A home for ecology

From the science of Nature to traditions of Wisdom

François Boucher, Evening (Barberini Gallery, Rome, 1764)

In the last post, we looked at the image of the home and the family that dwells there as a model for the relationship between theology and the other academic disciplines. Here, I will attempt to flesh out the idea in more detail for the specific case of the modern scientific discipline of ecology and evolutionary biology (EEB), explaining why this is a particularly promising place to start testing out the proposal.

To do this, I will draw on the work of Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti, professor of fundamental theology at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross. A former astrophysicist, who contributed to one of the first catalogs of galactic radial velocities in the 1980’s, Tanzella-Nitti has dedicated much of his 35-year theological career to the detailed study of the relationship — both actual and ideal — between Catholic theology and scientific culture. What I will describe here is just the tip of the iceberg of the 54 journal articles available for download from his personal website (see also the smaller collection of articles in English), not to mention the Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion and Science that he founded and manages. I will be presenting a synthesis of some of the main ideas that run through his whole corpus, especially from:

• His own commentary on Veritatis Gaudium, which shares much in common with the reading I gave in the last post (though without the poetic imagery)

• An analysis of the re-emergence of the “question of God” from within 20th-century science, focusing on the issue of “semantic excess”

• The course materials for Lectures on Science and Theology, a 12-week class taught in English last semester — especially the slides for lecture 2

Tanzella-Nitti never makes explicit reference to EEB, and prefers to use physics as the paradigmatic dialogue partner, but we will see that his principles apply equally well there — or perhaps even better.

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Theology (theo-logos) means rational discourse about God. If theology is to be relevant for science at all — and especially if it is to act as a “home” — the first requirement is that the notion of God must be intelligible and attractive to the scientist qua scientist. Tanzella-Nitti distinguishes three steps towards this goal:

1. (Need for a home) Consciousness of semantic excess: “meaning” in the object of study that transcends the methods of the scientific discipline.

2. (Possibility of a home for me) Acknowledgment of the breadth of reason: this meaning is (at least in principle) accessible to the human mind.

3. (Theo-logy as viable home) Coherence of the overall aims and results of the discipline with the existence of a universal transcendent ground for reality.

When these three conditions are palpably present within the discipline as a whole, theological discourse can be appreciated as a complementary perspective on the same reality that forms the object of the science, and thus as a potentially valuable partner in the quest for understanding. Here, I will try to show that they are particularly visible within the tradition of ecological theory, providing a natural opening towards a much deeper connection with theology.

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The first step involves a critical reflection on the foundations of the scientific discipline. Tanzella-Nitti argues that every science depends on a transcendent meaning in order to justify its own existence and methods. He distinguishes four indispensable foundations, each of which points to an “external” reality necessary to sustain the enterprise. In the case of ecology, the most relevant are the ontological and the anthropological foundations. The former category responds to the need to determining the basic entities that constitute the object of study: it is impossible to take measurements or formulate theories until one identifies the entities to be measured, whose properties and relations will constitute the content of theory. The latter concerns the motives and aims of the scientific discipline as a human activity. The value-free objectivity that characterizes modern science necessarily prevents it from justifying its own existence. Those who dedicate the time and energy, often at great personal cost, to contribute to scientific progress must always find their motivation “outside” the content of their own theories.

In the case of ecology, the normal motivation for entering the field (especially for those on the empirical side) is a sincere love and appreciation for living things in all their bewildering diversity and interdependence. The general public thinks of ecologists as people who care about the natural world, are committed to the protection of diversity, and oppose the wanton destruction of habitats. But these values are increasingly hard to justify in the face of concrete economic interests, even amidst a broad consensus about them in society as a whole. Far from providing support for these motives, the dominant paradigms in ecological theory tend to present biological diversity as a mystery or paradox, in the face of a default expectation of the eventual dominance of the “fittest” species in each niche. The foundational justification for ecology as a research activity thus seems to transcend the theories and models it currently produces.

This is closely connected to the problem of the ontological foundation. Unlike in physics (at least high-energy physics), where the ontological problem can be ignored or postponed through a rigorous methodological reductionism, the basic entities of ecology are always wholes composed of further parts, whether the entity is an individual organism, a species or a community. And these wholes are themselves always parts of a larger whole, which can only be carved up for analysis thanks to deliberate decisions on the part of the scientist. The only way of avoiding the question of the basis for these decisions is to take refuge in a purely functional foundation, where the entities are chosen solely on the basis of the effectiveness of the resulting model as a means for predictive control of the system. Ideally, in this approach, they would be selected algorithmically, removing the problematic intervention of human agency entirely from the decision. As useful as this approach may be for the initial exploration of a system’s phenomenology and for practical technical applications, it is ultimately unsatisfying as the final answer. Embracing functional optimization as the only means for determining ontology ultimately means accepting a radical form of “instrumentalism” as one’s philosophy of science.

