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Theological Foundations for an Ethics of Cosmocentric Transfiguration

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Theological Foundations for an Ethics of Cosmocentric Transfiguration Duquesne University Duquesne Scholarship Collection Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2013 Theological Foundations for an Ethics of Cosmocentric Transfiguration: Navigating the Eco- Theological Poles of Conservation, Transfiguration, Anthropocentrism, and Cosmocentrism with Regard to the Relationship Between Humans and Individual Nonhuman Animals Ryan Patrick McLaughlin Follow this and additional works at: https://dsc.duq.edu/etd Recommended Citation McLaughlin, R. (2013). Theological Foundations for an Ethics of Cosmocentric Transfiguration: Navigating the Eco-Theological Poles of Conservation, Transfiguration, Anthropocentrism, and Cosmocentrism with Regard to the Relationship Between Humans and Individual Nonhuman Animals (Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). Retrieved from https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/913 This Immediate Access is brought to you for free and open access by Duquesne Scholarship Collection. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Duquesne Scholarship Collection. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THEOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS FOR AN ETHICS OF COSMOCENTRIC TRANSFIGURATION: NAVIGATING THE ECO-THEOLOGICAL POLES OF CONSERVATION, TRANSFIGURATION, ANTHROPOCENTRISM, AND COSMOCENTRISM WITH REGARD TO THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HUMANS AND INDIVIDUAL NONHUMAN ANIMALS A Dissertation Submitted to the McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts Duquesne University In partial fulfillment for the requirements of the degree for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Ryan Patrick McLaughlin May 2013 Copyright by Ryan Patrick McLaughlin 2013 THEOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS FOR AN ETHICS OF COSMOCENTRIC TRANSFIGURATION: NAVIGATING THE ECO-THEOLOGICAL POLES OF CONSERVATION, TRANSFIGURATION, ANTHROPOCENTRISM, AND COSMOCENTRISM WITH REGARD TO THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HUMANS AND INDIVIDUAL NONHUMAN ANIMALS By Ryan Patrick McLaughlin Approved March 25, 2013 _______________________________ _______________________________ Daniel Scheid, Ph.D. Anna Floerke Scheid, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Theology Assistant Professor of Theology (Committee Chair) (Committee Member) _______________________________ James Bailey, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Theology (Committee Chair) _______________________________ _______________________________ James C. Swindal, Ph.D. Maureen R. O’Brien, Ph.D. Dean, McAnulty College and Chair, Department of Theology Graduate School of Liberal Arts Professor of Theology Professor of Philosophy iii ABSTRACT THEOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS FOR AN ETHICS OF COSMOCENTRIC TRANSFIGURATION: NAVIGATING THE ECO-THEOLOGICAL POLES OF CONSERVATION, TRANSFIGURATION, ANTHROPOCENTRISM, AND COSMOCENTRISM WITH REGARD TO THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HUMANS AND INDIVIDUAL NONHUMAN ANIMALS By Ryan Patrick McLaughlin May 2013 Dissertation supervised by Daniel Scheid, Ph.D. In the past forty years, there has been an unprecedented explosion of theological writings regarding the place of the nonhuman creation in ethics. The purpose of this dissertation is to propose a taxonomy of four paradigms of eco-theological thought that will categorize these writings and facilitate the identification, situation, and constructive development of the paradigm of cosmocentric transfiguration. This taxonomy takes shape within the tensions of three theological foundations: cosmology, anthropology, and eschatology. These tensions establish two categorical distinctions between, on the one hand, conservation and transfiguration, and, on the other, anthropocentrism and cosmocentrism. The variations within these poles yield the four paradigms. The first paradigm is anthropocentric conservation, represented by Thomas Aquinas. It maintains that humanity bears an essentially unique dignity and iv eschatological telos that renders the nonhuman creation resources for human use in via toward that telos. The second is cosmocentric conservation, represented by Thomas Berry. It maintains that humanity is part of a cosmic community of intrinsic worth that demands protection and preservation, not human manipulation or eschatological redemption. The third is anthropocentric transfiguration, represented by Orthodox theologians such as Dumitru Staniloae. It maintains that humans are priests of creation charged with the task of recognizing the cosmos as the eternal sacrament of divine love and using it to facilitate communion among themselves and with God. The fourth is cosmocentric transfiguration, represented by both Jürgen Moltmann and Andrew Linzey. It maintains that