We can re-open nature as a text by discovering the textuality of nature, which in turn presents a reemergence of text itself. From this, we can point to a revelatory nature of nature. The import of the text of nature comes from a reflexive, meditative reading, which sees the way in which the world of the text—and simultaneously the world as text—interacts with/as the world of the reader. The world that we encounter through reading is the very world of our existence—we are encountering the world that forms the foundation of the world from which we read.

Playing God: Why religion belongs in the climate engineering debate

Religion will play an important role in public perceptions of geoengineering—the intentional manipulation of the planet’s environment to counteract anthropogenic climate change. Religious leaders and scholars can therefore be valuable contributors to the geoengineering debate that has already begun among scientists, engineers, and policy makers. The authors offer four reasons why religion should be part of this debate: Religion is fundamental to how most human beings and societies understand themselves and their place in the world; religion can both challenge and justify scientific authority; religious narratives and symbols can provide frames for understanding geoengineering; and religion offers vocabulary for moral debate. Scholars of theology, ethics, and religious studies can act as mediators between the scientific and faith communities, providing a critical voice in understanding how religion affects the climate conversation, and in engaging a wider public.

Hope and Fear: The Theological Side of Framing Environmental Change

The public response to climate change highlights a long-standing issue in environmentalism: scientific information, public policy, and individual actions tend to work independently of (and unfortunately often at odds with) one another. Why is this so? In ‘What will it mean to be green?’, Cheryl Hall (2013) highlights research on framing environmental issues to diagnose the root of the problem. She writes, ‘More than anything, what matters is how information is interpreted, what meaning it holds for people’ (Hall, 2013). Scientific literacy and information is not enough; understanding only emerges when a narrative context serves to illuminate meaning. As philosophical hermeneutics suggests, stories matter.What is more, stories are unavoidable—understanding and action both emerge from a horizon of narration. Hall suggests that the problem of effective social actions on climate change is a lack of a multivalent frame—or, perhaps more broadly, a narrative—that conveys gloom and hope, doom and possibility, sacrifice and reward. In other words, she proposes a mediating frame that can bridge limitations of other environmental frames, be it the apocalyptic ‘lifeboat’ or the ecotopia ‘collective’ (Fiskio, 2012). Her mediation takes advantage of hope as an antidote to a discourse of fear, while also providing a realistic acknowledgement of the reality of sacrifice required. This is transformative, because it imagines the world in novel, deeper ways. Hall concludes: ‘There is no dichotomy between acknowledging the need for sacrifice and articulating the rewards such sacrifices can bring’ (Hall, 2013). Yet, as Hall herself notes, all frames are inevitably partial. This is true of Hall’s model, too. Presently, we wish to point out a lacuna in Hall’s model: the identification of a common meaning-structure (the unity) that serves to bridge the differences of these environmental frames. Such a bridge would accept the conflict of these positions and place them into conversation, without suppressing the irresolvable difference. What is necessary is to plot the ‘discordant concordance’ (Ricoeur, 1984) of the environmental narrative. We further argue that such a narrative becomes a theological one, insofar as it correlates environmental frames into theological tensions of reconciling sacrifice and hope, fallibility and redemption.

The ecological pilgrimage of self and community

An important matter related to the task of Christian environmental theology is to ask who is engaged in such a theological journey. The ‘who question’ contextualizes environmental concerns and determines the type of journey the theologian undertakes. First, I suggest the need to address environmental identity – the self-identity as it emerges from narratives of place – in ecotheology. Second, environmental identity suggests the need to reformulate the community of environmental theological reflection.

The Intimate Distance of Herons: Theological Travels through Nature, Place, and Migration

In a theological understanding of nature, what is the significance of herons? This article reflects on the question of herons by first describing how bird migration can be included in a theological approach to nature. To explore the theological meaning of migration, theology must model nature as defined by the idea of ‘emplacement’. Next, it investigates how the migration of herons challenges and complements our sense of dwelling by detailing the different ways that herons are emplaced as migratory birds. It concludes by offering three insights into the place of herons in a philosophical theology of nature. First, migrating herons and other non-human animals penetrate into nature as both radically particular creatures and anonymously general ones. Second, herons push us to understand the theological meaning of the otherness of Otherness. Third, non-human animals remind us to move beyond solipsistic views of our emplacement. Together with a general description of the elements of emplacement that are added by the migration of herons, we see how we are theologically influenced by the ‘intimate distance’ of herons.

‘More than an Idea or a Norm’: Religion, Justice, and Practicality in Dialog with the Tollgate Principles

In ‘The Tollgate Principles for the Governance of Geoengineering’, Stephen M. Gardiner and Augustin Fragniere develop a holistic framework for geoengineering governance, pointing out the importance...

Place and the Hermeneutics of the Anthropocene

Connecting the Anthropocene to the “spatial turn” in theology, the present essay has two goals. First, departing from more common readings, this essay suggests that “the Anthropocene” is a hermeneutical concept, which serves as an interpretive name for how the contemporary human-environment relationship is materialized and thought. Second, this essay argues that the hermeneutics of the Anthropocene requires a point of mediation found in philosophical readings of human dwelling and the theological desire to find the integrity of place. The meaning of the Anthropocene can be used theologically to expose the contradictions within our imagination of the material location of the human future.

Natural or Political Public Space? Spaces of Interpretation, Environmentalism, and the Sacred Depth

This essay identifies the hermeneutical and theological dimensions of the public square by reflecting on the space between shared interpretations of political and natural places. Approached with an emphasis on the “in-between” of spaces, the public square is seen as “meta-spatial space” that gathers together the spaces inhabited by political and natural communities. The differences between political and natural space are shown, in order to allow complementary hermeneutical lenses to exist between the two levels of space. On the one hand, the political sphere is a metaphorical space in human society, wherein we seek to imagine new possibilities for common life. Here, the community is defined through interpretation of political construction of public space. On the other hand, human existence also includes the literal space of the experience of environments. Next, a hermeneutical complementarity between the political and the natural as dimensions of the meaning of space is suggested. Through this complementarity the public square emerges as a space between spaces. Environmentalism, from the perspective of this view, should interpret how we bring value to the intersubjective places inhabited by humans and the more-than-human world. Finally theological reflection brings coherence to this meta-spatial space of the public square. Religious thought is tasked with transforming the in-between space into a place. The unity of place in the midst of the multiplicity of public and private spaces expresses an encounter with the otherness of the Sacred.