“Seeing outer nature this way requires reorientation of inner nature, love ordered through a sacramental form of life, of daily relinquishments and affirmations.”
—Dr. Katharine Bubel, Assistant Professor of English
Many crises originate within humanity’s inner desires.
As the world seeks to address environmental challenges from global disease to climate change, Dr. Katharine Bubel knows that there are human factors at play, foundational dynamics that are both spiritual and philosophical.
To present her case, she draws insights from writers and theologians of the past, including St. Augustine, Rudolf Otto and C.S. Lewis, and uncovers the "spiritual roots of environmental ruin".
Speaking of Lewis, Dr. Bubel writes, “Since values of the heart and mind are, as Lewis writes, ‘springs of human action’ in the world (Abolition 74), it is imperative to include these in our reckoning as we seek to address the ecological predicaments of our time.”
Applying spiritual truth to ecological justice
Dr. Bubel explores the confluence of spiritual truths and ecological justice in her essay, “Daemonic Dread, Libido Dominandi, and Orindate Love: Stances to Nature in Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold.” Her essay is part of a volume of collected works,The Inklings and Culture: A Harvest of Scholarship from the Inklings Institute of Canada.
This volume is co-edited by Trinity Western professors Dr. Monika Hilder, Dr. Sara Pearson and Dr. Laura Van Dyke. It is a celebratory collection representing the work of the Inklings Institute of Canada, and features writings from twenty-seven renowned and emerging scholars.
In her chapter, Dr. Bubel deftly weaves together the thoughts of Augustine, Otto and Lewis to lend theological insight to current ecological challenges.
Building upon the works of these thinkers, she explains how humans share a deep connectedness with the environment, an inter-dependence “not only to other humans, but outwardly, to the divine.”
“In Lewis’s Christian retelling of the myth, we are invited to see that it is for Divine Love’s sake that all things ‘count’…”
Recovery of moral vision
She writes, “…to this we can add the environmentalist insight that hostility often is directed toward non-human others in the interactive ‘web’ of the more-than-human community we call nature.”
Drawing reflections from Lewis’s work in The Abolition of Man, Dr. Bubel observes the ways in which “both human and non-human nature are conceived in an artificially abstract and reductive way.”
When nature is reduced to a resource, “value judgments are suspended and ‘elements’ of the experience repressed, including the sense of the holy.” As a result, “things of the earth are abused, with what is undertaken now in the name of progress.”
Dr. Bubel traces the actions of humanity back to underlying loves and disordered desires, desires that are broken. She writes, “Seeing outer nature this way requires reorientation of inner nature, love ordered through a sacramental form of life, of daily relinquishments and affirmations.”
She concludes with the possibility for humanity to see through the lens of a higher love. She echoes Lewis by saying, “In Lewis’s Christian retelling of the myth, we are invited to see that it is for Divine Love’s sake that all things ‘count’…”
About Trinity Western University
Founded in 1962, Trinity Western University is Canada’s premier Christian liberal arts university dedicated to equipping students to establish meaningful connections between career, life, and the needs of the world. It is a fully accredited research institution offering liberal arts and sciences, as well as professional schools in business, nursing, education, human kinetics, graduate studies, and arts, media, and culture. It has four campuses and locations: Langley, Richmond-Lansdowne, Richmond-Minoru, and Ottawa. TWU emphasizes academic excellence, research, and student engagement in a vital faith community committed to forming leaders to have a transformational impact on culture. Learn more at www.twu.ca or follow us on Twitter @TrinityWestern, on Facebook and LinkedIn.
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