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THEOCENTRIC ETHICS FOR A SECULAR WORLD: Toward a General Application of the Ethical Thought of James M. Gustafson
Aimee Patterson
Faculty of Religious Studies McGill University,
Montreal
February 2005
A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of
Master of Arts
©Aimee Patterson 2005
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract
Acknowledgements
Introduction
The Significance of Description The Anthropocentric Problem The Theocentric Solution
Cha pte rI: THEOCENTRIC THEOLOGY
Theological Context Sources A Sense of the Divine Religious Piety Relating God and Humanity
Cha pte r 2: THEOCENTRIC ETHICS
Ethical Context Basic Questions and Features Theocentric Flourishing Aspects of the Ethical Model Human Agency Ethical Discernment Comparison to Natural Law
Cha pte r 3: SECULAR THEOCENTRISM
Mary Midgley Commonsense Ontology Common Sources Natural Piety The Status of the Divine A Sense of the Sublime
Conclusion
Attitude Toward Nature Theocentric Environmentalism
Bibliography
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A bstract
THEOCENTRIC ETHICS FOR A SECULAR WORLD: Toward a General Application of the Ethical Thought of James M. Gustafson
Aimee Patterson
In order to work toward right relationships among humanity and ail other things, what is reqcired is an ethical theory that concems itself with interests that include but are not limited to the human. James M. Gustafson's theocentric ethics, which centres value on God, can accomplish this in the religious sphere. Gustafson's ethical theory also has the potential to work within nontheistic secularism as a way of consttuing ail things as interrelated· and interdependent. Underlying Gustafson's theology and value theory is a commonsense ontology, which appreciates _ evidences from the sciences, affective orientation, and resembles certain webs of beliefs held by many outside religious communities. In order to illustrate the transition to secular Gustafsonian ethical theory, functional surrogates of theology found in secular philosophy, and particularly in the work of Mary Midgley, are identified. Gustafson's ethical theory is used to identify certain obligations and restrictions with regard to environmental ethics.
UNE MORALE THÉOCENTRIQUE POUR LE MONDE LAÏQUE: Vers une applicatioiq~énérale de la pensée morale de James M. Gustafson
Aimee Patterson
En tentant de parvenir à des bonnes relations entre les humains et toutes autres choses, il nous faut une théorie morale qui traite des intérets qui, pour leur part, ne sont pas exclusifs à l'humain. La théorie morale de James M. Gustafson, qui nomme Dieu comme source de valeur, peut accomplir le susdit dans le domaine religieux. Cette théorie éthique pourrait également functionner à l'intérieur des bomes de la pensée profane et non théiste, comme manière de voir que toute chose est en relation mutuelle. A la base de la théologie et de la théorie de valeur de Gustafson se trouve une ontologie sensée, qui se rend compte des témoignages portés par les sciences et par une orientation affective, et qui ressemble aux croyances de plusieurs qui se trouvent hors de la portée des communautés religieuses. Afin d'illustrer l'acheminement vers une théorie morale et laïque chez Gustafson, on nomme des substituts fonctionnels pour la théologie provenant de la philosophie profane, comme celle qu'on trouve dans l' œuvre de Mary Midgley. La théorie morale de Gustafson est, enfin, employée afin d'identifier quelques obligations et restrictions dans le domaine de la morale écologique.
Acknowledgements
Among those to whom 1 wish to extend my deepest gratitude are the following:
Dr. Lisa H. Sideris, for serving as advisor to my studies and supervisor to this work. She has offered me thorough critiques while also allowing me freedom in composition. She is also responsible for introducing me to Gustafson's work, and for this 1 am truly appreciative.
Luvana DiFrancesco, for answering aIl the questions that come with the administrative process of wriring a thesis.
Paul Robson, for a careful translation of the abstract into French.
Dr. Roy Jeal and Dr. James Read, for their interest in this work, and for comments and conversations that have helped clarify my thoughts.
My parents, George and Holly Patterson, for starting me on this educational joumey, and for being enduring sources of encouragement.
My husband, Philip Read, for praises and challenges that have both supported me where 1 am and led me on to new things. He has taught me much about what is good.
1
Introduction
James M. Gustafson has been called many names. To some he is a heretic.1 To
others he is a revolutionary.2 Whether favourable or unfavourable, he has received much
attention from his coIleagues in theology and ethics. His most important work, Ethics from a
Theocentric Perspective/ has been the subject of two major compilations of scholastic review
and critique, one of which might be considered a companion reader, and has inspired
numerous other independent evaluations, dialogues, and responses.4 Gustafson's original
contributions to the fields of theology and ethics indicate that he is a controversial thinker
very much worthy of study.
In commenting on his program of theocentric ethics, Gustafson lists two convictions
that have motivated him, one religious and the other disciplinary.5 Religiously, he is
influenced by the Reforroed tradition and, in particular, John Calvin, who claimed that it is
God with whom we must deal in every aspect of life. In regard to his method, Gustafson is
persuaded that the basis for theological ethics must be a considered interpretation of God
and God's relationship to aIl things. Accordingly, he stands out from other Christian ethicists
by claiming that humanity, with its needs and interests, is not the centre of ethical concem
because it is not the centre of value. Instead, it is God that grounds all value. For this reason,
other forros of life are not to be put in our service. Gustafson is also theologically distinct
insofar as he rejects the kinds of supematuralism and private revelation often held in
Christianity, commenting that too frequendy theologians are more interested in other
theologians than in God (1: 68). Instead, he adopts Luther's famous dictum, "Let God be
God," and allows this to guide his explanation of "an adequate understanding of human life
in relation to God and for human agency" (1: 184 and 188).
In lifting out the salient characteristics of Gustafson's theological and ethical
program we can come to recognize that his conclusions have much to say regarding the
environmental crisis at hand; theocentrism is a way of turning from our own limited
perspective and regarding larger concems that impact all things. When we consider what is
good, we consider the good of the whole creation. However, environmental accountability is
not a matter only for the Christian church. While Gustafson writes for a Christian audience,
the implications of his ethics refer to issues that aU human agents need to address. We can
de fine our problem, then, as determining how an ethics steeped in theistic belief can both
2
speak to and be used by secular and nontheistic culture. Supported by the clear
understanding, acbieved in our fust two chapters, of how Gustafson fonnulates bis theology
and ethics, we will, in the third chapter, explore the possibility for such a translation. The
root of the method for applying theocenttic ethics in a secular wodd lies in Gustafson's
concept of the "functional surrogates" of religion that exist in philosophy and also in
common secular experience. The constructive element of this work will inc1ude an
examination of the way in wbich secular persons can reorient thett scope to displace
humanity as the centre of value. It will also outline, as an example, the thought of secular
philosopher Mary Midgley, whose conclusions resemble those of Gustafson in no small way.
We choose to engage Midgley because Gustafson draws on her work frequendy within bis
two volumes. Finally, we will examine some of the practical initiatives that theocenttism can
conttibute to the environmental situation, presenting a way to move forward with
theocenttic ethics.
The Significance of Description
Before going on to outline the basic convictions that order Gustafson's thought, it is
appropriate to pause and address the importance he gives to the description or consttual of
life. The opening lines of Ethics from a Theocentric Perspective state, "Every effort to develop a
coherent theology is shaped to some extent by the author's perceptions of the cttcumstances
in bis or her culture and in the churches" (1: 1). Anything that can be said theologically must
come out of a description of human experience. The second volume of this work, wbich
sbifts the focus to ethics, begins with a similar statement, indicating the importance of
description for the fonnation of moral nonns (2: 4). It follows, then, that if one does not
agree with another's interpretation of experience, one may well have difficulties with that
person's theological or philosopbical beliefs and ethical constructions (2: 140). So, to
understand the ethical reasoning of others, and indeed, that of oneself, one must articulate
one's description of experience.
Key to Gustafson's conception of descriptio~ and interpretation is recognizing that
these are only subsequent to actual experience. Description comes out of a reflection on our
experience, but it is the experience that is primary. Theology and ethics, for example, are
constructs that attempt to articulate a perspective of life. Underscoring the ethical
significance of description, Gustafson points out that the capacity to respond to events by
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interpreting them is a uniquely human thing. In experience we respond to an object other
than the self in an effort to attain a more objective perspective (1: 128 and 222). Even when
we respond to ourselves we tend to view ourselves ref1.ectively as an other. Describing our
being, and our capacity for ethical agency, requires that we examine our experience of what
affects us, such as the natural environment, culture, and society. The fact that we exist in the
same natural world allows different groups of humans to relate to each other's experience.
While at one point Gustafson claims that knowledge conditions do indeed differ according
to one's particular tradition or community, he also argues that there are some objective
references that transcend community boundaries (1: 340 and 124). While our experiences are
not the same, there is some common area of reference by which we can relate to one
another.
Whether or not experience is interpreted objectively is another question.6 Gustafson
is not so naïve as to consider the experience and interpretation of an individual or a group to
be neutral or "correct." He recognizes that both our nature and our context affect not only
what we experience but also how we describe that experience (1: 281). For instance, certain
people are more religiously inclined, for various reasons, and will tend to construe
experience accordingly, seeing God where others see only natural forces. Our perspectives
are solidified and perpetuated through a circular pattern of informing between experience
and interpretation (1: 2f). This is not a vicious cycle; rather, it has been described as a
mutually correcting process, since we can recognize when certain negative consequences
arise from our perspective, making it inadequate.7 A second kind of corrective is provided in
the fact that experience is socially tested and generated. While it is possible that experience
can happen privately, it is normally informed by and related through communication within
society (1: 115 and 120). This is exemplified in the development of children, who, if they do
not receive social interaction, can easily become stunted. Experience, then, is an
interdependent phenomenon.
It is also something which, in itself, resists analytic divisions. There may be aesthetic,
religious, and moral elements to a single experience, but such labels are only devices used to
break down and analyze that experience. Experience itself is a unity (1: 116f). Nonetheless,
categories within our description of experience are useful in providing clarity. Gustafson is
very orderly in setting out his own theological description and offers four base points that
make up the requirements for an initial theological and ethical description (2: 143).8
4
Description begins with an interpretation of God and God's relations to or purposes for the
world, particularly with regard to human beings, the interpreters. Following this is a
description of the meaning or significance of human experience, including the arenas of ;
bis tory, culture, society, nature, and activity. Such description must be applicable for both
the individual and collective human groups. At this point we come to an interpretation of
humans as moral agents and a delineation of our capacity to act. Finally, we are able to
interpret how individuals and groups ought to make moral choices and judge actions.
As we turn to Gustafson's own description, we find a matter of great significance in
bis widened vision; what he takes into consideration as being morally significant is
appreciably broader than that of most ethicists. He does not limit the moral to "generic
features of action" but is open to considering other aspects, such as roles and relationsbips
(2: 5). While not concemed with "supematural" consequences of sin, he makes use of the
Calvinist idea of sin as the contraction of the human spirit (1: 304f). Contraction is a turning
in on oneself and leaving behind those that should be of concem. Gustafson wants to return
to a larger vision of the whole of reality, broadening our understanding of value and interest,
and in this way correcting the human fault.
There is a solid point to Gustafson's description, and that is to "make a case for how
some things really and ultimately are" (2: 98). This phrase will become critical to us in our
effort to relate Gustafson's theology to secular thinking. Ethically speaking, if the description
is inappropriate or incomplete, so will be the beliefs and the prescriptions that follow (2: 5).
This leads to the constructive relationship between description and normative statements
that underlies Gustafson's work. Though he does not make use of the concept direcdy, he
refers in a footnote to Morton White's device of "limited corporatism," wbich asserts that
descriptions and normative claims are correlated (cited in 2: 295 n. 13). White's idea is based
on the premise that the ethical agent does not test normative statements discretely but in
conjunction with a larger body of beliefs coming out of the description.9 This description is
restricted to one's own construal of experience, and the oughts that are derived have a
dependence on a fundamental, though dynamic, is. What results is an interdependence of
norms and descriptions with which Gustafson aligns hlmself.10
Thus, the description of experience is important not only because of its relationship
to action. Between experience and activity lies a portrait of how we see the world. For
Gustafson, description "is an articulation of the experience of dependence and
5
interdependence and the ambiguities of our capacity to be self-determining participants."l1 It
is critica~ then, that he offer his own description of the way he perceives contemporary
human society, culture, religion, Christian theology, philosophy, and nature. 1bis serves as a
premise for his thought, giving rise to his interpretation both of what is and what ought to
be.
Humanity's existence, according to Gustafson, consists in being sustained in the
world, being limited by conditions, and being given new possibilities for life (1: 33).
Humanity is radically dependent (1: 282). But humanity is also radically interdependent with
the rest of life. We inhabit a planet that gives us the means to exist and even thrive. Of
course, with other animais, we have a history of developing ways to manipulate the forces
bearing down upon us in our favour (1: 4). Humans are differentiated, however, by a
heightened capacity for agency, or the ability to exercise powers in accordance with purposes
and intentions. We are responsible to contribute to the continuaI ordering of the world:
"Special dominion implies special accountability as much as special value" (1: 109). There is
a kind of responsiveness between humanity and the patterns and processes of life. However,
while we are acquiring an increasing level of impact upon nature, we can never be free of
some form of sustenance external to us because of our requirements for life. Gustafson's
experience is of a power that sustains and limits, causing within him reverence and a
confession: "the chief end of man is to glorify God, to relate to all things in a manner
appropriate to their relations to God, in recognition of the dependence of all things upon
him, and in gratitude for aIl things" (1: 184).12 The proper way of acting, then, is detetmined
by the primary turn of humanity from itself to Gad (1: 308). This daim serves as
Gustafson's principal theological and ethical contribution.
The Anthropocentric Problem
Gustafson's description of what is true about God and humanity leads him to
disapprove of the contracted vision that has deve10ped in western society, both religious and
secular. His program responds to the present major ethical problem as he perceives it: that
of anthropocentrism.
The theology and ethics deve10ped here run counter to the anthropocentrism and the individualism of much of our culture. The basic reasons for tbis are theological; the basic argument is against either overtIy theological arguments that support
6
anthropocentrism and individualism, or against the "functional equivalents" of theology embedded in secular beliefs (2: 310).
In short, we have become self-obsessed, though this has not served us well (1: 110).
Lamenting the esteem given to the Protagoras's sentiment, "Man is the measure of an things," he questions this premise, calling it a very subjective interpretation of what is
objectively good (1: 82). While in the modem age humanity has positioned itself as the
measurer of an things by drawing on the unique capacity to know and evaluate, what we
measure should not necessarily be considered less than human because it is not human.
Anthropocentrism spans three basic levels: a centring on the human race as apart
from other life forms, a centring on particular segments of humanity as apart from other
human groups, and a centring on the self as apart from other humans (1: 309). It denotes
both elitism and egocentrism (1: 190).13 At all three levels there is present a selfish concem
and a notion of isolation. These ideas have obvious problems for ethical valuation, including
the reduction of an things to their utility value to ourselves (2: 283).
At the root of the problem is the fact that in our self-obsession we have altered our
understanding of ourselves with regard to radical dependence and interdependence. The
ability to effect change in our world is a remarkable thing, but it can be destructive to human
and nonhuman life if it is without limitation. While autonomy and freedom are important
aspects of humanity, our need for control and self-sufficiency must be checked. The more
we gain control over our world, the more we find that it still needs to be controlled; human
remedies always create additional problems not anticipated. We have neglected to realize that
"the limits of foreknowledge and of control of consequences have been moved but not
eliminated" (1: 13). Gustafson's keen observation is that this result is opposite to the
Enlightenment intention to gain knowledge (1: 5, 7, and 12). The dubious aim of the
Enlightenment has been the quest to "overcome the uncertainties of being merely human."
On the other hand, Gustafson is not making the argument that humans have only recently
become highly anthropocentric (1: 83). Anthropocentrism has appeared throughout human
history as a way "of denying man's ultimate dependence on a power we cannot control, a
source of goodness we did not and cannot create" (2: 320f).
The alienation from our true human nature has resulted in several effects. Our
human relations, imposed upon by false power structures, are disordered and injustice
prevails as an effect of anthropocentrism. But in addition to this, we have alienated ourselves
7
from what we ought to be by divorcing our identity from other animals. Our
anthropocentric interpretation of humanity has tended to stress those human characteristics
that are unique to us, that make us distinct. They then make up a new conception of
humanity (1: 281). Akin to this has been our separation of humanity from the natural world.
Gustafson would agree with Stephen Toulmin that humans tend to treat the earth, our
home, as a hote1.14 The Cartesian dichotomizing ofhuman reason and physical nature has led
us to believe we can remove ourselves from the problems of the earth, either through
ignoring these problems, or by finding technological solutions to them. What we fail to
realize along either of these two paths is that we cannot avoid participation within the
natural world. The concept of participation will figure highly in Gustafson's ethics and his
outline of the human agent.
Gustafson summarizes the ethos of modern culture as being preoccupied with
technical rationality and scientific ways of thinking, relatively uncritical of technological
advances, encouraging of the "thingification" of persons so that they become means and not
ends in themselves, and obsessed with quantification through cost-benefit analyses (1: 71).
Gustafson certainly does not position himse1f against science or technology, and much ofhis
program is occupied with encouraging theologians to attend to the knowledge available to
them through the sciences. N onethe1ess, he does see problems with the kind of scientism
that has irmpted in the larger cult:w:e: science -Îi a critical activity for understanding the
world, but it is not capable of making humanity omnipotent. Like religion, science is a
historical-cultural movement, and it should not be seen apart from these influences (1: 139).
It is becoming increasingly apparent that buttressing science with the claim that it provides
immutable truth is a mistake.
But it is not the larger culture that Gustafson will primarily address. His mam
concern is with the Christian church and the kind of spiritual anthropocentrism that
Christians exhibit. Anthropocentrism, and even the egocentrism carried with it, is religious as
well as cultural (1: 110 and 2: 307). His initial critique is that Christianity has become
concerned with an individualistic view of human salvation.15 In part, this has been an effort
to assert the instrumentality of Christianity in providing resolution to deep human questions
(1: 26). This has been achieved through the assurance of final restitution, the application of
religion in the political sphere, and the promise of personal salvation:
8
The temptation of religion is always to put the Deity and the forces of religious piety in the service of the itnmediate needs and desires of individuals, small groups, and societies. 1 admit that this has, alas, always and everywhere been the case, and that there are deep roots for this flowering within the biblical tradition itself. Religion is put into the service not of gratitude, reverence, and service to God but of human interests, morally both trivial and serious (1: 25).
