At home in the cosmos

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Title:

At home in the cosmos

Author:

Toolan, David.

ISBN:

9781570753411

Publication Information:

Maryknoll, N.Y. : Orbis Books 2001.

Physical Description:

xiii, 257 p.

Subject Term:

Human ecology -- Religious aspects -- Christianity.

Nature -- Religious aspects.

Ethics.

Religion and science.

Holds:

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Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury)	231.7 TOO	Searching... Unknown

Summary

Brings science and spirituality together to reveal a universe with Christ at the center and an environment caught in the balance.

Author Notes

David Toolan, S.J., is associate editor of America magazine

Publisher's Weekly Review

Toolan, associate editor of America magazine, surveys the rapprochement between religion and science, not for its own sake but to illuminate questions of environmental responsibility: How should we understand humanity's place in the world and our role in valuing and protecting the natural order? In assembling his sources, Toolan draws from an "arcadian tradition" of scientists, theologians and environmental writers for whom science "can only enhance and deepen our understanding and appreciation of the environment." The book's most original material is Toolan's retelling of how religion and science have shaped Western attitudes toward the environment; he gives a more sophisticated account of biblical and classical Christian theologies of nature than is usually reflected in environmentalist rhetoric. Other sections of the book have a recycled flavor, especially those describing "the state of the earth" and the cultural implications of "the new physics," in which everything post-Einsteinian or postmodern is assumed to be on the side of ecovirtue. Toolan speaks as if science itself could serve as a moral compass: "Will we choose to honor the laws of physics or not? That's the moral question of the twenty-first century." Although the book has some appeal as an introductory text in environmental ethics from a religious perspective, introductory students may not be well served by Toolan's quirkily teleological interpretation of Darwinism or sufficiently challenged by his polarized treatment of ecological issues. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Booklist Review

This is in part a rejoinder to Lynn White's still-provocative 1967 article, "The Historical Roots of the Ecological Crisis." Christianity, Toolan maintains, isn't to blame for the ecological crisis. Rather, a way of doing science that is associated with Bacon and Newton and a way of doing economics rooted in the writings of Adam Smith are culpable. Carolyn Merchant articulated this stance some 20 years ago in The Death of Nature, and Toolan doesn't go as far as she in recovering seventeenth-century alternatives to Bacon's vision of science as torture-assisted interrogation of nature. He does, however, give a popular account of post-Einsteinian alternatives. Also of interest is his return to the biblical, particularly Hebrew, vision of God and the world that regards the cosmos as humanity's home and assesses human activity according to how greatly it respects that conception. From that perspective, Toolan challenges both the misanthropy of some radical environmentalism and the gnostic visions of spirit imprisoned in matter that historically have led to devaluation and neglect of the material world. --Steven Schroeder

Library Journal Review

In the contemporary discussion of environmental issues Christians are often the bad guys "speciesists" who are insensitive to all animals other than the human. The Christian's ecological fall from grace is said to have begun with the Book of Genesis, in which the Lord sets humans apart from other creatures, giving humans dominion over the rest of creation. Toolan, associate editor of America magazine, takes a different tact, arguing that, from the beginning, religionists have been as captivated in wonder at the universe as scientists. He suggests that it is Adam Smith (who developed fundamental laws of ecomonics), not Moses (who proclaimed fundamental laws of God), whom we are to understand in getting to the bottom of the modern environmental crisis. Moreover, it is Toolan's conviction that the old science vs. religion dualism has disappeared in post-Einstein epistemology and that science and religion, each from its own perspective, can join forces in appealing to the world community on behalf of the earth. Although Toolan's book gets a bit repetitive in argument and phrase, it ultimately makes a nicely crafted argument that seeking worldwide ecological consensus is one significant area in which science and religion can engage in cooperative enterprise. Recommended for university and seminary libraries. David I. Fulton, Coll. of Saint Elizabeth, Morristown, NJ (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Acknowledgments	p. xiii
Introduction	p. 1
Part I The Biblical Vision of Creation	p. 7
1. Does Yahweh Care about Whales?	p. 9
Is Christianity to Blame for the Problem?	p. 10
New Developments	p. 15
The Priestly "Steward" vs. the Yahwist's "Service" of Nature	p. 17
2. Nature Symbolic of Promise	p. 22
Not Anthropocentrism but Theocentrism	p. 26
Promise and the Land	p. 27
Transcendence and Negation	p. 29
Nature as Sacrament	p. 32
Sacrament as Human Deed	p. 38
Part II The Development of Scientific Materialism	p. 41
3. Imperial Ecology and the Death of Nature	p. 45
Literacy and Detachment from the Earth	p. 46
Imperial Ecology	p. 48
Enter Isaac Newton: The Death of Nature	p. 50
Classical Physics and Economic Materialism	p. 55
The Clockmaker God	p. 57
4. The Competitive Ethos Triumphant	p. 59
How the Industrial World Works	p. 62
Arcadian Ecology	p. 64
The Harsh Lesson of the Galapagos	p. 67
Are Ecologists the Good Guys?	p. 70
Part III State of the Earth	p. 75
5. Is There an Environmental Crisis?	p. 79
The Case against Environmental Hype	p. 80
Reading Earth's Vital Signs: Soil and Food Production, Water, Forests, Biodiversity	p. 84
6. Pushing the Limits	p. 92
Built-in Blindness to Limits	p. 92
Energy Consumption	p. 94
Pollution and Other Garbage	p. 97
Global Warming	p. 98
Preventive Action?	p. 101
7. The Dynamics of Unsustainability	p. 104
Scientific Uncertainty	p. 105
Fitting into the Great Economy	p. 107
Driving Forces behind Environmental Damage	p. 109
Malthusian, Structuralist, and Economistic Arguments	p. 111
The Debate Continues	p. 113
The New Colonialism	p. 116
Sustainable Development vs. Sustainable Communities	p. 119
Civilizing the Global Marketplace	p. 121
Part IV The New Cosmology	p. 127
8. Evolution and Theological Repair	p. 132
Theology in a Static Cosmos	p. 133
Time and the Chancy Universe of the Prophets	p. 135
Hubble's Expanding Universe	p. 137
The Cosmic Clock	p. 139
No God of the Gaps or Big Explainer	p. 144
Christian Spirituality in an Evolving Universe	p. 146
Causality vs. Vision	p. 150
9. A Physics of Promise	p. 156
Cosmic Pessimism	p. 159
Arrows of Time: Darwinian vs. Thermodynamic	p. 164
Open, Nonequilibrium Systems	p. 166
Dissipative Structures and Emergent Complexity	p. 168
The Big Bang and the Anthropic Principle	p. 173
10. The Voice of the Hurricane	p. 178
The Unpredictability and Interconnectedness of Matter-Energy	p. 180
A Semiotic Universe	p. 182
Order Out of Chaos	p. 184
The Anthropological Fallout	p. 186
Part V Earth Ethics: Doing Justice to Creation	p. 193
11. The Fallout for Spirituality	p. 195
A Big Enough God and the Spirituality of Ascent	p. 199
Pneumatology and a Spirituality of Descent	p. 202
Christology and the Dream of Earth	p. 205
Eucharist: Oneness with Earth	p. 210
Converting Matter-Energy into Sacrament	p. 213
12. Citizens of Earth	p. 220
Love of the Wild	p. 223
Extending the Social Contract to Earth	p. 226
What a Sustainable Society Would Look Like	p. 231
The Great Work	p. 236
Appendix A The Relationship between Science and Religion	p. 241
Appendix B The Churches in the Environmental Movement	p. 244
Index	p. 249

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Author Notes

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Booklist Review

Library Journal Review

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