Luciano Valle
Director of the Gregory Bateson Institute
My aim here is look at the subject of ethics, Christianity and vegetarianism
from an Ecosophical point of view. At the end of the twentieth century, Ecosophy
is the cultural movement carrying us towards what the Norwegian philosopher
who founded Ecosophy calls "familiarisation with all surrounding elements".
My contribution, then, will be a philosophical conversation inspired by Ecosophy,
including some thinking points from Christianity re-examined in a critical light.
Christianity has been accused (by Schopenhauer and Nietzsche for example) of
anthropocentrism, colonization of nature, also of being the chief culprit for
man's attitude of dominion and destruction towards nature, and consequently
all life forms including animals.
Let us consider what has been happening around the world in the last 20 years.
Although historically Christianity can be accused of such negative effects,
we can see that a change is taking place if we take a close look at the debates
and theo-philosophical reflections of the last 20 years. We have to be able
to read and interpret the signs of a "Copernican revolution" within
the theo-philosophical concepts of church teaching as a whole and not just Catholicism.
I am referring here to Multmann in Germany, Panicar in Italy and Spain, and
John Paul II's encyclicals and speeches. After 2,000 years of non-recognition,
except by St Francis and a few others, the Pope recognised the dignity of animals
in his 1990 speech "Peace With Creation And The Creator" in which
he says that, "Animals too have a soul."
We have now got to the point of apologizing for our anthropocentric dominion
over animals (Parliament of Religions, New Delhi, 1992), and we are opening
up to a relationship of fraternity towards the world around us, including animals.
This is very important because it means that the moment has arrived for us to
completely reassess the fundamentals of the whole Western philosophical and
ideological structure of the last 2,000 years.
St. Jerome, a vegetarian and very significant figure in the first four centuries
of the Catholic Church, said that the early Church's lack of understanding of
the true Christ figure - Jerome believed Christ could only have been a vegetarian
- comes from a closing of hearts (Letter to Jovian), which in turn comes from
a crisis in fundamental beliefs, "wisdoms".
Today, then, we are facing such a reassessment, and are in a much better position
than the Jewish culture of those times to understand subjects such as word being
made flesh, the role of the economy of Creation, the role of the testimony of
God made man, and the role of the ethics left by this testimony. I'm convinced
we are witnessing an extraordinary event, since we can now reach a much deeper
level of understanding than was possible in the then prevailing culture, which
was a stoic and therefore anthropocentric one.
As we reassess these major areas we rediscover the concept of world. In the
theology of Jewish Creation post-Moses and so of the Second Pact (Solomon 144,
Hosea, Isaiah) it is clear that man is not the lord and master of nature, but
a mere guest in a world in which he must live in a fraternal spirit in a new
pact of alliance. In this context the world is "oikos", a Greek term
which in its most metaphorical sense means "home", not a physical
house but a place of atmosphere, history and spiritual wealth to live in: a
world held together by God's wisdom and love. Christians have forgotten all
this, and this is perhaps the biggest gap of the modern era: the unsuccessful
analysis of this Christological role and the role of the pneumatological Holy
Spirit. Christians have forgotten that the world is part of the love dynamic
of Creation, and that according to the Trinitarian view the world is the expression
of the dialectical relationship of the communication of love and wisdom between
Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The world, therefore, in all its life forms, of
which vegetable, animal and human are the most striking and recognisable, is
the expression of an act of love. ("
By Him were all things created."
Council of Nicaea.) The Creatio Originalis of Genesis is regarded by Christians
as the first creation which sees the coming together of the Trinity, a creation
of relationships, dialectic.
Moreover, from a theological point of view the Incarnation brings God still
closer to the world: the world as God's creature and the Incarnation as a closer
relationship, closer solidarity between God and man, and also between God and
the fibres of matter (atoms, molecules, from the most basic life forms to the
highest). Throughout the Middle Ages Franciscans believed that the Incarnation
was part of the Divine Plan, God's Word operating in the organisation and order
of the world. The Resurrection also should be seen in this light: the whole
world participates in the glory of creation and re-creation. That is why we
talk today about a new creation linked to the Christ event. The Incarnation,
Crucifixion and Resurrection introduce a new stage in the relationship between
God and the world, a stage dominated by "pneuma". As we assess anthropology
and the constitution of man, and questions such as, "Who are we?"
and, "What is our role in the world?" pneuma has supremacy: it means
a man who is no longer carnal, but open to a listening relationship, connected
with all that surrounds him. The life of Christ Himself is nowadays being seen
in this new light. The signs and symbols we see in it are not there by chance,
but are precise choices of civilisation, typical of the Essenes' world, which
was one factor conditioning the Christian message as it came into being, the
other factor being stoicism. God reveals Himself to the little ones, in little
things unnoticed by adults: this is the great subversion of ethics to which
we are called.
Let us consider, for example, the Last Supper, which takes place in a strictly
vegetarian setting - the room belongs to the Essenes, a Jewish vegetarian sect,
the meal consisting of bread and wine). We are taught that our relationship
with the sacred can go beyond the sacrifice known to Mediterranean cultures.
With this supper, Jesus prepares the way out from the violence of the world.
René Gérard, the great French anthropologist, in his writings
on violence and the sacred, maintains, "It was necessary for God made man
to take upon Himself the violence of the world so that from that moment violence
should leave the world," In other words the sacrifice of the innocent lamb
in order that no more lambs should suffer. All this was made necessary by the
arrogance of the human race, anthropocentrism, man having understood "made
in God's image" not in a pneumatological or agapic sense, not in the sense
of the spirit of love, but in the sense of possession. At the beginning of the
modern era, the catholic Descartes would take this idea further. Modern humanism
would declare man owner and master of nature. This is the responsibility of
historical Christianity.
I now move on to the second part of my reflections. Ecosophical thought can
meet Christian testimony. How? The starting point for ecosophical reflection
is the need for a knowledge revolution, a new epistemology. Barbara MacClinton,
Nobel prizewinner for corn genetics, regards young corn plants as "alive",
capable of joy and suffering. She invites us to see things with a different
attitude. St Francis had a great ability to look into things with childish wonder,
what Nietzche called "morning philosophy". This is a valid approach
to the field of knowledge, and not just ethics: it is a way of dealing with
reality on a knowledge level. It is Pascal's "reason as heart", reason
in which elements of intuition (Einstein) and empathy have a primary role. This
represents a revolution in the field of ontology, the way we see what is. We
must understand that all that surrounds us has dignity, both animals and things
(Rilke), we must open up to the mystery of the things around us and to the complexity
of modes of expression of what surrounds us. We cannot limit ourselves to loving
animals only in a paternalistic, anthropocentric way, but must recognise the
dignity of their being, the wealth of their language which we do not understand.
The sense of the message, given also by Jesus, is that of man dissolving in
relationships, even with the "little creatures", opening up to listen
to the language of the world, and becoming a bearer of a message of spirituality
and love for the complexity of the world.
- translations by Hugh Rees, Milan - commissioned by Associazione Vegetariana
Italiana (AVI)