Our secular culture has a confused relationship with nature. We consider the environment a top political and personal priority, obsessing over recycling, endangered species, and rainforests and coral reefs. Yet we also seek to manipulate and overcome nature through technological advancements: transhumanism, transgenderism, genetically modifying food. We condemn plastics as evil, then leverage plastic in our most intimate physical encounters to obstruct the creation of new life. We celebrate everything that is natural and organic, but we call technological control over every aspect of our reproduction a “human right.” Perhaps the fact that we lack a solid philosophical, even theological foundation upon which to create a coherent way to think about creation has something to do with these tensions and incoherencies.
That probably is what St. Thomas Aquinas would say, as Fr. Thomas Joseph White, O.P., argues in one of the essays in his excellent new book Principles of Catholic Theology, Book Three: On God, Trinity, Creation, and Christ. In his discussion of beauty—admittedly a surprising source of reflection for modern debates over the environment—Aquinas presents us with philosophical categories that can help us make better sense of man’s relationship with nature. And, through White’s expert analysis, what we discover is that it is the Christian understanding that best equips man to both protect and cooperate with nature.
In his Summa Theologiae and Commentary on Dionysius’s Divine Names, Aquinas observes three characteristics that define beauty in creatures: the integrity of the form, properties of proportion or harmony, and expressive splendor. Integrity refers to something’s wholeness or perfection, a thing having all proper structure or parts. Proportion or harmony means symmetry and all the parts properly proportionate to one another. Splendor is the radiance of the thing, which entices us to admire and celebrate it. Aquinas argues that these three notions can be applied analogically to speak about the beauty of God, but they also relate to our view of nature.
All created things, whether physical living realities that do not have knowledge (plants), living realities that have sensate knowledge but no rational knowledge or deliberate freedom (non-human animals), or living beings that have both sensate and rational knowledge and deliberate freedom (humans), in some way reflect something unique about the beauty of God. Every created thing exists in a hierarchical, teleological order. Non-living things (rocks, water) create a context or setting in which living things can emerge. Plants, in turn, exist for the sake of animals, and plants and animals exist for the sake of humans. Humans, finally, exist for the sake of life in community with one another and ultimately for God. White explains: “The interdependent hierarchy that emerges from differentiated kinds of beings gives rise to a larger overarching order, one that implies all three notes of beauty.”
An argument appealing to hierarchy probably strikes many as contrary to a fruitful, symbiotic relationship between man and nature. Aren’t hierarchies inherently exploitative and oppressive? White, channeling Aquinas, disagrees. Yes, it’s true that if humans exist at the top of the hierarchy of the natural order, it is legitimate for them to make use of non-living realities and non-human living things for the sake of human flourishing. Humans, after all, have an ontological dignity and nobility that is greater than all other created earthly realities because they possess a rational soul.
To deny the hierarchical differential of human beings in relation to other creatures “does nothing to advance the cause of respect for other forms of life or being,” writes White. This is because humans are best equipped to protect and preserve nature. Endangered species of sharks, for example, do not care about various endangered fish species that are part of their natural diet. They just eat them! Nature, left to itself, is a messy, deadly jungle, defined by natural selection. Only humans, because of their unique capacity for reasoning and empathy, can facilitate harmony and flourishing in our natural hierarchy.
Indeed, White argues, humans are uniquely capable of acknowledging the deeper order and its beauty and can act in ways that respect the integrity, order, and beauty of non-human realities. To wit, it was not until humans began designating species as endangered or creating nature reserves that species had a fighting chance of surviving the often brutal realities of the natural order. It’s worth remembering that there have been entire epochs of pre-human history in which large numbers of species went extinct, with no one there to mourn their departure. Humans alone express any interest in the Mesozoic Era, when dinosaurs roamed the earth.
Humans are also singularly positioned to acknowledge the ontological integrity of non-human physical and living beings, because in their being, all those beings reflect something about the wisdom and beauty of God. “Each natural kind stems ultimately from the uncreated Logos of God and is in some way a distinctive finite expression of God’s infinite uncreated beauty,” says White. That means that as humans, we are capable of perceiving the goodness and value of creation—not as callous exploiters, but as prudent stewards. To negligently destroy an ecosystem, for example, is to harm the common good of the created order.
Within the Christian paradigm, non-human creatures exist for human beings—not only to sustain them, but as a mediating entity through which humans can discover God and live in community. Thus, to destroy parts of non-human creation is to harm the same environment intended to sustain the physical, material, intellectual, and spiritual well-being of humanity. Furthermore, to willfully harm the environment disfigures the same people who do that harm. Cruel treatment of animals, for example, not only is dishonoring to the animals, but also harms the rationality of the actor who does the harming by undermining his capability for empathy and kindness. Proper respect for nature engenders a proper respect for other humans as well.
Nor should we forget the aesthetic character of nature, as creation instills in man an admiration of beauty. For example, the careless or callous replacement of the natural order with monotonous, ugly, and even dehumanizing architecture and infrastructure doesn’t just damage creation—it also harms humans, obscuring their ability to see beauty and teaching them that creation is dispensable. “The modern world,” White observes, “is, in many respects, a world of terrific ugliness.” There’s a reason we celebrate parks, gardens, and trees even in dense urban spaces: they remind us of natural hierarchy and are even a manifestation of it.
We have examples aplenty of what happens when we ignore that natural hierarchy. If we treat nature with contempt, we vitiate our own humanity. If we elevate other creatures to be equal to, or even superior to ourselves, we undermine the proper role they are to play, similar to how worshiping a romantic partner, rather than honoring that person, reflects a warping of true love. Our obsessive focus on our pets—projected to be $150 billion this year—in which we treat dogs and cats as humans and even children, while ignoring the immediate needs of real humans and real children, is a good example of this.
“Human beings should acknowledge the order of nature that pre-exists them precisely so as to live in the midst of nature with wisdom and aesthetic moderation,” concludes White. Having the proper philosophical understanding of our relationship with nature, it turns out, doesn’t just help us know and appreciate God. It’s actually the best means of ensuring creation’s survival and flourishing.