This kind of sociological perspective is abhorrent to Gustafson, who considers
religions to be expressions of being affected by others or an Other, rather than institutions
that exist for their utility value (1: 16). When religions begin to appraise themselves
according to instrumentality alone, they neglect their own unique expressions of an
experience of the divine. Considering religions in this way also results in a very narrow
reflection on the world situation. It encourages people to respond only to their own
individual needs, rather than the larger scope of things. This means also that Chris tians have
provided some very questionable resolutions to practical concems oflife in the world (2: 221
and 292 n. 11). Gustafson criticizes them for prematurely dismissing the suffering of
humarÎity and the world, and for going on to express confidence in special divine care:
If God responds to my prayers and desires and is indifferent to the fundamental needs of millions of pers ons in the world, 1 am forced to think critically about the characteristics of God and about the preoccupation with my own desires and needs.16
Like culture, religion has attempted to escape its radical dependence on God. The
Christian strategy has been to "manage and manipulate" God so that divine power works in
human favour (2: 319f). And yet, most theological traditions would consider it blasphemous
to say plainly that God was made for humanity or is now in the service of humanity. At the
root of this discrepancy is a theology that has said too much about God. The epistemological , problem is that God is not an object of study as other things can be studied (1: 32). Neither
can God's purposes be studied or determined. Gustafson prefers to view religion as a
construction built around human experiences of what is beyond the human.17 Taking his cue
from Julian N. Hatti, he refuses to defi.ne theology as a marking down of divine revelation
and instead considers it the activity of relating aIl things to their relations to God (1: 158).
Though most theologians do not pronounce that God was made for humanity,
theologies that say too much end up affirming that God's purposes align with humanity's
good end, which has the same effect (1: 92). For instance, Augustine, Calvin, and Edwards
each pay some attention to life apart from humanity, whether through the consideration of
9
natural law or the majesty of God witnessed in nature. However, each has an
anthropocentric tendency to align God's will with humanity's good, instead of aligning the
human will with God's purposes. While the Reformed tradition considers the goal of
humanity to be the glorification of God, it also shares the God-for-us assumption or the
special providence approach found in Christian social reform movements, exemplified in the
words of Walter Rauschenbusch: "The will of God is identical with the good of mankind"
(quoted in 1: 94). Even neo-orthodoxy, which arose as a reaction against social gospel
humanism, has affirmed the alignment of divine will with human good. Karl Barth, in his
Church Dogmatics, claims boldly that God is for humanity.'8 Ali this, in Gustafson's wry
language, makes for a "happy coincidence" (1: 190). His counter assertion is that while God
is not perceived to be against humanity, any sense in which God is for humanity must be
carefully qualified.
Much of this God-for-us mindset cornes out of the failure of theology to recognize
God's work in nature as well as history. Eschatological theologians, such as Jürgen
Moltmann, display this trend (1: 42 and 49). Gustafson criticizes such theology for ignoring
what the sciences reveal: that there is an impendingfinis that has none of the resolution or
redemption associated with eschatological visions. A second area in which theology neglects
to inform itself scientifically is the place of humans in the will of God. Humanity is often
seen to be the crown of creation, not only because of interpretations of the Genesis creation
stories but also because the redeemer cornes in the form of a human. When the place of
humanity in the world is examined from a scientific perspective, though, it becomes
apparent that a long process has occurred in order to give rise to the required conditions for
human life. This process, Gustafson notes, is far too indirect and inefficient to support the
idea that humanity is the crown or goal of creation (1: 83 and 268). As well, this process
reinforces the fact that humans remain dependent on the larger world; we have not arrived
on our own, nor do we continue to live successfully on our own. This means that "we can be
sure that we are creatures, and that we are not God" (1: 9).
In consequence of this, the modem philosophical ethos a.nd theological assertions
have led to the anthopocentricizing of ethics. Gustafson agrees with Hans Jonas's
observation that ethics has become a human-centred enterprise (1: 81 and 88). Through the
rejection of a divine or objective moral order, ethics has arrived at the solution of utility,
neglecting the fact that our good is interdependent with all other things. This has the
10
character of overlooking a certain truth: "What if there is a deep incongruity between what
we know about nature and the continuities of man with nature on the one hand, and on the
other hand a life-policy of humanizing and personalizing the world?" (1: 266). Gustafson's
conclusion is that our uncurbed and extreme anthropocentrism, while attempting to serve
the interests of humanity, is actually destructive of it. By seeing ourselves in isolation we eut
off our own kinship and life-support (1: 104f).
The Theocentric Solution
The basis of theocentric ethics, then, will be to initiate a reorientation and broaden
our scope of consideration to the whole. In answer to the cultural ethos, theocentrism has
the effect of altering the way we regard ourselves. It also changes the way we understand
science. If we are to be participants in the world, science will no longer be able to hide
behind the labels of objective activity and removed indifference. Rather, scientists will have
to be seen as individuals who are highly involved and interested in the world. .
But most critical for Gustafson is the change theocentrism brings to the Christian
faith. It leads to a profession that human beings exist to serve God, and not the other way
around (2: 322). In this way Gustafson can address an ethical quandary lik.e the Euthyphro
debate--does God love the good because it is good, or is the good made so because it is
loved by God? We often feel uneasy in favouring the former alternative because God does
not always conform to our idea of goodness. Gustafson recontextualizes the debate, defining
the good in a much broader way that is not centred on humanity but on God (1: 89ff). If the
centre of value is God, aU things are good because they are related to God. So he caUs us to
put away the debate and see value relationally, rather than substantively.19
We begin to see that while Gustafson will offer a unique and compelling theological
account, his most profound contribution is his ethics. In displacing the anthropocentric
focus of western ethics he reminds us that moral life is far more complex than it is often
interpreted. In enlarging our scope of ethical vision, we become open to the importance of
relationships outside exclusively human_ ones, and to the whole of life (1: 317). He changes
the very nature of the primary ethical questions, ''What is of value to human beings?" and
"What are the right relations between persons?" by asking, ''What is good for the whole
creation?" and ''What conduct is right for man not only in relation to other human beings
but also in relation to the ordering of the natural and the social worlds?" (1: 88).
11
Theocentrism requires a· conversion not only of perspective but also of action. The
problem with this, of course, is that a process of conversion, of transformation of
perspective, is difficult to achieve within society. Gustafson recognizes that major shifts in
attitude or oudook seldom occur apart from an experience of catastrophe. Theocenttism
may never prevail until it surfaces as a required response to the breakdown of the cutrent
ethos. However, with the increasingly imperilled state of the natural environment, this
catastrophe may be closer than we care to think.
1 Richard A. McCormick, "Gustafson's God: Who? What? Where? (!!,tc.),"JournalojReligious Ethics 13:1 (1985), 64 and 69 andJohn Howard Yoder, ''Theological Revision and the Burden ofParticular Identity," in James M. GusttifSon:r Theocentric Ethics: Interpretations and Assessments, eds. Harlan R. Beckley and Charles M. Swezey (Macon: Mercer University, 1988), 86. 2 Stephen Toulmin, "Nature and Nature's God," JournalojReligious Ethics 13:1 (1985),38. 3 James M. Gustafson, Ethics from a Theocentric Perspective, 2 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1981 and 1984). Hereafter the two volwnes are cited in the text as "1" and "2." 4 See, for example, "Focus on the Ethics of James M. Gustafson," Journal ojReligious Ethics 13:1 (1985): 1-100 and 185-209 and Beckley and Swezey, James M. GusttifSon:r Theocentric Ethics. 5 James M. Gustafson, "Response to Hartt," Soundings 63:4 (Winter 1990), 699. 6 For instance, see Gustafson's recalling of Jonathan Edwards's interpretation of the divine will acting through the collapse of a meeting house in 1: 93f and An Examined Faith: The Grace ojSe!fDoubt (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004), Hf. 7 Margaret A. Farley elaborates on this pragmatic element, calling it a "reality check," in ''The Role of Experience in Moral Discemment," in Christian Ethics: Problems and Prospects, eds. Lisa Sowle Cahill and James F. Childress (Cleveland: Pilgrim, 1996), 138. 8 These are fust outlined in Gustafson's Protestant and Roman Catholic Ethics: Prospects for Rapprochement (Chicago and London: University of Chicago, 1978), 139ff. 9 Morton White, What Is and What Ought to Be Done: An Esst!! on Ethics and Epistemology (New York and Oxford: Oxford University, 1981), 11-23. 10 James M. Gustafson, "A Response to Critics," Journal ojReligious Ethics 13:1 (1985),191. 11 Ibid. 12 Regrettably, much of Gustafson's work makes use of masculine pronouns in reference to hwnanity, an offence he corrects in his more recent publications. 13 See also James M. Gustafson, "AlI Things in Relation to God: An Interview with James M. Gustafson," Second Opinion (March 1991), 88. 14 Stephen Toulmin, The Return to Cosmology: Post modern Science and the Theology ojNature (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California, 1982), 272. 15 James M. Gustafson, Christian Ethics and the Communi!} (philadelphia: Pilgrim, 1971),29. 16 James M. Gustafson, "Alternative Conceptions of God," in The God Who Acts: Philosophical and Theological Explorations, ed. Thomas F. Tracy (University Park: Pennsylvania State University, 1994),70. 17 James M. Gustafson, ''Possibilities and Problems for the Study of Ethics in Religiously Pluralistic Societies," in Culture, Religion and Socie!}: Esst!!s in HonourojRichard W. Tt!!lor, eds. Sarah K. Chatterji and Hunter P. Mabry (Delhi: ISPCK, 1996), 241. For a similar de finition see Gustafson's "Religiosity: An Irritating Necessity," Chrisfiani!y and CnJir (10 July 1961), 126. 18 Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, III/2 (!!,dinburgh, T. and T. Clark, 1960),609. 19 This is a notion he adopts from H. Richard Niebuhr. See Niebuhr's Radical Monotheism and Western Culture (New York: Harper & Row, 1960), 100-113.
12
Chapter 1
THEOCENTRIC THEOLOGY
We commence our outline of Gustafson's theology keeping in mind especially those
aspects that will be important to our constructive task, that of applying theocentric ethics to
secularism. This process must first address the theological context in wbich Gustafson is
situated. This will be followed by a review of the sources he uses, a subject that is vital to
understanding the uniqueness of theocentric theology and ethics. We will then be able to
examine the salient aspects of Gustafson's theology, including the description of God, the
human fault, and the human response to God. Throughout this conversation the idea of
piety, or an orientation toward God, will be present in the background, though it will not be
identified in detail until we outline Gustafson's exposition on the human response. However,
for reasons that will become apparent, it is important to recognize in describing this
empirically driven theology that the essence of the program is an inner disposition that
encourages a response to the divine. Finally, while we will be mindful of the criticisms
Gustafson's theology has received from bis contemporaries, our concem here will not be to
address them all. We will instead examine those that further us along our path by clarifying
Gustafson's thought or indicating room in bis program for further consideration.
Theological Context
Gustafson does theology not so much in order to make a contribution to the
academic field, though bis work does accomplish this, but primarily to make an offering to
the church (2: 290f). As an ethicist, he believes that it is the concemed agent, and not the
moral counsellor, who is responsible for action, and so he wishes to further the capacities for
thought and action within the Christian community.l This being said, he does not provide
the coromunity with a comfortable theology. He has been described as an iconoclast whose
aim is to remove the idols of Christian narcissism in the name of God's sovereignty.2
Gustafson is a reconstructionist, calling himself a "Free Church theologian," who draws
upon but is not confined by traditional symbols and creeds (1: 163). Examining the body of
critical response to Gustafson's work, David Schenck has clarified that Gustafson's theology
13
fits within the historical Christian tradition, though perhaps not the creedal3 He uses first
order theological terms infrequently, and reinterprets symbols such as sin and redemption,
claiming that neither reinterpretation nor revision are novel activities (1: 111, 124, 146f, and
190). Contributing to his idea of Free Church theology is an understanding of the nature of
theological tradition: it is not the stagnant regurgitation of divine words once received; it is
dynamic in its development because it is the articulation of a response to the divine (1: 144)"
Symbols and creeds are developed in particular social and historical climates, and thus must
be reexamined for application in different contexts. A tradition can put forth truths, but
such truths do not have to be complete or even timeless. Looking with fresh eyes at the
tradition today requîtes that additional sources be brought in, including evidence from the
sciences. We will examine the place Gustafson makes for science, which takes on a
correcting role, though not an independently authoritative one. Gustafson's view of tradition
means that his work has a certain appeal to secular readership not found in other Christian
theology. Toulmin even remarks that Gustafson challenges his colleagues by going over their
heads to appeal to a wider circle of reference.5 For these reasons, Gustafson is often seen
apart from the theological community, and even apart from other liberal reconstructionists
such as Gordon Kaufman.
But Gustafson does insist that he works in continuity with Christian theology and,
specifically, with Reformed theology (1: 110f). In fact, both in his life and work he cannot
escape it. Having in mind the corrective relationship between experience and community he
writes, "The religious language and symbols of one's tradition penetrate one's perceptions
both of the meaning of what is seen and one's affective responses" (1: 228). Like most other
theologians, Gustafson affirms dependence on something greater than the self or humanity.
Human finitude, as it relates to lifespan, vision, and agency, is also an important element of
theocentrism. In line with Christian tradition, though somewhat separate from Reformed
determinism, Gustafson includes the theological assertion that humans do have some
capacity to act in the world, and that for this they are accountable to a larger order or
Orderer. Finally, Gustafson warns against the classic faults of pride, sloth, and idolatry, as
weIl as the disordering that is a concem of natural law theory. His primary departure from
Christian theology comes with the fact that he refuses to give a place to the traditional
doctrine of the salvation of humanity or of individuals. Instead, he understands human
salvation to exist in a wider context. Christianity's "warm and friendly deity" is displaced, as
14
is the more retributive side of God. God instead serves as the source of human good,
though God does not serve as its guarantor (2: 40). GeneraIly, Gustafson's theology is
shaped by the doctrine of creation rather than redemption. 1bis shift brings him to focus on
the relationship of God to nature in order to counterbalance the weight usually given to
God's relationship to human history. AlI this has resulted in many critical comments ranging
from the accusation that Gustafson smudges the distinction between God and nature to the
claim that Gustafson's God is insufficient to relate to humans.
While not confining himself to classic construction, Gustafson considers his work to
come out of the Reformed tradition, as the theology of this tradition best describes his
experience (1: 176). He continually draws on Calvin, Edwards, Schleiermacher, and his
mentor, H. Richard Niebuhr. In particular, he wishes to retain three interrelated components
of Reformed theology (1: 163f). Within theology it is this tradition that best emphasizes the
sovereignty of God, and he appropriates this in his outline of the human sense of a powerful
Other. Secondly, Reformed theology demands that piety be central to religious and moral
life. 1bis gives rise to Gustafson's porttayal of affective attitudes of reverence, awe, and
respect that lead to devotion, duties, and responsibilities. FinaIly, the ordering of life and
values in relation to God figures significantly in theocentrism. God requires our activity to
be ordered properly, and humans are to act according to what can be discemed about God's
purposes. For instance, theologians such as Calvin and Edwards considered the chief end of
humanity to be the glory of God and called Christians to order their lives and actions in view
of that (1: 113).
There are also problematic elements within Reformed thought that Gustafson will
attempt to destabilize. These include the anthropomorphism of God, the divine intention
for human well-being, and the emphasis on the predestination of humanity (1: 179ff).
Gustafson perceives such elements to stand in tension with those tenets he affirms, and his
theology seeks to provide resolution to this. He aims to call the Reformed tradition back to
its heart, which is the idea of aIl creation belonging to God. Though few of his colleagues
appreciate Gustafson's approach, Douglas F. Ottati supports him by remarking that
Reformed theology should "continue to insist that aIl of life be reordered in response to the
living God, whose sovereign reign bears aIl things in nature and in history. To do otherwise
would be unReformed."6
15
Sources
Though Gustafson considers aIl traditions to be in a process of development, such
development is shaped by the authority a tradition invests in particular sources (1: 153). As
has been noted in the introduction, human experience is a primary source in Gustafson's
theology, but description of experience goes through a historical and communal correction
process that brings in other sources ofknowledge. Together with these, experience leads to a
description of how things reaIly and ultimately are. John P. Reeder has likened Gustafson's
theocentric program to a raft kept afloat by four barrels, or sources.7 These include human
experience, evidence from the sciences, Christian tradition, and philosophical judgements.
Gustafson continues the analogy by saying that aIl four are needed to keep the raft from
tipping over, though it often is weighed down in favour of one source or another as he
proceeds through his description. These sources, then, interact in ways that give unique
shape to Gustafson's theology. With only these four, though, it is clear that Gustafson leaves
out other &equendy used sources, including revelation as it is classically defined. While
respecting the particular perspectives of traditions, he eschews any private, privileged, or
direct source of theological information that is inaccessible to those outside of a tradition.
God is, in Gustafson's description, experienced only indirecdy through nature, culture,
society, and other arenas (1: 82). He shows sympathy for William James's de finition of
theology as being not a body of knowledge given supematuraIly, but rather a human activity
comprised of "the delineation of an object that is religious" (1: 223). He comments,
Theology is not reflection upon something supematural, as if we could reflect on something that is not in any way related to human experiences. But religion is grounded in experiences of "others": of nature, of human communities, of human creativity and action (1: 134f).
Yet he does not intend to feed into the polarity of reason and revelation. Instead, he
redefines revelation as those insights that come through observation (1: 149). Thus, whether
individuals consider theological statements to be reasoned or revealed, both of these ways of
knowing are dependent upon human experience (1: 147f).
While the source of experience includes the memories of human history, Gustafson
has it as his agenda to displace history as the sole or central realm of God's activity and
reemphasize the place of nature in perceiving the work of God. Underscoring history has the
effect of making humans the focal point, while emphasizing nature does not (1: 48). But
theology, and especially Protestant theology, has often avoided the category of nature out of
16
a fear of falling into pantheism: 'We have a Ptolemaic religion in a Copernican universe;
religion and theology have to do with God in relation to man and history, not so much in
relation to thenatural world" (1: 190). In an effort to buttress the claim that humans are not
the centre of divine concern, Gustafson reclaims nature for God.