humans are called to become proleptic witnesses to an eschatological hope for peace that includes the intrinsically valuable members of the cosmic community. Cosmocentric transfiguration, while under-represented and underdeveloped, provides a unique opportunity to affirm both scientific claims about the nature of the cosmos and the theological hope for redemption. In addition, it offers a powerful vision to address the current ecological crisis with regard to humanity’s relationship to both individual nonhuman life forms and the cosmos at large. This vision calls for humans to protest the mechanisms of death, suffering, and predation by living at peace, to whatever extent context permits, with all individual creatures while at the same time preserving the very system they protest by protecting the integrity of species, eco-systems, and the environment at large. These findings warrant further research regarding the viability of cosmocentric transfiguration, in particular its exegetical warrant in scripture, its foundations in traditional voices of Christian thought, its interdisciplinary potential for integration of the sciences, and its internal coherency. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to acknowledge the invaluable help of my director, Dr. Daniel Scheid, as well as the consideration of my readers, Dr. Anna Floerke Scheid and Dr. James Bailey. This work was made possible by the generous McAnulty Dissertation Fellowship Award. I personally thank my family and friends, who supported me in this work. A special acknowledgement goes to Melissa McLaughlin, Brenda Colijn, Casey Kustra, Mary Ann McLaughlin, and J. Paul Pepper, for reading sections of this work and contributing to its final form. vi DEDICATION To my wife, Melissa. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract ............................................................................................................................. iv Dedication ......................................................................................................................... vi Acknowledgement ........................................................................................................... vii INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................... 1 SITUATING THE PROJECT ............................................................................................ 3 CLASSIFICATIONS OF ECO-THEOLOGICAL ETHICS .................................................. 3 CLASSIFICATIONS OF ANIMAL ETHICS .................................................................. 13 AIM AND SCOPE OF THIS PROJECT WITHIN THE FIELD OF ECO-THEOLOGICAL ETHICS ...................................................................... 17 THREE THEOLOGICAL DIMENSIONS FOR A NEW TAXONOMY OF ECO- THEOLOGICAL ETHICS ........................................................................................ 18 WHY THESE THEOLOGICAL DIMENSIONS? ............................................................ 18 COSMOLOGY ......................................................................................................... 20 The Goodness of Creation ............................................................................. 22 The Fallenness/Incompleteness of Creation .................................................... 23 ANTHROPOLOGY ................................................................................................... 34 ESCHATOLOGY ...................................................................................................... 42 The Scope of the Eschatological Community ................................................. 42 Eschatology and History ................................................................................ 45 Eschatology and Ethics .................................................................................. 48 viii Continuity and Discontinuity between the Present and the New Creation .... 49 In Sum ............................................................................................................ 50 FUNDAMENTAL TENSIONS AMONG COSMOLOGY, ANTHROPOLOGY, AND ESCHATOLOGY .................................................................................................... 51 ANTHROPOCENTRISM VERSUS COSMOCENTRISM .................................................. 52 Defining the Terms ......................................................................................... 53 Why not Theocentrism? .................................................................................. 58 CONSERVATION VERSUS TRANSFIGURATION ......................................................... 62 FOUR PARADIGMS OF ECO-THEOLOGICAL ETHICS ................................................. 64 THE FOUR PARADIGMS IN OUTLINE ....................................................................... 64 THE PRIMARY UNIT OF MORAL CONSIDERATION: PARTICULAR-CENTRIC VS. GENERAL-CENTRIC ..................................................................................
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