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Once the need for a foundation is recognized, the next step is to consider whether the human mind has other powers, beyond what is deployed within one’s own field of research, by which one might encounter such a foundation. At the end of the day, there are really only two possible answers here, neither of which is comfortable: either one abandons the quest for the foundation and reduces science — and indeed all of human existence — to a game of will to power, or one identifies the foundation in a personal “encounter” with a larger reality. The latter choice is risky, since it implies a surrender of autonomy: this encounter is no longer a detached observation from a safe distance, but rather the recognition of a pre-existing bond that imposes serious demands, requiring the re-orientation of one’s entire life around a new center. It is thus understandable that many academics try to avoid the decision altogether — but this easily gives way to a gradual and unconscious collapse into the hellish logic of the first option.

Ecology has a special status with regard to this question as well, thanks especially to the practice of field work and to the example of the great naturalists who founded the discipline. The simple experience of deliberate immersion in a biome — with its the discomforts, annoyances and breathtaking surprises — is a superb initiation into this “other” way of relating to the world, which opens the possibility of a true foundation. The writings of John Muir provide some brilliant descriptions of this process of initiation, with the resulting intellectual attitude frequently expressed in an explicitly theological key.

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Even if the possibility of this kind of “contact” with a reality that transcends the self is recognized, this does not necessarily guarantee a “home” for the discipline as such. It is equally possible for the individual scientist to acquiesce in a kind of double life: on the one hand one’s professional work as an investigator, and on the other a set of spiritual practices and experiences that provide a sort of extrinsic support structure — supplying motivation and inner solidity, but without entering into any kind of meaningful dialogue with the content of one’s studies. There are some sciences, such as molecular biology, where a crudely atomistic ontology seems essential to the whole research paradigm, and the two-track response might seem the best one can hope for (though even this field is not so “closed” as it might appears). Ecology, however, has a long tradition of a more expansive form of reasoning, which open the door for the scientist qua scientist to find a theological home.

Alexander von Humboldt, widely regarded as one of the founders of ecology as a modern scientific field, framed his whole scientific career explicitly in terms of the quest for insight into the deep structure of the living world as a whole. His magnum opus, aptly entitled Cosmos, begins with a stirring quote from Pliny’s Natural History: “The power and majesty of the nature of things in their every movement cannot be perceived by the one who sees only its parts and fails to embrace the whole with his mind” (Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Book 7, Chapter 1: Naturae vero rerum vis atque majestas in omnibus momentis fide caret, si quis modo partes ejus et non totam complectatur animo). This quest presupposes faith in a universal order at least partially accessible to the human mind, and one that necessarily transcends us, as we ourselves form part of it. It is not surprising, therefore, that von Humboldt received much of his intellectual formation in the company of the Jena Romantics, discussing the character of this transcendent reality and our relation to it with Schiller and Goethe.

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What the Romantics were doing in Jena is already a form of theology in the broad sense, as a serious inquiry into the ultimate principle of all beings, where beauty, truth and goodness are one. In fact, these thinkers frequently drew on theology in the strict sense, the specific academic discipline conducted within a Christian community — specifically on Lutheran theology as practiced in 18th-century Prussia. If we can regard von Humboldt as the founder of ecology as a science, then theology has been its home since the beginning, and can even be called its birthplace.

In this rapid review of Tanzella-Nitti’s three criteria, however, we have not yet dealt with any of the specific characteristics of Christian theology. So far, we can only extract a more generic conclusion: that ecology needs the support of a “wisdom tradition,” and is intrinsically open to such a relationship. Every human culture of sufficient size and longevity has produced a wisdom tradition, a way of life that involves a certain ascetical discipline and that aims at a deeper connection with what the Greeks call the Logos — the universal reason that sustains the cosmos in its harmonious multiplicity. Christian theology is genealogically related to the Babylonian, Egyptian, Hebrew, Greek, and Indian (via Neoplatonism) wisdom traditions, but stands in a peculiar relationship to these traditions that cannot be adequately described in terms of a simple synthesis or evolution. To see what it would mean for theology, in the Christian sense, to be a home for ecology, we need to explore this relationship in more detail — a task that requires a post of its own.