We have observed the identity that tradition, as a source, takes on in theocentric
construction; we may also note that Christian philosophical judgements are suhject to the
same critiques. When particularly Christian thought is balanced by the other sources, this has
the effect of excluding aIl precritical notions. However, Christian thought remains an
important source as part of the historical dialogue that shapes experience. A tradition's
symbols contribute to a larger system that endeavours to explain how things really and
ultimatelyare (1: 192ff). Within the umbrel1a of tradition stands the source of scripture, by
which Gustafson's work is informed, though in a heavily qualified way. While scripture and
tradition enlighten our own perspective, and we do weIl to consult them, they have no
independent authority over how Christianity is shaped in the present and future. Gustafson
considers both the scriptural canon and original Christian doctrines to have been influenced
by the Hellenistic culture that served as the context for the earlychurch. He notes that
Christian philosophy and dogma would have developed very differendy had their context
been India.8 Very few theologians, Gustafson recognizes, give credit to the influence of
culture and society upon theology: "Developments which, to me, can be explained as
historically accidentai are to them theologically deterroinative."9
These critiques of tradition arise, in large part, due to the credence Gustafson gives
to scientific ways of knowing, which appeal to his sense of experience. What is given to
humanity are senses that enable us to see, hear, smeIl, touch, and tas te the world, and such
measurements contribute to our description of experience. Theology must not ignore these
ways of knowing, since they shape our daily lives; indeed, scientific understanding and
empirical measurement now tend to deterroine the way western culture defi.nes reality.lO
Since much of what is described in theology regards the penultimate, such as how we relate
to God and God's world in the present, it is appropriate that theology takes scie?ce, which
sets out the accepted method used for measuring penultimate things, into account. l1 On the
other hand, scientific theories and developments do not explain or measure everything in
our experience. We must pause here to note that Gustafson is also interested in providing a
correction to the prevailing attitude of scientism, and he does this by including in experience
17
the sense of piety he understands many humans to have. In our third chapter we will further
examine this critique by highlighting the attack Mary Midgley makes on scientism from a
secular philosopbical perspective. But at this point we wish to concenttate on the credit
Gustafson gives to scientific ways of knowing in order to persuade religiously minded
people. Some of bis critics have charged him with a naïve comprehension and use of the
sciences, accusing him of trusting them unquestioningly.12 However, Gustafson makes no
uncritical reference to the sciences. He recognizes that our scientific knowledge changes over
cime, but also asserts that we continue to have better and better understandings of reality as
we improve our knowledge base (1: 257f and 340). Midgley says that he challenges
theologians to admit, "the facts that 1 accept as the scientific facts are relevant to my
metaphysics and thereby to my ethics.,,13 Practically, this places limits on theology, some of
which have already been realized by the larger theological community. For instance, the
interpretation of the first Genesis creation story as representing a process that took longer
than seven twenty-four hour periods is due, in part, to increased scientific understanding.
The same is true for the growing perception among Christians that such things as suicide or
homosexual activity have natural and not necessarily evil causes (1: 143). However,
Gustafson is vigilant in recognizing that theologians have largely ignored the insights of
science when it comes to considering the place of humanity in creation (1: 90ft).
As has been mentioned, in conttast to the scientific emphasis, Gustafson does not
leave out the invisible or the intangible things that are apparent to many people. What we
believe religiously cannot be detetmined exclusively by science. There are ways of knowing
apart from empirical definition. Gustafson seeks an accommodation between religion and
science in which science limits but does not control the content of theological accounts,
bringing the two to a position· of general congruity (1: 251).14 Contending that our
theological and ethical symbols must be refigured to communicate to our cime and context is
not to say that science absorbs theology. Rather, theology should be constructed with
reference to whatever facts are available to it:
Whether one can sufficiendy back what is saj.d about the Deity on the basis of a variety of evidences adduced from nature and experience remains an open question; efforts to do so, however, are worth the risk, for a vacuous God provides no bearings whatsoever for the conduct of life in the world (1: 62).
While Gustafson introduces a subjective element into theology, at cimes bis raft tips in
favour of the knowledge that comes from empirical observation and the sciences, which are
18
used as guides and limits for it (1: 266). The unity of experience calls us to reject certain
distinctions, such as reason and faith, in order to perceive our different ways of knowing
holistically. In generating this idea, Gustafson draws on Edwards's sketch of the two
faculties of the soul that are held together: the will and the understanding.15 Considering our
emotion or intuition only apart from our reason and will compromises our understanding of
the intettelatedness of these capacities that make up our being. At the level of experience,
these distinctions themselves tend to be false, though in particular cases of interpretation
they have heuristic value (1: 118f). Emotions and affectivity are not nonrational, but they are
unsettled and need to be tempered (1: 199f). Gustafson has some difficulty in providing
adjectives that describe the different nature of the truths discovered through empirical
reason and those through theology. He ends up stating that theology's truth claims are "soft"
in comparison with those of science (1: 260). While his intention is not to make theology a
lesser form of knowledge in comparison with science, he must distinguish between empirical
data and theological truth.
A Sense of the Divine
Of course, Gustafson realizes that even claiming the existence of God is not
scientifically verifiable, though it is a valid possibility in perceiving the creation of all things.
It is through our affectivity that some humans sense or construe a divine or ultimate being
beyond what is empirically known. At this point the theological work is taken up. Gustafson
is careful in using the term mystery to describe God. He is not a mystic, and works within
the categories of the known, rather than the unknown, even though it can be said that what
is known comes out of a variety of ways of knowing:
The sense of the mystery of God is not simply the opaqueness of his reality that cannot be fully penetrated by the human mind but the ineffability of his presence even when he is "known." The mystery of God is not just that there are secrets which people cannot know, that there is something toward which a whole series of investigations point with increasing accuracy as they overcome ignorance, as in the case of knowledge of Saturn or of genes. It is that the reality that is "known" or experienced does not yield the precise formulations that phenomena do. Mystery is not equivalent to unknown or unknowable but rather to known (in the sense of experienced) but not fully describable and explainable (1: 33).
This distinction between mystery and unknown frames Gustafson's concept of religious
piety. It also introduces us to his relationship to metaphysics. Gustafson avoids speculative
19
metaphysical philosophy, a category he considers unknowable, though he does say some
things regarding an epistemology based on a known experience of the world.
As should be clear at this point, Gustafson does not believe the theologian can
assume knowledge from God's point of view; it is simply not possible (2: 146). Ail we can
know of God comes from our perceptions of the world around us, and the continuous
world within us. 1bis is revealing of why he places more emphasis on the doctrine of
creation than redemption, even to the point of being called a religious naturalist.16 Edward
Farley has made the observation that Gustafson presumes his naturalistic ontology to be
self-evident.17 He does not address or explain it discretely but assumes his readers foilow him
in his understanding of the way things reallY and ultimately are. Consequendy, Farley has
labeiled it a "commonsense ontology.,,18 Since Farley's assessment is more explicidy arranged
than our primary source in this case, it is helpful to review his categorization of five elements
within Gustafson's ontology: individuals, contexts or wholes, interaction or participation,
change, and patterns or conditions.19
Gustafson describes individuals as moral agents who can both receive and initia te
action (2: 10). Individuals, however, are part of a whole that serves as a context for actions
and relationships. There are different contextual levels within the whole, including larger
ones, such as an ecosystem, and smailer ones, such as a city. So, people participate in the
world at many levels. The interaction between these wholes causes reciprocal influencing,
and, consequendy, change is effected. Here we arrive at what is meant by the ordering of the
world. 1bis is the most significant aspect of Gustafson's commonsense ontology. Nature,
while relatively stable from a human perspective, is shaped by patterns and processes that
weave the components of life into interdependent relationship. There is not an immutable
order, as naturallaw theory interprets it, but an ordering process, as the sciences confirm (1:
239). In examining other arenas of human experience, Gustafson finds this ordering to be
present in society and culture, as weil (1: 262). The forces that sustain life "change over the
course of human evolution, and of historical, social, cultural, and personal development" (1:
240). It is important to understand that this change is not radical; it is mediated through
patterns and processes which are generally orderly (2: 293). While humans need a certain
level of stability in order to function, we do not aim for stagnation; humans change and
grow. Through patterns and processes God both enables us in our possibilities and places
limitations upon us; what is required is a basic conforming to the existing ordering process.
20
Because of our interdependence with the world, the slightest change at one level causes a
pattern of change that goes out to all other levels. Hence, our capacity for action must be
carefully monitored.
When Gustafson speaks of ordering, however, he does not equate this with
harmonizing. In rus description of the world he notes that the goods we all seek are
incommensurate (1: 95).20 11ris is true not only for humans, but also for all of creation; what
is good for the predator is not good for the prey. Hence, not only do our goods conflict at
present, but there is no possible way of reconciling them all. The fact that a mechanism for
the ordering of the world comes through life forms competing for their respective goods
causes Gustafson to doubt that a harmonious telos is within whatever purposes the creator
mayhave.
ln fact, since a God's-eye view of the whole of things is not possible, Gustafson
cannot articulate a detailed metaphysics of this ordering (1: 308). Since Kant, moral
philosophy has tended to avoid metaphysics, considering it something inaccessible to natural
reason, and Gustafson has no wish to dispute trus or make special daims for biblical
revelation (1: 76 and 2: 97).21 If there is an objective order of things surrounding the patterns
and processes of life, or a detenninative intention behind them, we cannot verify its
existence or nature from our limited perspective. What is observable in the world includes
cultures that are too relative and nature that is too dynamic to support such a construction
(1: 258). Gustafson, then, avoids strict metaphysical argumentation because held up against
scientific reason it is un justifiable. He also admits,
1 am certain that my project would be developed more rigorously if 1 were a better philosopher, but 1 am equally certain that some fundamental assumptions made and defended by many moral philosophers cannot be sustained on the basis of the theology 1 have delineated (2: 4).
Gustafson's program is not empty of philosophy; he does view aIl things as good and the
nature of value as relational. It is simply that rigorous philosoprucal argumentation is not
used as an authenticating source, as might empirical reason. Since rus philosophy must flow
from rus observations of nature, Gustafson's relational metaphysics and commonsense
ontology are necessarily modest and never venture into the speculative. We should make
note, especially in view of applying theocentrism to secular culture, that this treatment of
philosophy has given other theologians cause to view Gustafson's program as moving too
far into secularism and compromising Christian theology.22 Critics might say the only reason
21
one can move from theocentrism to secularism is because theocentrism is very seculat to
begin with.
In fact. much thought has gone into the neglect of this element by Gustafson's
critics. Some go so far as to say the lack of metaphysics undercuts the theological basis of
theocentric ethics.23 Robert Audi, described by Gustafson as his helpful interpreter. has
proposed an amendment to theocentrism that he believes would be congruent with the
objectives of the program.24 Epistemological fallibility is something that should indeed be
admitted, as Gustafson does, but this fallibilism should receive its context from a belief in an
ontological reality, as is the case in naturallaw theory. In other words, Audi proposes that
there is an objective moral order to which we can attempt to align our epistemological
convictions, though it is true that we are not entirely adequate to the task of disceming this
order.25 He presses the point by saying that humanity is approaching the level of univers al
scientific truths, that we are coming closer to a true perception of a realistic ontology, and so
we can also admit some univers al human ideals and moral truths. Thus, science does not
require that we doubt an objective metaphysical reality, as Gustafson would claim. Perhaps
his reason for pursuing this is that Gustafson's aim is to explain how things really and
ultimately are. However, the lack of perception of any objective order of things precludes
hypotheses about it; it is not a gap in our knowledge that willlater be filled in. As we noted
in our introduction, God and God's purposes are not objects of empirical study. If an
objective moral order exists, it is a category that is completely unknown to humanity because
it is not within our experience. What is asserted epistemologically cannot have as its basis
what is unknowable or unexperienced, and so, Gustafson cannot presume an objective
moral order to back up his subjective epistemology. He would prefer to make the assertion
that epistemology is a fallible effort because what is perceived as real and ultimate is not
immutable or objective. This means theocentrism comes to no solid conclusions about the
direction or larger purposes of the patterns and processes of life. Though patterns and
processes are visible, a complete description of them eludes us because of the macroscopic
and microscopic breadth to take in, and because of the dynamic character of life. Even so,
while timeless essence is not something perceived in reality, a general continuity is available
to us, and so we can perceive an ordering that is continuaI and not an immutable or
objective order. If Gustafson were to indicate that our observations of the world, through
experience and science, would eventually come to reveal the existence of an objective moral
22
order, or a telos of alllife, he would be giving in to scientism, or the idea of science being the
way to the perfection of humanity. Science is not the means to human omniscience; it
cannot open us up to categories, like speculative metaphysics, that are not accessible to our
experience. Rather, existence as a whole is a mystery that we perceive but cannot entirely
explain.
By bis own admission, then, Gustafson' s efforts to explain how some things really
and ultimately are is a relative description that can be appropriated or rejected according the
experience and perspective of the reader. He does not posit a description that can be
considered closer to an objective truth than others, though he is persuaded by it and hopes
to persuade others. He admits, frankly, that
experience is deeply informed by traditions, by contemporary events in culture and society, by scientific and other intellectual enterprises of the modern world; one is not talking about ~l sensations. The best one can expect to do is speak honestIy for oneself, with some confidence that one's own experience is not utterly unique but similar to that of a significant number of persons.26
The criticism has been made that Gustafson cannot posit the world as reliable
enough to be the source of a descriptive foundation that teaches how to order lives and
actions, while at the same cime considering the world to be too dynamic for us to conceive
of a teloS.27 On the other hand, it may be possible for the system to be both reliable and
changing, at least from our own time and space limited perspective. Again, there is a
dynamism to the world, but not all is in flux.28 Patterns and processes have consistency along
with a capacity to flow (1: 239). Some things are fundamentally reliable, such as reality being
jointIy sustaining and threatening, and the fact that what is good for one infringes upon what
is good for another. Indeed, over the course of the existence of the human species, many
elements of our observations of the world will not change. However, teleological
implications are not available from such observations, since patterns and processes do not
seem to lead in a single direction. On the other hand, the status of good in nature, wbich
spreads to aU things, does provide us with the moral consideration that our view of what is
good must be expanded, since there is more than one good and all goods are both
interdependent and incommensurate.
This ontology reveals that Gustafson agrees with Calvin's injunction not to seek
God's essence, but to learn what is possible through the observation of God's creation (1:
189). Apart from the problem of metaphysics, the difficulty with constructing the character
23
or identity of God is that this tends to anthropomorphize God: ultimate reality is not
conducive to the categories of classification available to the human mind, and so theology
can never be literal but only metaphorical (1: 32f). Theology must have some content,
though, and Gustafson devdops what he calls a "restricted" theology (1: 195). He is able to
accomplish this by recognizing that God is not completely transcendent but present in the
world. Gustafson defines God as "the power that bears down upon us, sus tains us, sets an
ordering of relationsrups, provides conditions of possibilities for human activity and even a
sense of direction" (1: 264; cf. 2: 293). What he does say of God conforms to what he can
say about nature. He does not advocate pantheism; God is not in everything. However, God
can be consttued as being among everything.
The description of the divine is founded upon God's general benevolence toward
creation, since God is the source of aIl possibilities (1: 202). There are "indicators of the
divine sustenance and govemance discernible in the necessary conditions, the prerequisites
for life" (1: 240).29 But benevolence, like the good, is measured from God's perspective, not
from that of humanity. The idea of general benevolence does not entail particular
beneficence, since God is also the source of alllimitations (1: 272). God both preserves and
destroys. The ordering accomplished through God does not result in balance or harmony, as
Gustafson clearly points out in rus work on environmental ethics.30 The romantic notion of
equilibrium is not a condition he observes in natural or cultural spheres. It is for this. reason
that the idea of telos also is not feasible. The complaint of rus critics is that this results in a
God who does not clearly identify with good over evil, and who is liable to be posited
. h . 31 agamst umaruty.
While Gustafson allows for human anger in reaction to those things that apparently
disorder the order we try to create out of life, he maintains the idea, given rus own
understanding of the Euthyphro debate, that we are to consider God's good as beyond our
inunediate scope (1: 203f). This is evident when we perceive that those occasions wruch
seem to result in disordering, such as a forest lire, are actually part of the ordering of a larger
process. God's good, then, has both positive and negative consequences for us. In
addressing the problem of evil we must not neglect the fact that God is posited as the source
or condition of possibilities, not the direct agent of all actualities. Later, we will explore
further the idea of human as agent, but at this point we must state that God's ordering is
seen in tandem with humanity's contribution to the process. Thus, the cultural conditions
24
that gave birth to the Holocaust were radically dependent upon the possibilities that rose
with God's ordering; more direcdy, though, they were the result of human attempts at
ordering. What this means is that divine ordering must be applied to more than the
flourishing of the life we know; it may also relate to life we do not know, the life apart from
this earth. The good must be considered good from the perspective of the divine, though it
may not always be apparent to US.32 In this way, the theological distinctions between good
and evil are made obsolete.33
Typically in Christian theology God is thought to be a personal agent and is given
specifie tides or roles that oudine this agency, such as king, redeemer, and father. God's
nature is then understood through these roles and activities. But Gustafson rejects the
concept of divine agency for two primary and connected reasons. He must react against the
anthropocentric motivation behind centralizing and divinizing the human capacity for
intention and agency. As weIl, modern scientific naturalism does not support this idea. We
have dealt with much of the content of the second reason, and now we turn to that of the
first. According to Gustafson, God's relationship to us "is not centered on action so much
as on power and order.,,34 Recall the shift from history to nature that Gustafson makes in
understanding God's activity. No other descriptive language or roles are placed upon God in
the definitional sense, though analogies of agency cannot help but surface from cime to cime.
Gustafson develops a theology around the tides of creator, sustainer, governor, judge, and
redeemer. While it is not within our scope to develop each of these here, it should be said
that these tides amount to a very Ioose construction based on traditional Reformed
metaphors for God. Gustafson wams that these should not be mistaken for a humanization
or personalization of the divine. According to his own restrictions, he develops an analogy
of divine agency with circumspection. His primary concern is to avoid a picture of a God
who has intelligence and a will "like but superior to our own" (1: 270).35 He aligns himself
with Tillich in the claim that humans can be personally related to God without conceiving of
God as a person (1: 271). Patterns and processes of interdependence are impersonal, but
many of the beings within them are personal, to one degree or other. Therefore, we have
personal responses to the impersonal powers that sustain us and bear down upon us.
This is quite dissatisfying to Gustafson's critics. Gene Outka and Gordon Kaufman
daim that Gustafson's Reformed metaphors create indications that are too personal for a
nonpersonal God, and that his attempts to remain connected to this tradition only hinder his
25
efforts.36 Altemately, Hartt recogruzes that the verbs Gustafson associates with God's
activity are inherendy suggestive of a process directed to the flourishing of the whole.37 But
Gustafson would find it difficult to make this daim with any certainty for reasons already
evident. We are not given the scope necessary to detetmine the nature of God's purposes.
However, this does bring us to the distinction Gustafson draws between purpose and
intention, a point in rus thought that is, regrettably, underdeveloped. He observes that divine
ordering does not warrant teleological direction: "At most one might say that a 'govemance'
is occur:ring. . . . And it warrants the affinnation within piety that the powers and the
ultimate power are ordering; they are not purely contingent or chaotic" (1: 262). So, when
Gustafson speaks of the purposes of God rus point is not to speculate on God's will. In fact,
rus theology is an attempt to depersonalize the work of God. He does this by oudining a
kind of spectrum between purposes and intention. Humans and other animals can have
purposes, but humans have intentions in a way other animals do not (1: 270). Gustafson is
not comprehensive in explaining what he means by this, but he imparts the affirmation that
humans have a unique capacity for a process of deliberation and reasoning with regard to
means and ends, and a widened sense of the meaning and consequences of certain actions
(1: 286). This distinction means that humans have an ethical responsibility not found among
other forms of life.38 Gustafson's point in dissociating God from intentionality is not to say
that God is not as "evolved" as humanity, though rus critics often lead in this direction.39
Since evolution is not a process that is directed or progressive, but simply one of change and
adaptation, the human trait of rationality is not something ab ove instinct or even
noncognition. Purposes, then, are represented in the nonrational pattems and processes
found in the world, wruch, as Gustafson comments to critics, have the role in rus theology of
indicating the reality of functional interdependence, rather than the promise of a telos.40
However, the problem stillieft, as Audi points out, is that even those life forms that
are limited to purposeful activity have, in some sense, a will.41 If God is considered
purposeful, must God not also then have a will and, consequendy, associated
responsibilities? Again, in response to this we can draw upon what ha.s already been
indicated: if God has a will, its content is inaccessible to human ways of knowing; and if we
can even speculate upon God's responsibilities, we must limit this to an understanding that
what is good is broader than we ourselves are aware. In a transcribed dialogue between
Gustafson and Audi, Gustafson responds that he does not want to lead interpreters of
26
theocentric ethics toward the image of a God who is responsible for every action upon US.42
For instance, if the limb of a tree fails on a person's head, this is not to be seen as an
intended action of God. Motivating Gustafson's approach is a desire to avoid both the
cause-and-effect mechanistic view of God, charactenzed by Edwards, and the immediate
causal agency of a God present in particular events, characterized by Calvin (1: 282). Audi's
solution is to consider God as both an agent and personal, while also setting the divine apart
from humanity in such a way that God is not understood to be simply a more perfect
pers on. What Audi wants to do, and what he believes Gustafson wants to do, is to make
God ultimate without making God an impossible conception. God may be fundamentally
different from us: ccwhereas we know the world through perception, God perhaps knows it
in some direct way; and whereas we control events through the insttumentality of our bodily
movement, God's actions are perhaps ail basic.,,43 However, in defence of Gustafson, we
might remark that whether or not God is like us is not the basic issue; the primary concem is
that we cannot know in what ways God is like or unlike us, and so we cannot create God in
our own unage.
This conversation can benefit from reviewing the way in wruch anthropomorprusm
is used in the sciences. Mary Midgley writes on this point, showing her awareness of the
anthropomorpruc tendencies that work in both theology and the human and animal
sciences.44 However, she views the trend as something positive or, at least, indispensable. Ail
new knowledge is built upon the categories we have created previously, and this foilows
when we regard an object other than ourselves. The self is put in the position of the other in
order to acrueve a basic comprehension of the motives and actions of that other. Thus, if
one did not in some way anthropomorphize nonhuman life ccthen one could not say
anything about the life of animals.,,45 Sciences such as behavioural psychology employa quite
disciplined kind of anthropomorphizing. Human concepts must be used in order to
understand the nonhuman, though it is recognized that this does not entail viewing the value
of the nonhuman in relation to its likeness to humanity. Constructions that are
anthropogenic need not be anthropocentric. Nor does this require _ that we refrain from
recognizing those aspects of nonhuman life that are unlike human life. We are to appreciate
that the categories by wruch we understand and describe our humanity are ultimately
inadequate to describe what is nonhuman. This kind of anthropomorphizing refers, then,
not to the nature of the life fotm itself, but of our perception of it.46 When looking at a dark
27
sky one might describe it as brooding or angry, though it is clear that the sky does not
actually possess these feelings. Therefore, when Gustafson speaks of God's agency,
govemance, or purpose, it might be said that he is using these categories as ways to describe
bis perception of the actions upon him, rather than taking such descriptions to be
ontologically real. Still, he can use them because they are functional and because he
detetmines them to be as close as possible to the truth he can perceive but not describe. So,
while we can say that Gustafson's God is radically Other, this God is not totally alien; after
aIl, humans acquire interpretations of God in relation to God's creation. God's othemess
does not mean that God has no recognition of human distinctiveness. In fact, Gustafson
includes within the purview of God's ordering the domains of culture and society (1: 209-
25). It is just that, as far as we can observe, God does not share in these distinct attributes.
If, Gustafson has written retrospectively, there is any major difficulty that results
from the exclusion of divine agency in theocentrism, it is that this position dis tracts
theologically minded readers from the more important conclusion of relating piety to the
morallife.47 "The basic principle of divine governance at least warrants careful reflection for
purposes of ethics and openness to indicators of what is required from many sources" (1:
189). In recognition of this, we will bring this connection into sharper focus in our second
chapter.
We direct attention now to an apparendy problematic element in Gustafson's
theology, that of monotheism. This is important to discuss not only for its own sake, but
also because Gustafson's conclusions here will prepare us for what might otherwise seem
like a leap he will make in including religious piety among bis theological sources. To begin
by discerning and responding to the patterns and processes of the interdependence of life
and to then go on to discern and respond to a single Other is, admittedly, not a rational
consequence of Gustafson's position (1: 136). His own step toward monotheism comes
from two main sources. First, monotheism is a principle of the Reformed theology that has
shaped ms experience of God. This is compounded by the idea that experience is a unity;
perceiving one God is the best way to express th~ unity among these experiences he senses.
However, neither of these reasons indicates that the move to monotheism is necessary
within theocentrism.
In fact, when we consider Gustafson's sources, we might find it more likely that he
would develop a polytheistic theology. Observing various purposes, powers, patterns, and
28
processes in the world seems to lead naturally to the belie~ in more than one God. Gustafson
adroits this freely, saying, "The problem 1 have shapedis how to account for the experience
of God in and through the particular affective experiences. . . . The empiricism of the
approach leaves, accurately, the impression of pluralism" (1: 226). At the same rime,
theology is more than a linguistic-inteIlectual activity. There are ideas that come not from
logical reason, nor from empirical data, but through the perception of what is unseen:
Arguments are made that do not foIlow the strictest mIes of formallogic but which commend themselves as reasonable ways to deal with the realities of religious life. External observers with sufficient empathy might comprehend the arguments but not be persuaded by them. Their persuasiveness is relative to piety .... [Ibeology] is a knowing activity, though the tests of its validity are not those of solid-state physics (1: 229).
We cao best label Gustafson's monotheism as the perception of a unity of purposes
in the ordering of things, though it must again be emphasized that this unity or order does
not exist for the sake of a projected harmonious end.48 People experience and respond to
many dis crete things and events, but this does not preclude the perception of many that
there is one religious object from which aIl things are derived (1: 206). For this reason,
Christian theologies do not speak of many Gods but of the many roles of God. And so,
Gustafson cao explain, if not justify, his understanding of monotheism by reference to his
tradition. What this means is that he can posit no hard position against polytheism (1: 196).
At this point we can agree with an interpretation offered by William J. Meyer, who
claims that Gustafson assumes H. Richard Niebuhr's distinction between inner and outer
history.49 Outer history is that which is objectively seen by the outsider. This might include
scientific ways of knowing and phenomenal objects. In contrast, inner history is that which
is subjectively experienced by individuals or interpreted by subjective groups. Under this
category sit the church and noumenal objects. Objectively, we can say that the sources of our
affective responses are many, that there are dis crete experiences to which we relate.
However, subjectively, or by interpreting objects and events through inner history, many
claim the perception that behind this nature there is one God. This perception is not proven,
and God can only be claimed as phenomenally real from a confessional perspective-a
"soft" claim, as Gustafson would say. But this claim does stand alongside outer history as a
confessional perspective of piety (1: 120).
29
Though we have not exhausted the subject of Gustafson's sense of the divine, we
have lifted out those elements important to the task of relating theocentrism to secular
philosophy and ethics. Among these are God's ordering, othemess, and oneness. In
addition, we have arrived at a place at which we can make the move to talk about the human
response to God, that of religious piety. The leap to monotheism, which is an unnecessary
but a valid choice, para1lels the leap to piety from religious affections.
Religious Piety
Perhaps we do Gustafson an injustice by neglecting an explanation of piety until this
point. He considers piety to be the primary move and assumption of theology and religion
(1: 61,201, and 25.8). However, throughout our description we have left room for Gustafson
to invite ways of knowing outside the empirical vein of the sciences. The most important
nonempirical way of knowing is religious piety. Piety does not prove the existence of God;
rather, it shows that a belief in God is plausible. Gustafson is careful to measure the
conclusions of piety against empirical ways of knowing, according to rus own guidelines, and
thus his conclusions have their checkpoints. This is why he can say that piety allows humans
to believe in the existence of the divine, but it does not provide sufficient cause for belief in
a personal God or divine teleological plan.
Piety, as Gustafson uses the term, tends to be interpreted through religion and then
refined through theological doctrine, since theology is reflection on experience, not on the
supematural (1: 134). As theology is persuasive oruy to our religious affections, and not
empirical reason, piety is required in order for us to be influenced by theology (1: 195). Piety
is primary to our description of experience because of the way it affects our orientation and
disposition in viewing the world. It is not an unnatural or a self-generated state but a
response to an Other (1: 165). Gustafson's piety does not refer to piousness or
sanctimoniousness. "It is a settled disposition, a persistent attitude toward the world and
ultimately toward God. It takes particular colorings or tones in particular circumstances, but
awe and respect are ~e fundamental and persisting characteristics of piety" (1: 201). As a
response to the divine, it is an affection, along the same lines as Edwards's religious
affections, which include a sense of dependence on, respect, and gratitude for what is given
(1: 61). Other senses do exist within piety, but these three are fundamental. Though
something of an original device, Gustafson's piety has its roots in the Reformed tradition,
30
and he quo tes Calvin to reinforce his point: "For until men recogruze that they owe
everything to God, . . . that he is the Author of their every good, that they should seek
nothing beyond him-they will never yield him willing service" (quoted in 1: 164f).
Where other theologians centre the human response to God on the idea of faith,
Gustafson chooses to use the term religious piety. Faith, he writes, is a "weasel word" in that
it designates different meanings to different theologians. To continue to use it as a central
concept might be safe in the eyes of his colleagues, but he prefers to use an altemate tenn so
that he may be precise in his meaning. Piety is chosen instead of faith on three grounds (1:
201 ff). The first is that faith is often contrasted with reason, both by insiders and outsiders
of the Christian tradition. This is a false distinction, in Gustafson's view, because the basis
for aU our knowledge has already been defined as unified experience. He notes also that
there are precedents in the tradition for avoiding such a distinction; Edwards, for example,
did not separate faith or affections from critical thinking (1: 191). Nevertheless, for the sake
of darity, Gustafson considers piety to indude both reason and affection. In addition to
reason, faith is often contrasted with unfaith, or a lack of confidence. Among those
theologians who adopt this dichotomy is H. Richard Niebuhr.50 Gustafson would like to
avoid defining faith as confidence in God in order to underscore the point that God is
neither our debtor nor a power on which humans can depend to meet all needs and wants.
Piety, in contras t, indudes only a measured confidence in God. The term faith also does not
explicidy include the awe that can be expressed in fear or anger to the deity. Instead,
theologians like Niebuhr have emphasized human loyalty to God. NaturaUy, if loyalty to
God is met with special concem for humanity on the part of God, then this is
understandable. However, this equation is not feasible in Gustafson's experience, and while
he wishes humans to consent to the divine ordering, loyalty does not go unquestioned and
faith is not blind:
If piety is understood primarily in terms of awe and respect, there is a place in the religious affections for both an attraction toward the powers of God and an aversion to them; both a love for God, the giver of the possibilities for value and meaningin life, and fear and anger in the face of conditions which frustrate human aspirations and threaten or deny human life (1: 203f).
Elsewhere he writes that piety is not always comforting to the pious (1: 190).
Having noted this, Gustafson does want to retain other qualities of faith under the
term of piety. Piety includes faithfulness to God, which means that awe, respect, and honour
31
make up the substance of the response of a person to God and God's ordering: <'Faith, as
excessive trust, puts God primarily in the service of humans. Faithfulness puts human beings
in the service of God" (1: 203). Unlike the quality of faith as loyalty, faithfulness to divine
ordering is a reasoned consent to God's ordering, and not unquestioning obedience or
resignation. Gustafson understands that while fear and anger have a place within our
response to the divine, they are not the primary emotions directed by the pious person.51
Consent entails an attempt to view ordering in as broad a scope as possible. It also includes
the moral obligation to attempt to order one's affections and loyalties to fit this ordering, a
point we will examine in further detail in our second chapter (1: 315). It refers to our general
attitude or disposition toward God and creation, so it includes a readiness to act that is
inspired and determined by our affections (1: 195 and 2: 283). Piety, then, is not only crucial
to Gustafson's theology and ethics; it acts as the link between God's ordering and our moral
lives (1: 167; cf. 1: 191).
Piety is also defined as a certain consciousness or aWareness of things, having much
control over our perception of experience. With Richard R. Niebuhr and Julian N. Hartt
Gustafson asserts that religion is a response-though not the only one-to the condition of
being totally affected (1: 196f). Affections or senses, like experience, are prior to religiosity,
and religion is the result of an attempt to relate our affections back to their source. Our
religious interpretations of things come only after we are affected by an Other or others.
This response includes the desire to <'do something" about the Other which has first <'done
something" to us. Gustafson follows Edwards in saying that religion is largely a matter of
affectivity (1: 287).52 Affective responses include senses, attitudes, dispositions, and emotions
(1: 198). The emotions of affectivity are not noruational and unsetded, but they have the role
of being govemed by our other capacities. This explains why Gustafson can ascribe to a Free
Church understanding of theology. Like the cycle of experience and description that acts as a
self-correcting process, religious affections are always to be measured and informed by
biblical research, human experience, and scientific data (1: 201). Even so, religions provide
insights not always available to other ways of construing the world:
They share some common recognitions of the human circumstance in relation to that which is beyond human control. They share certain affections and dispositions toward whatever is-moments of awe, reverence, fear, gratitude, guilt, and liberation. However they articulate that which is beyond the means of scientific investigation and proof, they nonetheless sense the reality of its presence. This is the moment, the rime, and the point at which the religious consciousness moves beyond what
32
radically secular pers ons feel. 1bis is the step or the leap which distinguishes the religious consciousness from the secular (1: 135).
Gustafson provides a list of the senses that make up religious affectivity. Though it is
not exhaustive, he covers what he believes to be essential (1: 130-34). First is the sense of
dependence that we have noted. We are radically dependent not ooly on nature, but also on
society, culture, history, and others. What this means is that no matter what weproduce or
how we improve, humanity has come from something it did not create, and individual
humans have arisen from other individual humans and the larger culture. 1bis is in line with
the general theological tradition and, Gustafson hopes, the understanding of life espoused by
most people. Along with the sense that life is given comes a sense of gratitude. It is ooly
fitting that we be grateful for the goods or benefits that come from those things upon which
we depend. This, too, Gustafson considers a general and natural sentiment; even though life
can be painful, the fact that suicide rates are low in relation to the population suggests that
humans think it is still better to live than to not live. The sense of gratitude becomes
important to the human understanding of morality, and leads to a sense of obligation. We
are obliged to others who have given us what we have. But life is not ooly dependent; it is
also interdependent and held together by mutual obligation. This, Gustafson notes, is
something that is present in aIl major religions.
He goes on from here to include a sense of remorse or repentance, the root of which
is a feeling of having done something wrong or not fulfilling some ideal. While this is very
strong in Christian theology, it is aiso necessarily part of the experience of most humans.
Though too much guilt can be harmful, the lack of this sense disrupts community life and
interdependence. For this reason, Gustafson laments the fact that guilt is largely undiscussed
by secular moral philosophers. Most religions prescribe ideais that are not always met, but
which have the effect of maintaining standards for community cohesion. Guilt, however,
must be balanced out by a sense of possibility. What we do in the present, though dependent
upon the past, can alter the circumstances that have come out of the pasto Iike the Christian
idea of new life, aIl major religions leave some room for human accountability and action,
even if they are weighted toward determinism. It is this reality that gives Gustafson reason to
consider God as generally benevolent: "God is for man, in the sense that the possibilities of
any human flourishing are dependent upon what we have received and on forces that are not
ultimately under our control" (1: 182). The sense of possibility means that we are not fated
33
to a certain telos but are open in anticipation to hope.53 We must be careful in our hoping,
however, that we do not fall into the trap of feeling a sense of assurance about the future.
Newness is possible, but not the kind that leads to perfection or infinite progress (1: 310f).54
Though Gustafson is agnostic about eschatology or God's direction, he includes a
sense of direction within religious affectivity. This direction is our own orientation to a
supreme end or purpose, which is present· to some extent in aU human communities in the
fotm of social or political goals. Through change we aim toward a certain ideal or
improvement. While we are not to have faith in human perfection, it is important to human
nature that we continue to grow. Most religions take this up eschatologically. But Gustafson
cannot determine the best human end, and can orny say that our ultimate purpose may be to
honour, serve, and glorify God (1: 113).
As he is able to draw comparisons in the secular world to each of these senses,
Gustafson can make the daim that religion is not unnatural, but simply a particular construal
of these senses:
It is not the presence of affectivity that makes particular attitudes religious, but the object of the affectivity. The affectivity that "becomes" religious, however, is a response to very particular events and objects; in the religious consciousness these objects and events are perceived to be ultimately related to the powers that sustain us and bear down upon us, to the Ultimate Power on which aU of life depends. The rise of the affections that become religious within basic piety and within a theological construing of the world is illustrated not orny to clarify the argument but also to evoke empathy for what 1 believe is involved in religious life (1: 195f).
This point is inspired by William James, whose psychological interpretation of religion led
him to as sert that there is nothing psychologically distinct about religious affections among
human affections, and that there is no single religious emotion or object (cited in 1: 206).55
Religious affections, then, are not discordant with regular affections. It is simply that in
certain individuals the "religious consciousness," at some point, understands the affectivities
and their ultimate object to have religious value. As we noted in our introduction, the same
experience, whether of nature, history, culture, society, or the self, can be construed
religiously and nonreligiously by two different individuals or groups of people. However,
Gustafson uses these arenas quite differendy than most theologians. For him, experience
does not indude a particular sense of the powers of God ordering nature. Rather, what we
experience direcdy in nature evokes affectivities that can gain religious consequence for us
34
(1: 208).56 Thus, experience is not direcdy of God, but of distinct and dis crete encounters
with the patterns and processes of the interdependence of life.
This opens up the possibility of a piety that is not overdy religious. In certain
individuals, the world is consttued with a respect for and orientation toward what is greater
than the self or the human, including the senses of gratitude for and obligation to what is
given. Gustafson considers tlùs not religious but natural piety (1: 159 and 165).57 In a sense,
natural piety is more primary than religious piety, since the latter includes an additional
theological consttual of the object of affection (1: 159). It also bears a resemblance to
Roman Catholic natural theology, which is considered available to all, though Gustafson
distinguishes the two sharply in ways we will discuss in our second chapter. At present, it is
sufficient to observe that he acknowledges that natural piety, while not overdy theological or
even religious, can provide a foundation for etlùcs quite similar to theocentric ethics.
ReJating God and Humanity
The fact that Gustafson does not invest in direct divine revelation does not prevent
him from devoting two lengthy chapters in his fust volume of Ethics from a Theocentric
Perspective to the relationship between humanity and God. It is through piety that individuals
relate themselves properly to the divine. The awe of and respect for God that occurs
through piety allows humans to consent to a life of faithfulness to God. W orshiping God as
God is not the result of gratitude for special favours or sentimental attachment to a larger,
perfect version of humanity. In piety we relate ourselves to God simply as part of God's
creation. This is not to say that Gustafson does not wish to uphold the idea that human well
being is sustained by the ultimate power or that humans have a particular distinctiveness
within creation. The material point is that humans, though unique, exist within a creation
containing other unique life forros. In theocentrism, God's presence is expanded from
human history to nature (1: 96). In this shift, Gustafson does not aim to denigrate humanity
as creation. In fact, he wishes to improve our understanding of where our uniquenesslies (1:
290). Humans may have special responsibilities according to our distinctive capabilities, but
this does not set us apart as the crown of creation.
It is at tlùs point especially that Gustafson refers to the thought of Mary Midgley. He
includes her question of what distinguishes humanity from animaIs, and follows her
correction that the question should be rephrased to ask what distinguishes humanity among
35
the animals (1: 282).58 Midgley develops this by pointing out that our nature is not
disconnected from the nature of other life forms, as if humanity were a dis crete creation and
not a product of evolution. Human life rises up within nature, and so much of what we are
finds its likeness in the traits of other animals.59 This reinforces Gustafson's notion of the
relationship of radical dependence and interdependence among humans and the rest of
creation. Our very existence is dependent upon a long line of evolution and continues to be
in relation to that from which we have risen. If this is the case, humans do play a distinct
part within creation, just as other aspects of creation have their distinct places. This aUows us
to affirm each part of creation, saying, "ail things are 'good,' not just good for us" (1: 109).
Our relationship to God includes a valuation of both ourselves and other aspects of
creation that is fitting when we consider our relations to the divine. Gustafson posits this as
his primary imperative for human life and action: 'We are to relate ourselves and aU things in
a manner appropriate to their relations to God" (1: 327). This is the outworking of the
orientation toward God that is shaped by piety. Disordering these relationships, then, is
Gustafson's way of reinterpreting sin, a reinterpretation that has an Augustinian flavour. He
adopts sorne fust-order theological terms when he describes that disordering can occur in
two ways (1: 243). First, it can be the result of pride; that is, we can disorder relationships by
overstepping the proper limitations placed upon them. In other words, humans tend to
disorder their relationship to God and creation by self-aggrandizement. Sloth, too, can be
the cause of disordering. When we are deficient in our participation in caring for other
persons, society, culture, and nature, we become disordered in our responsibilities within
relationships. In continuity with Reformed theology, Gustafson states that both the prideful
and the slothful ways of disordering demonstrate that individuals curve in toward their own
immediate interests (1: 8). We can drift toward this improper orientation because of the
nature of human finitude. Aside from our fatedness to death, humans are limited in two
major ways (1: 13). Though we have responsibility for the consequences of our actions, we
lack sufficient foreknowledge to be able to be certain about what their outcomes will be.
Humans also lack the capacity to control events, and this lies in tension with the ability to
participate in shaping the future. So, though we can act responsibly and effectively, our
limitations are not eliminated by our awareness or our efforts. Often, the uncertainty caused
by this dialectical relationship of capacity and finitude leads individuals to neglect larger
responsibilities and remain focused on personal, immediate needs. 1bis is the human fault,
36
which "keeps us from proper understanding of our proper relations by contracting our trusts
and loyalties, our loves and desires, our rational construing of the world, and our moral
interests .... The fault is universal" (1: 306).
ln order to prevent this fault and the disordering that results, Gustafson caUs us to
be more conscious of the fact that we are limited in our being and doing (1: 12). Our finitude
is compensated through an enlargement of our scope of vision. Though we will never see aIl,
we must not place additional limitations on ourselves by restricting our scope to ourselves.
When we consider what is of value and what lies within the domain of our responsibility, we
must include the cosmos. This results in a reorientation, something that will become central
to Gustafson's ethical concems. He describes it by drawing on H. Richard Niebuhr's
concept of "metanoia" or conversion (1: 192f).60 For Niebuhr, a person alters the world by
altering bis or her vision of it; the result is that one's loyalties and values are reordered
accordingly. Gustafson advocates for a conversion to a theocentric vision of the world,
which includes expanding our scope to that which is beyond the human. This is also a
conversion to an enlargement of human interests, creating a broader base for ethical concem
(1: 307). To use a phrase of Nietzsche, there must be a "transvaluation of values" which
holds God to be of ultimate value and through which everything else is seen in relation to
God (1: 311). Eisewhere Gustafson has written, "It demands what the tradition caUs
repentance and salvation. 1 am, more radically than my critics, a conversionist in religion and
morals.,,61 Conversion is not enough to solve aU the practical problems of ordering, but nor
are any other religious conversions or their secular equivalents. Conversion, though
inadequate in itself, is still an important and necessary step (1: 307). This reinterpretation of
redemption has the quality of being very human-driven, though its root is in God.
Upon recognizing the divine ordering, metanoia begins with the pietistic attitude of
consent:
ln that consenting we gain insight into the purposes of God. One such insight is that fidelity does not lead to what we ordinarily and immediately perceive to be a human good, but that what is of human value must be sacrificed for the sake of the purposes of God (1: 278).
As Lisa Sowle Cabill notes, Gustafson is no Sisyphus, etemally rolling his rock up the bill
and laughing at his fate.62 Nor is Gustafson's conception of the world typical of
philosophical Stoicism. Rather, consent implies concurrence and not an involuntary yielding.
Gustafson describes it as "an inward disposition which alters our sense of participation.'>63 It
37
is at thls juncture that he introduces Jesus Christ in his theology. Gustafson has a very low
Christology; his comments on the role of Jesus are limited to the characterization of him as
an "incarnation of theocentric pietyand fidelity" (1: 277). Jesus provides Christians with an
example that helps sustain their efforts to be theocentric. The consent of Jesus to God's
ordering, which is demonstrated particularly tlu:oughout Holy Week, shows us how we may
consent, rather than resign ourselves, to God (1: 278). This Christology, hammered out in
four pages, is obviously a minimalist treatment of Christ, and is only proliferated by a
doctrine of redemption focused on human, rather than divine, action (1: 247-51).
Nonetheless, Gustafson supports his Christology weIl, claiming that every theologian has a
selective use of biblical materials in constructing Christology, and one that is determined by
the particular issue she wishes to address tlu:oughout her entire theology (1: 275). Gustafson
is no different; it is simply that he wishes to posit Christ as a gadfly against the
antlu:opocentric Christian beliefs that make humanity the centre of God's plan and
individual salvation the centre of the scriptures. As weIl, his selection is indicative of his aim
to divorce theocentric Christianity from anything scriptural that is incommensurate with
common expenence.
As might be expected, thls Christology is not appreciated by his critics. Gilbert
Meilaender has commented that Gustafson is not so much theocentric as he is
nonChristocentric.64 However, the central problem is not that Gustafson's Christology is
low; many theologians offer low Christologies. The difficulty lies in the fact that a low
Christology is compounded by a nonpersonal portrayal of God, and so humans are left with
no way to establish an intimate relationship with the divine. It is this that upsets and repels
Gustafson's critics. We might add that his portrayal of Christ as a theocentric example might
be more convincing to the reader if the section of work he devotes to the practical examples
of theocentric ethics were to contain more frequent or explicit references to Christ. Further
interpreters of Gustafson's theology would do weIl to find ways of expanding on his
Christological sketch that would not compromise the objectives of the program. Our
purposes do not allow us to indude thls, however, and, as Gustafson does, we leave our
examination of Christology at that.
Through our exploration of Gustafson's theocentric theology, we have arrived at a
position where we can recognize that his understanding of God and God's continuaI
ordering of the world materializes primarily from experience as it comes to us tlu:ough piety
38
and empirical observation. These sources are augmented and shaped through our religious
and cultural traditions and corporate experiences. The theological aim is to focus on God,
the object, while doing this from the perspective of humanity, the subject. This is the only
perspective available to us. In so doing, we must be careful not to reverse the positions of
the subject and object, and thereby confuse themethod with the goal. Gustafson's own use
of the se sources leads to thé conclusion that belief in the divine is an appropriate response to
experience, though one never fully validated scientifically. The experience of God's ordering
also shows, through the lens of piety, that there are larger purposes at work in the world
than our own. Iivingin fitting relationship to God means orienting ourselves as best we cau,
even through human finitude, to such purposes. While Gustafson never shows definitive
certainty on this point, the best understanding of the place of humans within creation is that
humans are meant to serve,honour, and glorify God (1: 113). How this is worked out will be
the focus of our next chapter.
1 Gustafson, "A Response to Crities," 187. 2 Jeffrey Stout, 'The V oice ofTheology in Contemporary Culture," in Religion andAmerica: Spiritual Ufe in aS ecu/ar ~, eds. Mary Douglas and Steven TIpton (Boston: Beaeon, 1983), 257. 3 David Sehenek, "Prophecy, Polemie and Piety: Refleetions on Responses to Gustafson's Ethics from a Theocentric Perspective," Journal ofReligious Ethics 15:1 (1987),80. 4 For a discussion of this see Edward Farley, 'Theocentrie Ethies as a Genetie Argument," in James M. Gustqfson ~ Theocentric Ethics, 56 and Gustafson, ''R.esponse,'' in James M. Gustqfson~ Theocentric Ethics, 205. 5 Stephen Toulmin, ''Nature and Nature's God," 49. 6 Douglas F. Ottati, 'The Refonned Tradition in Theologieal Ethics," in Christian Ethics: Problems and Prospects, 56. 7 John P. Reeder,Jr., "The Dependence ofEthies," in James M. Gustqfson~ Theocentric Ethics, 126. See also Gustafson's ''Response to Hartt," 696f and A Sense of the Divine: The Natural Environment from a Theocentric Perspective (Cleveland: Pilgrim, 1994), 46. 8 James M. Gustafson, 'The Sectarian Temptation: Retlections on Theology, the Chureh and the University," Catho/iç Theological Sode!) of America, Proceedings of the Annual Meeting 40 (1985), 90. 9 Gustafson, "A Response to Crities," 196. 10 Julian N. Hartt, "Coneeming God and Man and His Well-being: A Commentary, Inspired by Spinoza, on Gustafson's Ethics from a Theocentric Perspective:' Soundings (W"tnter 1990), 671. 11 Gustafson, "A Response to Crities," 204. 12 For example, Yoder, 'Theologieal Revision and the Burden of Partieular Identity," 72ff and Robert N. Bellah, "Gustafson as Critie of Culture,"in James M. GUJt4son's Theocentric Ethics, 153ff. 13 Mary Midgley in discussion ofBellah fonowing his "Gustafson as Critie of Culture," 155. 14 Gustafson, An Examined Faith, 6f. Gustafson outlines a typology of ways that science and religion work together in this work, 84-95. For Mary Midgley's parallel typology see her Science as Salvation: A Modem fv!yth and Its Meaning (London and New York: Roudedge, 1992), 51-61. 15 Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections, ed John E. Smith (New Haven: Yale University, 1959), 96. 16 James M. Gustafson, ''Tracing a Trajectory," Zygon 30:2 (June 1995), 182. 17 Farley, 'Theocentrie Ethies as a Genetie Argument," 41. 18 Ibid and Gustafson, "Afterword," in James M. GUJt4son's Theocentric Ethics, 252. 19 Fadey, "Theoeentrie Ethies as a Genetie Argument," 41. 20 Gustafson also diseusses this in ehapter two of A Sense of the Divine.
39
21 See also Gustafson, Protestant and Roman Catholie Ethies, 61 and 64, as weIl as William J. Meyer's comments in ''Ethlcs, Theism and Metaphysics: An Analysis of the Theocentric Ethlcs of James M Gustafson," International Journal for Philosopf?y of Religion 41 (1997), 149f. 22 Meyer, 150 and Gene Outka, ''R.emarks on a Theological Program Instructed by Science:' Thomirt 47 (1983),588 and 591. See also Jeffrey Stout's account of Gustafson's compromising of theology in an effort to speak to nontheists, Ethics A.fter Babel: The lAnguages ofMomls tmd Their Disrontents (Boston: Beacon, 1988), 163-188. 23 Robert Cummings Neville offers an interesting reconstruction of Gustafson's ontology and cosmology in "On the Architecture of No Man's Land: A Response to Hartt and Gustafson," Sounmngs63:4 (Wl11ter 1990), 70I. 24 Robert Audi, ''Theology, Science, and Ethics in Gustafson's Theocentric Vision," in James M. Gustafion's Theocentric Ethics: 159-85. 25 Ibid., 179. 26 James M. Gustafson, "A Theocentric Interpretation ofLife:' Christian Century (30 July-6 August 1980), 759. 27 P . Travis Kroeker, 'Theocentric Ethics and Policy," Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics 17 (1997), 23. 28 James M. Gustafson, "Ethical Issues in the Human Future," with comments by Roy Branson and Wùfred Beckerman, in How Humans Adapt: A BioculturaIOt!Jssry, ed. Donald J. Ortner (Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1983),498. 29 Gustafson subsequently amended this idea of benevolence with the aim of discarding any personal qualities that might he associated with the tenu. See "A Response to Crities:' 199. 30 Gustafson, A Sense of the Divine, 12. 31 Lisa Sowle Cahill, "Consent in Time of Affliction: The Ethics of a Circwnspect Theist," Journal ofReligjous Ethics 13:1 (Spring, 1985), 32; FarIey, ''Theocentric Ethics as a Genetic Argwnent," 52; and Jeffrey Stout, Ethics After Babel, 176. 32 Gustafson, ''Response to Hartt," 695. 33 Gustafson, "A Response to Critics," 199. 34 James M. Gustafson, "Alternative Conceptions of God," 64. 35 This is a concern he takes over from H. Richard Niebuhr, who outlined it in a similar way in The Meaning of Revelation (New York: Macmillan, 1962), 167. 36 Outka, ''R.emarks on a Theological Program Instructed by Science," 578 and Gordon Kaufman, "How is God to Be Understood in a Theocentric Ethics?" in James M. Gustifson's Theocentric Ethics, 3I. 37 Hartt, "Conceming God and Man and His Well-being," 683. 38 Gustafson,A Sense of the Divine, 59[ 39 For example, see Audi, 173. 40 Gustafson, ''Response,'' 215. 41 Audi, 173. 42 James M Gustafson in "Panel Discussion," in James M Gusttffson's Theocentric Ethics, 229. See also 1: 272. 43 Audi, 173. 44 Mary Mïdgley, Beast and Man: The Roofs ofHuman Nature, rev. ed. (London and New York: Roudedge, 1995),331-38. 45 Mïdgley in ''Panel Discussion," 23I. 46 Ibid., 23H. 47 James M. Gustafson, "A Brief, Unscholarly Afterword," in Christian Ethics: Problems and Prospects, 380. 48 This point is emphasized by Robert M. Adams, ''Platonism and Naturalism: Options for a Theocentric Ethics," in Ethics, Religjon, and the Good Society: New Directions in a P/uralistic World, ed. Joseph Runzo (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1992), 26f. 49 Meyer, 155f[ See also Niebuhr, The Meaning of Revelation, 44-54. 50 Niebuhr, RadicalMonotheism tmd Western Culture, 16-23. 51 Gustafson, "A Response to Critics," 199. 52 Edwards, 95. 53 James M Gustafson, Christian Ethics and the Community (philadelphia: Pilgrim, 1971), 159. 54 For a discussion of this see Melvin Konner, "Following a Trajectory: On 'Tracing a Trajectory' and 'Explaining and Valuing,' by James M. Gustafson," Zygon 30:2 (June 1995), 199. 55 William James, The Varieties ofReligious Experience: A Stut!J in Human Nature, (New York: Collier, 1961),40. 56 James M Gustafson, ''Resp<:>nse to Rottschaefer, Beckley, and Konner," qgon 30:2 (June 1995), 223. 57 James M. Gustafson, ''Theology and Piety," Word and World3:2 (1983): 114-16. 58 Mïdgley, Beost tmd Man, 195. 59 Ibid., 195-208. 60 Niebuhr, RadicaJMonotheism and Western Culture, 11-23.
61 Gustafson, "A Response to Crities," 188. 62 Cahill, "Consent in Time of Affliction," 36 n. 6. 63 Gustafson, "A Response to Crities," 205. 64 Gilbert Meilaender, Review of Ethics from a Theocentric Perspective, by James M. Gustafson, Religious Studies Review 12:1 (1986),13.
40
ln my examination of Gustafson's erities 1 have been unsueeessful in finding any mention made of Gustafson's entire negleet of and apparent disregard for the doctrine of the Holy Spirit.
41
Chapter 2
THEOCENTRIC ETHICS
We arrive at what can be considered the heart of Gustafson's work. His primary
concern is with the ethicallife of Christians in society. He has defiuite ideas of what ethics
should look like, and affians its place within Christian thought and action. In this chapter,
we will be examining the salient features of Gustafson's ethics, first by distinguishing it from
other systems, and then by expanding on its unique contributions to ethical theory.
Tbroughout this process, we will make use of the comments of Gustafson's critics in order
to clarify ms thought and intentions. FinaIly, we will come back to the relationsmp between
theocentric ethics and another ethical theory, natural law. In doing so we will see that
Gustafson has taken many of ms cues from Aquinas. Gustafson's contributions provide a
viable alternative to naturallaw for today.
Up to this point, we have dealt with piety and religious affections, wmch, while being
responses to what is ultimate, are not, in themselves, actions (1: 229). Action comes out of
the ethical realm. Nonetheless, Gustafson is very clear that Christian ethics must be attached
to religious or affective convictions.1 The process of ethical discernment is a significant step
between recognizing a web of beliefs and acting morally. This means that action is
dependent upon an ethics built out of a theology, or a description of how things really and
ultimately are. Considerations of what we should be and do begin not with social or political
commitments but with theological ones (1: 24). Gustafson notes that for most ethicists, the
tendency is to take a side on an ethical issue, or develop the ethical method and content, and
on1y subsequently work out a theological or philosopmcal backing for it (2: 137). Instead, as
we have seen, he starts with theology, with a description of God and God's relations to the
world, and ms moral positions arise from it (1: 279 and 2: 279). His working this way is the
result of ms own theological conviction that God is not our instrument but the shaper of our
being and doing. What this also means is that we have to be careful in claiming Gustafson as
an ethicist who focuses on environmental concerns; first of aIl, Gustafson is occupied with
theological concerns, and this is what gives rise to ms environmental ethics.
42
In speaking to the church, he pays special attention to the procedure the individual
ethical agent undertakes in making decisions: "Ethics is a process of giving reasons for
action; the establishment of good reasons both prior to action and in the justifications of
actions after the fact is likely to develop more appropriate actions and evaluations" (1: 69).
This process is one that involves discernment, and the object of that discernment is what
God is enabling and requiring us to be and do as indicated through the patterns and
processes of the interdependence of life. It involves ordering appropriate relations between
ourselves, all things, and God (1: 327). What is exceptional about this is that Gustafson's
careful concern in doing ethics and disceming relations is not based on a conviction that
ethical certainty can be reached. In fact, often our discernment willlead us into further moral
accountability because of the inherent ambiguity of life situations. Gustafson is persuaded,
though, that Christian moral agents should not allow fear of moral blame to impede their
efforts to meet needs and do good.2 This is not to say that he supports an ethics dedicated to
doing what "feels right," but it is to say that one's moral concem must be dedicated
primarily to the good of the whole and not the moral perfection of the self. On the other
hand, moral character is not to be neglected, as it refers to the capacities for moral
discernment and helps detetmine the ends of one's moral participation (2: 287).
These convictions help the reader understand the general character of theocentric
ethics. This method is not one of mere consequentialism; there is room for both standards
and goals for action. The fact that humans live with the condition of being enabled means
we have a sense of freedom to act creatively; but there are also requirements placed upon us,
so that our freedom is limited by natw:al restrictions. Both of these aspects of our humanity
should be reflected in our ethics. Our guidelines and goals for action are subject to the
centre of value, which is God.
Ethical Context
The interpreter may weIl have difficulty in attempting to set theocentric ethics under
a label or within a category .. Gustafson's program is a sophisticated one, incorporating
elements of deontological, teleological, narrative, and character ethics. For instance, the
de finition of ethics in the first volume of Ethics from a Theocentric Perspective reveals a concern
for both deontology and teleology, claiming that ethics addresses both the rightness of
actions and the goodness of consequences (1: 87). Edward Fadey is one of the few critics
43
who has praised Gustafson for giving credit to the greater complexity of things, and thereby
avoiding a fall into particular ethical categorization.3 With Farley, Audi appreciates Gustafson
for providing exploratory, rather than system building, efforts. He has commented that
theocenttic ethics is not burdened with the purpose of defining specific moral princip les.
Instead, it focuses on a framework for devising and refining such principles.4
But his unique position within ethics has led Gustafson to address the question of
whether theocenttic ethics can be considered ethics at aIl, as ethics is classically defined. This
is because of the major shift in value that it makes from humanity to the divine. Gustafson
gives different answers to two questions important for ethical theory (2: 15). The first
addresses the scope of the whole to be taken into account, to which he replies that one's
scope must be as large as possible. The second refers to the value of the whole. Neither
descriptively nor normatively can the whole exist for the sake of humanity, according to
theocenttic ethics. The goal in ethics is to understand and take action toward the good ends
of all things, and not merely human ends. This being the case, the tools used by agents also
change: "Ethics. . . finds its answers in what individuals, making finite judgements, can
determine about what God is doing in the world" (1: 56). Gustafson goes on to explain that
this major shift in ethical reasoning comes out of theocentric theology:
Theocentric ethics could defend the view that the material considerations of moral life are almost totally related to what is good for us, what is right in person-to-person relationships. One would be able so to restrict the considerations of ethics if the Deity were for man above an other things. But if the Deity is not bound to our judgments about what is in our interests, then theological ethics is radically altered. It may no longer be ethics at aIl in the traditional sense of Western culture and Christianity (1: 99).
But this central difference leads to other perceived differences. In working out action, a
program of theocentric ethics does not guarantee human happiness or success (1: 342). In
addition, rigorous adherence to the formal standards of logic is not required of the agent.
Theocentric ethics does not have the same "rationalistic consistency" as Kantian ethics
because it begins with different sources for description (2: 140). Philosophically speaking, it
contains nonratiofl:al moves, as does the theology from which it draws (1: 81 and 84f). But
this does not mean the theory is incoherent. What Gustafson focuses on is the particular and
concrete, rather than the general and abstracto In fact, he is of the opinion that the
abstraction that often accompanies logically consistent systems is unhelpful to moral
behaviour. This corresponds with the motivations that have shaped his commonsense
44
ontology; Gustafson wants to delineate a theology and ethics that will be generally accessible.
The practical value of theocentric ethics makes the program more attractive to the agent
working out daily problems.5
We can see what is of particular distinction in theocentric ethics by comparing it to
other theories. The emphasis on experience as a source of theology might bring us to regard
it as narrative ethics. Most ethical systems are rationally analytic in nature, whereas narrative
ethics gives credence to a person's life "story." In narrative ethics, the focus is not simply on
solving a dilemma; instead, observations of objects and events have a great effect on how a
person comes to participate morally. Gustafson's ethics pays due attention to point of view
and context. Even so, he considers narrative to be only one form of dis course among several
in his ethical expression.6 Theocentric ethics incorporates methods and princip les from other
models, as weIl, that give shape to the narrative. For instance, Gustafson reveals some
similarities between theocentric ethics and rule-utilitarianism (2: 113). A view toward the
ends one attempts to achieve is important, according to the sense of direction that exists
within us. In pursuing certain ends perceived to be good, those standards of conduct that
have been developed through human socialization are critical. The difference between
theocentric ethics and rule-utilitarianism, though, is that in the former there is no single
normative end sought in the discernment process. Mary Midgley contributes to this idea
when she writes,
Utilitarians and others who simply advise us to be happy are unhelpful, because we aImost always have to make a choice either between different kinds of happinessdifferent things to be happy about-or between these and other things we want, which have nothing to do with happiness.7
The positions espoused by both Gustafson and Midgley have the effect of offering a critique
to all forms of utilitarianism, as what is good or what will lead to our happiness is never
singular. As weIl, good ends are never fixed or static. They change with the movement of the
patterns and processes of life. Thus, for two reasons Gustafson does not correspond to the
label he is given by Paul Ramsey, that of a "multi-value consequentialist."s First, there are
cert~in standards of conduct and duties that guide the agent in the pursuit of desired
consequences; we will come to see some of those in this chapter. Second, values are not only
multiple, but they also change in form and status.
John P. Reeder, on the other hand, offers a more insightful interpretation of
Gustafson's aims. He states that Gustafson develops a middle way between natural law
45
theory, which seeks to detettnine the fix:ed good end by examining the way things are in
nature, and more liberal theories of reality and action, which recognize no permanent
concepts of good or right, but instead seek to meet human preferences.9 ln our account of
theocentric ethics we will address this middle way as the best description of what Gustafson
is trying to achieve.
Basic Questions and Features
Gustafson's ethics are inspired by a number of questions he poses:
What can be discerned about the purposes of that power on which all of creation depends for its sustenance and for its possibilities of development? What actions are right for man in relation to the sustaining, ordering, limiting, and creative power of God? If God's purposes are for the well-being of the whole of "the creation," what is the place of human well-being in relation to the "whole of creation"? (1: 99).
These queries lead to the general question that lies at the heart of theocentric ethics: "What
is God enabling and requiring us, as participants in the patterns and processes of
interdependence of life in the world, to be and to do?" (2: 146 and passim). His de finitions
for the terms used in this sentence serve to remind us of his guiding theological convictions
(2: 1). God is the ultimate ordering power in the universe. Individuals and communities are
enabled by God through occasions or capacities for action that arise prior to our acting. But
there is also a requirement placed upon humanity to conform basically to this ordering. For
the most part, our being and doing occurs through these patterns and processes, rather than
. th 10 agamst em.
The moral imperative that answers this question also results from Gustafson's
theological commitments. More an expression of an overarching vision of life than a rule, it
is this: 'We are to conduct life so as to relate to all things in a manner appropriate to their
relations to God" (1: 113 and passim). This very general statement reveals the direction in
which theocentric ethics leads without indicating a certain telos or binding rules of conduct.
Rather, the task is to act in fitting relation to the patterns and processes. The focus in
relating ourselves properly to God and to all things is to preserve any possibilities for the
future development of aspects of life (2: 112). How this happens in concrete instances is not
laid out in an artificially systematic way. What humans can observe about the purposes of
God consists of the fact that the natural world continues to change, a process that includes
the rise and fall of species, climatic conditions, and eras. This process will one day also
46
include the faU of the earth itself.Such development is not a ladder of progress or
improvement; it is simply an assorttnent of patterns and processes. While this seems like a
rather vague starting point for practical morality, it does provide a necessary context and
perspective that is preparatory for more dis crete occasions of ethical discerntnent. Focusing
on a particular situation does not preclude having a sense of the larger patterns of interaction
at work around it. In fact, as we will see, awareness of this larger enVÏtonment can help
clarify options within the set of circumstances at hand (2: 12).
Gustafson's moral imperative leads hitn to identify several features of theocentric
ethics, which are condensed here (2: 6-22). It begins with the notion of experience. Hutnan
experiences and activities, among religious people at least, are directed by religious piety; so
piety and morality are always held together. The sense of something Other or ultitnate means
that action is to be directed pritnarily toward divine ends, rather than being litnited to our
own. The description of the way things are must be set in the context of larger wholes; the
de finition of the common good extends to the natural world. Situations that concern
humanity retain a good portion of ethical attention, as in most systems, since humans are the
agents having the experience. However, the place of humanity is recontextualized to reflect
the fact that, though we have our own Ïtnmediate concerns, we are not the centre of
concern. Patterns and processes, though, do not provide clear guidelines for action, and,
consequendy, there is a fresh emphasis on moral ambiguity and the tragic in ethical decision
making. Aiso with regard to action, and coming out of the notion that human experience is a
whole, is the idea that moral reason should not stand in tension with natural impulses and
desires; rather they share a working relationship. Reason helps order and direct affectivity
appropriately, in tum using feelings as potential indicators for action. Our look at the whole
also suggests the possibility of self-denial and even self-sacrifice; theocentric ethics
encourages agents to place voluntary restraints upon their actions.
It is helpful to descrihe the constitution of these main features by USl11g three
sequential dimensions oudined hy Reeder: theocentrism, substantive notions for flourishing,
and functional requisites for human society.ll Here, theocentrism refers to the pietistic
rationale that guides our thinking, including the premises about experience and interpretation
upon which theology is huilt. Substantive notions for flourishing include a theory of the
good and how best to pursue the good of the whole and that of parts within this whole.
Functional requisites are those conditions required for flourishing. These include the
47
physical, psychological, sociological, and spiritual conditions necessary for the action of the
moral agent.
Theocentric Flourishing
It is through the second feature, or what Gustafson terms the middle portion, of
theocentric ethics that some possibilities for the flourishing of good can be laid out. While it
is critical to understand that Gustafson's ethics is not a program solely devoted to human
flourishing, and though ethical purpose can be posited as the glorification of God, this does
not mean that one component of God's purposes cannot be human happiness or
flourishing. Indeed, Gustafson upholds these as natural pursuits of humanity and things for
which we are enabled.12 It is just that human flourishing is not apparendy central to God's
purposes and cannot be our overriding objective.13 Reeder, though, encourages the notion
that theocentric ethics is centred on the idea of the flourishing of all creation.14 For him,
God's purposes emphasize the well-being of sentient and nonsentient life forms. However,
this might be saying too much of Gustafson's theology: it is among God's purposes that life
exists and, to various extents, flourishes. But just as the goods we all seek are
incommensurate, the flourishing of one aspect of life can lead to the destruction of another.
Since the patterns and processes of life work in both sustaining and threatening ways,
naming the well-being of all aspects of life as God's primary purpose is suspect. The
preservation of alllife, as an ethical norm, cannot be ultimate. There must be a limit to the
flourishing of humanity or other species for the sake of the larger good (1: 263f). Ultimately,
though Gustafson does not use this language, the agent can seek out general flourishing in
the realm of interrelationship, since value is relational and not substantive. If God has any
central purpose for creation, which is never a certainty for us, what seems to be indicated as
good is the interdependency of all things: "All created things somehow function not
individually, but in their relations to each other to the glory of God."15 In our lifespan,
theocentric ethics supports acting toward the good of this web of interdependency.
Theocentrism, then, leads to a radical shift in our substantive notions. Our values,
according to Gustafson, are far too narrow. What we value cannot be limited to a single
term, such as happiness; therefore, as we will see, there is no single corresponding ethical
rule, such as love (1: 7). The questions, "What is good?" and "What is right?" should
themselves be questioned. As did H. Richard Niebuhr, we must consider what we mean by
48
the good, and ask, "Good for whom?" and "Good for what?" (1: 95).16 Goodness and value
are not entities unto themselves; they are relational concepts (1: 271). This does not make
Gustafson a situationalist, nor does it make the good utterly relativistic. Rather, Gustafson
understands in ethical terms what Midgley phrases in the context of evolutionary theory:
"There is, in fact, no such thing as fttness in the abstract, onfy fttness for certain conditions, and these may
change.,,17 Having made this daim, there are some things that remain good or bad over the
course of human experience because there are many constants about human life and
relations. For Gustafson, murder is always wrong in our experience; it violates relationships
and possibilities that are unlikely to change drasticaIly enough to alter the injunction against
it (1: 271). There are no instances when murder is right, and this is because it will always
have negative consequences for human relationships as they stand. To consider value as
relational is to underline its multidimensionality; we all have different values to each other.
As Niebuhr has clarified, this "is not the multi-dimensionality of an abstract realm of
essential values but rather the multi-dimensionality of beings in their relations to each
other.,,18 It may then be generally acceptable from a theocentric perspective to prioritize the
interests of the human over the ant, so long as we recognize that there is an indissoluble
connection between the two. But in considering this we must note that ordering our values
is done not merely by defining utility, but in defining relationship to GOd.19
The consequence of aIl this is that multiple and relational goods are incommensurate.
They will not fit in perfecdy with aIl the contexts that rise out of the patterns and processes
of interdependence. For instance, some may argue that holding a store of nuclear weapons
helps main tain the security of a nation, while some others argue that ecological good is
safeguarded when they are banned. Since right actions rarely lead to the realization of good
outcomes for aIl, theocentric ethics opens itself to painful choices that will have to be made
in certain instances. In recognizing this, the theory shows a remarkable capacity for
application in everyday life.
Robert M. Adams delivers a keen observation when he comments that Gustafson's
position on the goal of flourishing might be clarified if he were to remain consistent in
focusing ethics on the glorification of God, rather than on what he considers to amount to a
kind ofbiocentrism.zo His complaint is that "God figures in Gustafson's thought much more
as the comprehensive purposer to be served than as the transcendent Good to be admired,
loved, and worshiped."ZI Adams would instead encourage a focus on the celebration of
49
beauty. However instrumental this shift might be for our orientation, it is unlikely that it
would make ethical discernment any clearer a process. In fact, it could have the tendency to
cut out ethical discernment altogether. What is required by Gustafson's commonsense
ontology is a practical objective, and since very litde is known of the ordering power to begin
with, the best way the divine can be glorified is through this practical relating of creatures to
creator.
We have now put the term flourishing into its proper context within theocentric
ethics, but there remains one more important thing to say about the substantive, or middle,
portion of Gustafson's ethics. An observation critical to our task is made by Reeder as he
puts forth his interpretation of the program. That is, the substantive notions of theocentric
ethics, while built upon a theocentric theology, can arise separately from this theology.22 That
is not to say that the middle portion of theocentric ethics can be free-floating. Rather, its
theological rationale can be exchanged for a nontheistic philosophical rationale similar in
essential content. What exacdy is essential about this content is a subject we will explore in
our third chapter.
Finally, it is appropriate to review the words of caution Gustafson provides before
pursuing an oudine of the theocentric program. There are several ways in which extreme
theocentrism can result in problems for the agent. A theocentric orientation should not lead
one to compromise ideas of human dignity by considering individuals only as means and not
ends. While excessive individualism is a regrettable development, it is important that
individual rights and responsibilities be maintained (1: 100f). We are to bear in mind that, "to
relate to pers ons in a manner appropriate to their relations to God requires the honoring of
their capacities for self-determination" (2: 247). In encouraging theocentrically defined
action among others, there is a kind of gende patemalism present, but this is not a coercion
of the individual to give up rights or choices (2: 110). The theocentric attitude depends upon
informed consent, and not resignation, to the possibilities and limitations of life. For this
reason, the idea of working toward a larger good must be qualified to avoid tyranny (1: 106f).
Gustafson offers several other caveats that clarify the intentions of his work. He does not
want to deny human distinctiveness or uniqueness. The point is to recognize that being
distinct is not the same as being central or superlative: "One does not need to affirm that
human life is of supreme value in order to defend the view that it is of distinctive value" (2:
56). Additionally, to avoid romantic ecological ideas, Gustafson shies away from the attitude
50
that would see nothing killed or desttoyed. Value is not so much inttinsic as it is given to us
by fact of our relation to the source of value, God (1: 10Sf).23 Life is not to be revered as an
independently sacred thing. Rather than reverence for life, Gustafson affitms a respect for
life that considers aIl things important and of value in relation to the divine. We will retutn in
our final statement to this matter. One last qualification is that Gustafson does not wish to
faIl into the same ttap he accuses many other theologians of falling into-that is, of claiming
sure authotÏzation for an understanding of God's purposes. In doing ethics theocentrically
one must take care to claim only a certain level of confidence in a chosen course of action.24
Ibis is the best that can be done.
Aspects of the Ethical Model
Gustafson's interest in widening our ethical scope to take in a larger world picture
means that he agrees, to an extent, with a concem articulated by Midgley. She writes that the
language currently popular in ethical dialogue, that of means and ends, must be replaced with
a language more suited to the reality of our situation, that of part and whole.2s Our
understanding of the ethical process cannot be limited to a linear progression from means to
end. Rather, humanity must be seen as a part of a complex web of interrelationship, and
understand how to contribute in a fitting way to other parts as well as the whole. While
Gustafson still perceives some room for the means-end arrangement in particular situations,
he is acutely aware of the gravity of Midgley's concem, and his own emphasis on the
relationship of the part to the whole influences his encire effort (1: 342).
The model used to consttuct theocentric ethics is one that is interactional, in conttast
with the usual conttactual or organic altematives (1: 292f). Organic models, such as
communitarianism, focus on the community and highlight processes of continuous mutual
determination between persons and groups. In this model, the autonomy of the individual is
underappreciated for the sake of the whole. A pers on is to be devoted to the whole, which
has produced him or her. Altemately, conttactual models, including libertarianism, claim
precedence for the individual. They highlight individual autonomy over the good of the
whole, since the whole is considered merely the product of amassed individual choices.
Gustafson sets his own work apart from these by holding to the idea that individuals are the
products of society, and that they contribute to it as weIl. Perhaps the best way of describing
the interactional model is to review Gustafson's depiction of marital and family relationships
51
(2: 162). A family is a whole that is more than the sum of its parts. However, the individuals
within the family do not exist only for the sake of the whole, and, in the same instance, the
whole does not exist only for its individual members. There is a reciprocal, though not
necessarily harmonious, set of relationships at work here. Ultimately, and in extreme
circumstances, society can take priority in theocentric ethics, but only because individuaIs are
radically dependent upon it for their existence (2: 246). This priority must be realized by way
of voluntary restraints, not through enforced rules of conduct. Theocentric ethics involves a
web of relationships that require us to attend to the well-being of individuals, direct
relationships, and larger societal connections (2: 162). It is concemed with the good of the
whole, but incorpora tes a more complex understanding of the makeup of the whole than do
most ethical theories.
This model introduces a tension that does not provide any faIse assurance in the
form of a fixed principle for working out moral positions. In the more difficult dilemmas
that require us to choose between individual goods and the good of society, the only sources
of guidance we have do not lie within the model Gustafson sets out. Rather, they are present
in the details of the situation at hand (1: 293). Ethical valuations are not deterroined
abstracdy, and much importance is given to the context, as in narrative ethics. The value of
the individual human good may be altered or qualified according to the circumstances, and
we might be called to impose a limitation on our own interests (2: 6). But this is a tension of
which Gustafson approves. He signifies his suspicion of the status of fixed rules in ethics by
accusing other system-builders of introducing independent first principles solely to construct
a coherent scheme of thought (2: 108). He, instead, deals with daily situations in their full
complexity and ambiguity, which, in his experience, e1ude single principles. Since there are
many good ends to consider, there is no single principle or telos to which our ethics can be
oriented. Theocentric ethics cannot "provide a single term for the desirable effects; instead it
has to deal with a variety of possible good effects and with the cost to other justifiable ends
of achieving those selected" (2: 112). We have seen that Gustafson cannot perceive an
objective moral order, and since the purposes of God are unknowable to us, we must
recognize that our efforts to glorify God are fallible.
A continually changing order and a limited human capacity to perceive that order
mean that it is also difficult to set out particular rules of conduct. Any standards for conduct
must be general and flexible, according to the requirements of the context:
52
To some extent the question of morally defensible means is context-bound, as in the case of Medical triage; in the Most extremely critical circumstances certain acts of omission and even commission are justifiable that cannot be justified when there are several possible courses of action (2: 242).
Rules generally set out norms; theocentric ethics, alternatively, is open to their careful
extension, revision, and alteration. We may· perhaps gain clarity. about the tension between
principles and contextualism in ethics if we tum to the description· of the "middle axiom," a
device of J. H. Oldham that Gustafson uses in an earlier work.26 Middle axioms are defioed
as those statements that offer direction to the community at hand. Rather than being
immutable in nature, they are more like "provisional definitions" for a particular community.
While immediate context is important, it is not all-important; previous standards of conduct
must be viewed with respect and understanding. However, these standards can be modified
according to perceived demands of the present situation. The experiences of previous
generations do not always match up to the experiences of contemporary society; changing
patterns of life make this the case. Middle axioms, then, sit somewhere in between univers al
principles and concrete policies. In recalling Gustafson's relationship to Reformed theology,
we May note that he treats moral principles in much the same way that he treats theological
tradition. The principle, like the tradition, is informative and a source of guidance. It is no t,
however, independendy binding upon us, and it can be deviated from according to the
demands of the circumstances. For instance, present conditions of knowledge require that
we bring scientific understanding to bear on theological conclusions; this has the effect of
altering the conclusions, while retaining the motivations and spirit of the original endeavour.
ln both cases of theological and moral tradition, though, deviations should be made only
with good reason; such are the demands of those thinkers and agents who have gone before.
With this in mind, we are prepared to understand what Reeder means when he says
that Gustafson's substantive notions are directed toward seeking the good through duties
and obligations.27 Good, we must remember, is not singular but plural, and particular goods
are incommensurate, since good relates to the requirements and interests of aIl aspects of
creation. Even so, there is no available principle for ordering these goods into a hierarchy, a~
is present in natural law. This leads Gustafson neither to arbitrary decision-making nor
inaction, but to the concept of discemment, or the ability to order goods in a way
appropriate to the Îtnmediate circumstances as weIl as the larger patterns of relationship.
While no single princip le that guides discemment exists, there are certain imperatives or
53
duties that are associated with theocentric ethics. These are not divinely given or objective;
they are, rather, the conclusions of religious and moral experience. Gustafson articulates one
of them in Kantian fasbion: "Act so that you consider aIl things never only as a means to
your own ends, or even to collective human ends" (2: 135). Not aIl courses of action that
produce beneficial ends can justify the means. In looking toward a good end one must take
into account the goods that exist at present, such as the capacity for individual autonomy,
and be careful not to compromise them unjustifiably.
HumanAgency
Seeking the good through duties and obligations places much weight on the idea of
human responsibility. While the centre of ethical value is God, the ethical method and agents
are human. Without a God's-eye view, humans are left with the difficult task not only of
perceiving an existing ordering, but also of providing original responses that contribute to
tbis ordering, while understanding that there are broad implications for such actions. Human
agency is a much more nuanced thing here than it is in many other theories. Gustafson
endeavours to be honest about the fact that there are no easy answers or externally defi.ned
boundaries. If anything, humans must think more meticulously and act more deliberately,
and yet more cautiously, than they have before. His expansion of what is valid to ethical
deliberation means that aIl of life is ethics.
Within the interactional model Gustafson identifies the human as participant (2: 13).
Such a concept draws on the level of responsibility found in H. Richard Niebuhr's model,
"man the answerer."28 When juxtaposed against "man the maker" or "man the citizen," this
model shows an awareness of both human abilities and limitations with regard to agency.
The participant model is distinct from this in that it denotes that humans not only answer
the initiatives of the patterns and processes; we also contribute to them. The importance of
the modellies in its transformative nature. We have a great ability to change the direction of
the patterns and processes of life.29 Rejecting the Reformed tradition's emphases on divine
determinism and predestination, Gustafson wants to consider the human as agent becaus~ of
the capacity to help shape the sequence of interdependence (1: 187).30 That humanity exists
in great continuity with the rest of creation does not preclude the idea that humans have a
significant ability to effect both positive and negative change.
54
On the other hand, there is an element of fatedness or inevitability that comes both
from the natural circumstances that bear down upon us and the prior actions in history that
have continuing effects on us (1: 212f). Although there exists in us the capacity to give a
certain amount of direction to what is occurring, we are to remember that we have not
created and cannot do without those forces that initiate the occurrence. What is encouraging
about this, though, is that the recognition of this fact cau relieve people from wrongly
assumed guilt for things not within their control (1: 291). We cannot change the actions of
our predecessors, nor can we be held responsible for the situation in which we arise. An
additional area of limitation is a lack of sufficient vision to discemaIl the relevant present
circumstances and to anticipate aIl the consequences of our actions. Nevertheless, we cau
take action to alter the course upon which we have been set, and we cau do so responsibly
by enlarging our scope of ethical consideration. We are finite in that we have limited
freedom and limited vision, but we are still capable of responding and acting in appropriate
ways. In fact,. we must make full use of these capacities, for though we are not culpable for
past events, we are responsible for how we shape the future (1: 214). Thus, there is interplay
between freedom and fate, which means that we may be more at liberty in some spheres of
life than in others.
Part of human distinctiveness, recalling our first chapter, is the heightened capacity
for rationality and deliberation about means and ends; our intentional actions give us a
corresponding level of responsibility unique to our species.31 Even though our good-seeking
is a finite effort, and though only a finite good is ever achievable for us, our participation
does go beyond the situation at hand. "Agents are participating not only in 'transactions'
with the Îtntnediate 'recipients' of their initiatives; they are participants in larger spheres of
interaction, and even in the development of the natural world" (2: 13). Our unique ability for
participation means that we must limit our freedoro so that we do not become unnecessarily
destructive of ourselves or of other forms of life (1: 268f). This e1ement of sacrifice suits
Christian ideology well. The renouncing of such a limitation, Gustafson would say, has
contributed to many of the negative circumstances in which we live tod~y. Any restriction of
our possibilities should be made not out of fear of change or new responsibilities. Nor is
sacrifice something made resentfully, since our erootions and our reason are to be partners in
our deliberation. Rather, these things are ta be undertaken in ways that show respect for the
impact we have on other aspects of creation.
55
Humans, then, have a uruque calling. Gustafson's concept of the human as
participant is somewhat like Luther's understanding of humans as "masks of God" (2: 167
and 286). As creatures that are able to perceive and interact with God's ordering we are
responsible to relate life, human and nonhuman, to this ordering to the extent that we
interact with it. Human agents, then, are deputies responsible for cooperating with the divine
ordering. To cooperate, though, is not simply to defer to the present situation; the
participant is neither to sit in approval of the present circumstances nor to condemn them
entirely.32 Instead, agents should exercise their given creativity in acting, involving themselves
in a gende shaping of events and circumstances that does not struggle against the larger
ordering of the world by God.
A note of caution is heard in the fact that, as participants, we must be careful in our
construal of the ordering of life. In detailing the descriptions of experience that underlie our
interpretations of moral obligations, we must in some way remove ourselves from our
iromediate events, so as to take everything properly into account (2: 147). In later addressing
the subject of discernment, we will attend to the difficulties associated with this expansion.
At this point, it is important to recognize that relating our action to the existing patterns and
processes does not mean that we are wholly fated:
To be sure, the divine ordering of the world is such that there are conditions of possibility in life, but the moral task is to see and help others to see actual and specific opportunities to better one's condition of life (2: 209).
The difficult task is relating observations to normative content. Our clue to this
challenge seems to be the broadening of our perspective as much as possible to take in and
consider the largest patterns of ordering. This is an expansion of our view of both rime and
space.33 Our consideration of what is ethically relevant can now include things like appetite
and affections, and not only our rationality or will. Many ethicists limit morality to these
cognitive or volitional capacities, separating the moral from what is considered the pre- or
non-moral. However, the importance of our affective capacities is slowly gaining wider
recognition in ethical circles, due in no small part to feminist scholars. Congruendy, Hans
Jonas, as cited by Gustafson, has put forth the' idea that ethical knowledge is triggered
through feelings of revulsion toward what is bad or wrong.34 This shows that values are not
independent of needs, wants, and desires, or our perceptions of these.
To be rational is not simply to reason logically from certain abstract or general principles, or from some moral ideals and values, to their application to the particular
56
"facts" at hand. Our rationality is exercised in determining what things are good for, for whom they are good; how to order and govem our subjective and often conflicting motives; and how to relate things to each other in the "extemal wotld" (1: 286f).
Gustafson describes the human as a primarily valuing creature, rather than considering
rationality primary. Of course, valuing is not a capacity unique to humans; rather, the refined
way we sort our values may be what makes us distinct. But having a distinct capacity does
not mean that sucha capacity is primary to our identity.
True ethical understanding, then, requires both rational and affective capacities: it is,
in part, deterroined by how we see humanity and how we sense or fiel our place (2: 279). This is
not only an appropriate forro of ethical discemment; it is a necessary one. Not all dilemmas
can be resolved rationally. For instance, the polarized sides debating the issue of abortion
both offer rational arguments, and even use the same sources of knowledge. How can such a
debate be resolved rationally? The diHiculty is that there are too many other factors at work,
and this demands the controlled use of our other ways of knowing. However, "the good ...
is not merely inclined toward or felt; it is also known, and thus there is a cognitive aspect as
well" (1: 119). There is a cooperative interaction between reason and affectivity that is
compatible with Midgley's account: "Practical reasoning would be impossible were not some
preferences 'more rational' than others. Rationality includes having the right priorities. And
deep, lasting preferences linked to character traits are forroally a quite different proposition
from sharp, isolated impulses."35 The point is that both reason and emotion are natural
aspects of human nature. One is not more sophisticated or contrived than the other (2: 9).36
This understanding of what is natural contrihutes to the idea that our distinctiveness does
not make us supreme. Humanity, like all other species, is natural. This is a claim that expands
our moral vision; many of those human factors typically considered non-moral tend to be
those attrihutes that humans have in common with other animaIs, such as instinct or
affectivity. Gustafson wants to he clear that, if we are to be mindful of a scientific
understanding of evolution, this is erroneous (1: 118).
All this is concurrent wiÙ?- his understanding that affectivity is a central characteristic
of religion and a principal human orientation. It is thtough piety, for the religious person,
that there is a uniting of heart and mind. Piety, which we recall is based on the affective
senses, allows for the inclusion of the more "subjective" aspects of agency, such as feelings,
intuitions, desires, and the exercise of humility (2: lOf). This kind of humility can lead
57
agential creatures to sacrifice their own interests, to consent to such a sacrifice, for the sake of
others:
All things are instrumental to the divine ordering, not to human happiness, and the divine ordering does not have human happiness as its final end. There are choices that have to be made which run counter to the fulfilhnent of human happiness (2: 108).
In considering the service of God, it becomes difficult for Gustafson to distinguish between
obligation and supererogation (2: 115). This should not be regarded as a fault, but as an
authentic understanding of Christian interaction with the world. Theocentrism leads to a
demanding requirement of discipline and consent on the part of the agent, which reveals an
additional school of ethics that enters Gustafson's thought: that of character- or disposition
based ethics.
EthicaJ Discernment
Theocentric orientation, fueIled by inner piety, encourages ID us a sense of
responsibility for those things to which we have affective responses:
A sense of accountability to others, and in the religious consciousness ultimately to God, qualifies self-understanding and the ways in which one relates to others. Stewardship is the personal basis for an attitude of caring for what is given and for the forms of caring that are appropriate to it. It is to be a "mask of God"; it is to have a calling ... that is ultimately in the service of the divine ordering and caring for the world (2: 167).
When this sense rises up within us, it is important to be able to translate what we value in
our description into what is of moral significance. At this stage, the process of moral and
ethical discernment is initiated. This process has several steps, which, though not clearly
distinguished in practice, can be labeIled here for pedagogical purposes. They include the
identification of points to be considered, the setting out of boundary conditions for action,
the recognition of presumptions in favour of certain values and principles, and the
establishment of general guidelines for action (2: 303). The process is not rigorist in any of
these areas, though it is coherent.
The first step, oûtlining the ethical context, is entirely dependent on our description
of life and stratification of the involved components. It is understood that the process of
thinking ethicaIly begins with a description of experience as it relates to our being and doing.
Our understandings, assumptions, beliefs, and convictions about the way the world is and
58
should be arise from out: initial description, and help us consttuct moral views. We begin
with the largest possible pictw:e of what really and ulcimately is. Looking to the natw:al order
presents us with a larger context for moral consideration. Gustafson affirms, "It provides
signals or indications of points to be taken into account in making personal or social
choices" (2: 275). It reveals fundamental requisites that must be met in order to encout:age
the flourishing of interrelated life. However, these requisites are dependent upon out:
perceptions of circumstances, which change with cime and development of knowledge.
Experience and description are not individual matters, but matters for the
community (2: 290 and 316f). Gustafson has stated that we are all related to something larger
than out: own subjective experiences, and we have shared perceptions of thiS.37 Thus, we can
begin with certain assumptions about the natw:al world, society, and agency. Just as
experience is communally initiated and corrected, so moral discemment discout:se requires a
corre"ctive community. People who relate to one another because of shared values and
commitments provide insights and clarifications that contribute to conclusions.38 Even so,
we are separated from other groups of people through the cultw:al and religious traditions to
which we adhere, and out: assumptions may not be shared by aU. Out: traditions, in large part,
shape out: interpretation of experience, and so we must have respect for interpretations other
than out: own. Different cultw:es reveal different points to be considered (2: 304). For this
reason, Gustafson refrains from attempting to set out a univers al or common system of
ethics (1: 126 and 147 n. 6). Yet he does set out an ethics which coincides ~th his own
description of experience, a commonsense ontology he thinks many others share.
Experience also is not an abstract matter. We relate things to God not in abstraction but in
very specific circumstances of relationship and action (1: 209). The experience must be taken
up in its concrete components because of the fact that change occut:s through the patterns
and processes of life, and out: knowledge of the world grows in relation to science and
experience; we are to continually reassess out: description by means of constant observation
(1: 44).
Of cout:.se, no one of us can respond to the whole of things, since the whole is
greater than out: ability to perceive it. No expansion of vision can justify the conclusion that
humans have come to a complete understanding of the cosmos (2: 58). But as out:
knowledge and abilities expand, we are able to respond to broader and broader contexts (2:
15). It must be out: aim to keep up moraUy with what we know scientifically and do
59
technologicaIly. Gustafson remarks that though our knowledge of the world has become
more complex, our ethical procedures do not match this complexity. What is required is an
ethics that takes into account a broader understanding of what is good, and a more generous
interpretation of what components are involved in making a moral decision.
Discernment, then, as a method of ethical reasoning, includes both observation and
a disctiminating or evaluating interpretation (1: 328). It differs from the kind of deliberation
found in other ethical models in that it is not a straightforward rational method that brings
one to a solution.39 Rather, decisions that come out of discernment can be ambiguous, and
the agent may exhibit a level of uncertainty about them. Discerning agents recognize that
there may be more than one right way to go about resolving a dilemma, or more than one
good to seek out, and that they are incapable of satisfying aIl of these requirements and
conditions. In relation to this Gustafson writes,
The final discernment is an informed intuition: it is not the conclusion of a formally logical argument, a strict deduction from a single moral principle, or an absolutely certain result from the exercises of human "reason" alone. There is a final moment of perception that sees the parts in relation to a whole, expresses sensibilities as weIl as reasoning, and is made in the conditions of human finitude (1: 338).
We must also say something about the subsequent steps in discemment. Beginning
with a description of the way things really and ultimately are indicates that seeking what is
good or of value is the principal move; contemplating what is right to do has a contingent
position. In this respect, theocentric ethics is close to classic teleological ethics. The
particular values themselves de termine the nature of the boundary conditions that are set,
though this is not to undervalue the deontic component: 'CV alues and ends are chosen, and ''.
conditions needed to achieve or approximate them are developed. But there are boundaries
within which particular ends ought to be pursued" (2: 306). Many of the beliefs and
convictions that arise from our description are not so much absolute as they are sources of
guidance. 1bis would suggest that the term "rule" is a misnomer, since our dispositions are
conditions more active in revealing possibilities than in setting limitations.40
The idea that context is detetminative of standards for action reveals something
about Gustafson's epistemology. As Gustafson rejects an objective moral order, he does not
support an ethics of divine commando But the tone of his work indicates a refusal to
consider aIl things as relative. He is interested in shaping an cmc'l,ing moral order through the
insights of experience.41 More than one of his interpreters has positioned Gustafson in
60
Richard Bemstein's neopragmatist camp. That is, he sits between objectivism, or the belief in
an independent and immutable matrix detetminative of rationality or morality, and
relativism, or the belief that rationality and morality are relative to conceptual schemes.42
This is the middle way mentioned in the introduction of this chapter. Reeder observes that
for neopragmatists there is a dialectical relationship between generalized principles and
specific judgements, the former being first induced from the latter, and then going on to
contribute to particular situations of discemment in the future.43 Conversely, Reeder also
observes that there are values present prior to Gustafson's articulation of the way things
really and ultimately are. For instance, Gustafson does not simply describe God as ordering
the world; he states that everything ordered is good, that the ordering process itself is good,
and that our natural response should be one of gratitude.44 Original goodness is understood
prior to our concrete and specific valuations. God's good purposes then go on to inspire
moral responses in the agent, and these take on a neopragmatist character. Reeder's purpose
in pointing this out is to show that Gustafson does have something that underpins his ethics,
though it is not the kind of immutable, objective moral order attacked by relativists. It is
more like a structure or web of beliefs than a solid foundation. It does not wholly detetmine
our moral activity, though it does help condition and inform it. What this demonstrates is
that neopragmatists, in ruling out an immutable matrix of reality, do not also have to rule out
an appeal to the way things really and ultimately are. We can surmise that Gustafson would
approve of this way of thinking as part of a commonsense ontology to which the average
agent can relate. So, the idea of a web of beliefs will become very important as we seek to
present a secular characterization of theocentrism.
However, there are those critics, including Adams, who say that the process of
discerntnent is too demanding a task to apply to the daily lives of humans.45 Disceming
elusive divine purposes that are more comprehensive than anything we can take in is a task
that humans are not up to, since there is a large gap between the patterns and processes of
the whole and the limited capacities of humanity. Adams thinks it is better to say that our
ethical responsibilities are exhausted by the promotion of human flourishing, and do not
extend to that of interrelated life, since "only God is fit to bear responsibility for the good of
the whole cosmos.,,46 We might respond by reemphasizing the freedom and scope
Gustafson gives the ethical agent. He recognizes the tension between human finitude and
the ability to grow and create. This tension is what makes us able to impact the patterns and
61
processes of life, though not in ways wholly predictable to or controllable by us. Still, both
our predictions and control become more refined over rime. Whether this situation is either
satisfying to us or daunting is beside the point. It is simply the situation we are given. This
being the case, we must not avoid it. The conclusion Adams comes to about human
responsibility is insufficient, since the bottom line of interdependence is that the human
good depends upon the good of the larger patterns and processes of life.
Nonetheless, what Gustafson describes is indeed a very demanding ethics. While he
always emphasizes expansion of vision and responsibility, we should pause to reflect that his
idea of improving moral character does not infer that humans are responsible for the
patterns of life. Similarly, moral improvement does not extend to moral perfection. Quite
clearly, even the most conscientious individual agent will not be confident that she is aware
of every ethically relevant matter. Nowhere does Gusqtfson eschew particular expertise. It is
to be assumed, for example, that the physician will know more about medical concerns than
environmental ones. What is being called for is not omniscience but an awareness of the
larger context, and a respect for matters outside one's own area of expertise. Gustafson
encourages us to dis cern and act responsibly to the full measure of our ability.
An important qualification about discemment needs to be explored at this point.
While observations of the patterns and processes of life are necessary to the development of
our moral understanding, they are not wholly sufficient to the process; they offer what is
necessary for a web of beliefs, not an immutable moral order.47 There is no given "blueprint"
for the ordering of life, and there are no precise moral commands provided in this ordering
(1: 245). As Gustafson has written,
1 believe that resolving the is-ought issue one way or another in the abstract does not fully resolve the relations between descriptions and morally desirable outcomes in very specific cÏtcumstances. AIso, those relationships will vary depending upon what sort of moral issue is under consideration.48
Here Gustafson distances himself from his mentor, H. Richard Niebuhr, and claims that the
agent does not endeavour to detetmÏne God's action, but instead aims to discern what we
are required or enabled to dO.49 It is through the integration of a continually modified
description with our initial observations that we are able to come to any conclusions about
what God's ordering may be indicating. In fact, patterns and processes are indicators only,
and not proofs (2: 293).
62
The question, then, is whether these indicators, and our web of beliefs, are sufficient
to the development of our own blueprint oflife. Stephen Toulmin understands Gustafson to
respond negatively to this idea:
A dozen roads exist by which, through confidence in the fruitfulness of honest hard work, we cau move in directions that can improve and reftne our understanding of those relations, even though none of them can be absolutely sure of leading, by itself, to that final destination. 50
Indeed, Gustafson himself is fond of quoting Milton's Paradise Lost: "So little knows / Any,
but God alone, to value right / The good before him, but perverts best things / To worst
abuse, or to their meanest use" (quoted in 2: 282 and passim). We offer our own ethical
decisions, our contributions to the ordering of life, in response to the ordering of the
patterns and processes of interdependence already in existence. These patterns are discerned,
at least provisionally, with the help of human experience and data from the sciences. But our
actions do not result from idealistic or philosophically exact theories. From a practical
perspective, they are corrections to the disordering that has resulted from actions of the past
(2: 299).
Gustafson agrees that ethics is a discipline that attempts to resolve the moral
ambiguity incurred through our conilicting characteristics of finitude and responsibility (2:
21 and 289). But while certain values may seem almost absolute, there is never risk-free or
cost-proof morality (2: 302). We have a lack of clarity and certainty in our discemment of
God's ordering (1: 113 and 244). In this way, Gustafson does follow in the foots teps of
Niebuhr, whose own ethics did not allow for moral certainty or blameless positions. In a
paragraph important to Gustafson's correction of Christianity, he writes that theocentric
ethics
does not relieve the anxiety of taking risks; it does not eliminate the need sometimes to act unjusdy for the sake of a wider justice; it does not resolve the deep ambiguities of moral choices in certain particular conditions; and it does not eliminate the possibility of genuine tragedy as a feature of human moral experience. It does not provide a bland assurance that something good will issue from every circumstance of what is injurious to human welfare, that every "crucifixion" will issue in a glorious "resurrection," that all things work together for good for those who love God (1: 316t).
With the continuaI reassessment involved in describing the ordering of nature, culture,
society, and history, there is a need to take risks, to step out where the outcome may be
uncertain. This understanding of risk-taking, though, is not a warrant for recklessness.
63
Rather, the agent is to temper risk-taklng with an awareness of her limited capacities to
control thecircutnstances. What contributes to the justification of an act with ambiguous
results is the amount of consideration given to the situation. 51 OversimpÎification of the
problem merely limits our options unnecessarily; true discernment gives us the confirmation
that this tragic action is warranted. like Niebuhr, Gustafson recommends grave and
unhurried reflection where possible (2: 280).
The result is that we cannot support our deliberate actions with certainty. To do so
would be inconsistent with the complexity of the situation. We can arrive, however, at a klnd
of moral certitude (1: 56). Gustafson does not provide a detailed explanation of his choice of
language here, but he does offer the distinction that certainty is impossible, while certitude is
not (1: 327). Certainty seems to imply an objective reason for having confidence that what
one is doing is the right thing to do and will result in predicted good ends. Certitude does
~ot offer the same assurance. N onetheless, it is more realistic, taklng into account the
relativities of life and the finitude of humanity both in foreknowledge and ability to act.
Theocentric ethics recognizes the aphorism that there are always multiple consequences to a
single action, and so it is a complicated process to perceive the ends our actions will produce
(2: 282). However, there are occasions when one can be generally satisfied that one has done,
to the best of one's knowledge, the most appropriate thing in the circumstances. In
providing a way to moral certitude, theocentric ethics accomplishes no small goal. It
encourages us to be more honest about the dense nature of life situations, and more willing
to admit a lack of power to act perfecdy.
This does not mean that those instances that do not clearly provide positive results
cannot be occasions for certitude. A lack of certainty means that theocentric ethics is open
to actions of necessity that lead to tragic outcomes. Ordering life with the aim of
interdependence does not entail that all goods will be achieved or all needs met. What
defiues the tragic is a course of action that involves a legitimate method of pursuit toward
legitimate ends but which also results in a compromising of other existing goods and
possibilities for the future (2: 21).52 Actions like this, such as the decision to kill in self
defence, are justifiable, though indeed moumful and regrettable. Gustafson advises the agent
to remain discontent with the tragic choice and its consequences; we must never sanction
tragedy.53 But a discontentedness with our own finitude should not lead us to inaction, as it
sometimes does in Niebuhr's ethics.54 What theocentric ethics teaches is that a system of life
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that providesincommensurate goods necessarily prevents harmony in establishing future
goods (2: 55). Since we cannot avoid this, we should not compromise the limited good we
can do by refraining from action altogether.
Since GuStafson is not a proponent of nonaction, he cannot support the idea of
halting human progress by restraining aU use or development of technology (1: 13).
"Scientific investigations and technology," he writes, "are means of preserving and
enhancing nature's own gifts" (2: 239). We cannot predict what beneficial or detrimental
effects our knowledge might have, but this does not authorize the repression of the creative
and exploratory sides of our nature. Since human creativity is part of the natural ordering, we
must make continuai attempts to order our creative contributions accordingly. We have the
capacity to develop, though not to the point of some idea of human perfection, so that the
range of possible courses of action can be broadened. In fact, Gustafson urgently
encourages scientists to consider themselves participants in moral agency, and not merely
objective observers. With Toulmin, Gustafson would agree that they are now "having to
rejoin the rest of humanity" in this respect, recognizing the moral consequences of their
research and developments (2: 13).55
This examination of ethical discernment shows that an orientation toward the divine
results in a high place for the common good. Furthermore, Gustafson's understanding of the
common good is expanded from its usual meaning. The idea of the interdependence of aU
life results in an assertion about the importance of having concem for the natural world.
Therefore, in the final statement that foUows our third chapter, we will draw out the
implications theocentric ethics has for ecology.
Comparison to NaturaJ Law
Throughout this examination of theocentric theology and ethics, implicit
connections to Roman Catholic naturallaw theory have been made. Despite Gustafson's
unique centre of value and refusaI to consider ethics analytical, theocentric ethics proves not
to be an ethical orphan, but related to natural law. We are now in a position to examine
further the similarities between the two programs. In doing so, our attention will be drawn
to certain differences; their relationship does not prevent them from being highly divergent
in both theory and practice.56 Gustafson himself offers a comparison of his program to that
of Aquinas, and we will draw upon this here (2: 42_64).57
65
Theocentric ethics and naturallaw share comtnon sources. They both posit an initial
description of the world in line with human experience and refined by evidences from the
sciences. Though their contexts for observation are quite different, Gustafson claims that
both he and Aquinas work from general descriptions of nature and culture. They use the
same sources, including theology, reason, experience, and, as noted, science: "That either
human experience or the knowledge of the natural world developed by the sciences is at least
a 'clue' to knowledge of God is, of course, a necessary supposition of all natural theology"
(1: 57).58 Disceming the character of the interaction of the elements of our description leads
us to draw inferences about moral activity (2: 46). Through this, both Gustafson and
Aquinas are able to come to a perception of the interrelationship of all things, which
influences their ethical understanding.59 Both offer an image of creation as ordered under
God, interacting to the glory of the creator. Description leads to the perception of
interdependence and of radical dependence on God, which Aquinas caUs the unity of aU
things (2: 53).
Perhaps the most important affinity theocentrism has with natural law theory is the
aspect of the ordering of nature. It can be said for both Aquinas and Gustafson that,
The basic pattern of ethics is the right ordering of things in relation to each other as each is related to the other for the sake of the purpose of the whole. And the source for understanding these relations of things to each other is given in the natural ordering of the creation (2: 45).
There is a general sense of moving from the is to the ought. Both naturallaw and theocentric
ethics temper empirical observation with general human experience of what is sensed to be
natural. Human inclinations about what is good are viewed at par with rationalistic
suppositions of the good (2: 9). On the other hand, Gustafson provides renewed emphasis
on the fact that the observations of the ordering of the natural world are not sufficient to the
ordering of one's actions. The requisites for life we receive through nature and culture make
our moral judgements ultimately dependent upon what is (2: 296). Even so, this does not
mean such requisites are tools sufficient in themselves for determining a moral order of
things, as naturallaw theorists often assume to be the case. Gustafson senses the ambiguity
of meaning in the patterns and processes of the interdependence of life; they are a necessary
starting point for our moral discemment, though alone they are inadequate indicators.
Whether we can de termine exactly what the patterns and processes are indicating to morality
66
IS questionable, though our capacity for action makes attempts at such discernment
necessary. 1{orality
is not a task of knowing what the immutable divine moral order of the universe is, and then developing institutions and human relations to conform to it. Because the sustaining and the goveming of life is itself both continuous and changing, the human cultural venture of moral and political ordering must be open to extension, development, and abandonment of some features of what is teceived (1: 242).
Gustafson cannot move so freely from the is to the ought because what is, is not unchanging,
and we are in part responsible for this change. In addition to this, he is able to provide a
correction to the direct observation-valuation relationship in natural law by pointing out a
tenet of this same program: human inclinations are considered important in guiding one
from the place of description to the place of ethical valuation (2: 9). There is no direct
correspondence; the web of beliefs and values we bear help bridge this gap, though in no
defi.nitive way.
Consequendy, Gustafson objects to the way Aquinas orders nature through the
Great Chain of Being, the ontological hierarchy of creation. The fust problem he finds is
that the chain do es not reflect the dynamic nature of the ordering of the wodd (2: 45). Of
course, the kind of science available to Aquinas was not adequate to indicate such dynamism.
But contemporary knowledge of the wodd must be applied to our moral ordering, and
Gustafson believes that if Aquinas were doing theology today, his concept of the order of
nature would not be immutable, but would reflect the fluctuating process that seems to take
place (2: 45). Gustafson's position can be seen as an updating of naturallaw in this respect.
His flexible understanding of ethical action is also stimulated by his contemporary view of
nature. For Aquinas, on the other hand, the order of charity is as immutable as the order of
being, and ethical possibilities for action are uncompromising. Gustafson considers this
untrue to experience, commenting, "Thomas's effort to develop an corder of charity'
implants on the dynamism of human nature a rigidity that violates it" (1: 313).
Contemporary scientific data also does not support the idea of a hierarchy of life in
which the "lower" forms serve the "higher" (2: 57 and 298). It is a mis comprehension to
regard the evolutionary process as aiming toward the generation of "superior" forms of life.
It has also been noted that Gustafson's God is not an extrapolation of perfected human
attributes, as Aquinas might have it. Humans are not doser to God's "perfection" than other
aspects of creation. Concepts of higher and lower are exchanged for creator and creation in
67
Gustafson's impression of the ordering of the world. His world is one in wruch all things are
"created equal," and thus nothing exists merely to serve something else. That God's power
and ordering are oriented to the fulfillment of individuals or even humanity is highly suspect.
This inherently anthropocentric aspect of the Great Chain of Being is indefensible.60
Sttuctured so that the order of being and the order of value coincide, it puts human beings at
the top of creation (1: 91f). All creation is related to humanity first, and only then to God.
Gustafson provides the correction that norms cannot be derived solely from description;
reason and emotion united in piety are required, too. This happy coincidence between being
and value is not present in theocentric ethics, and humanity is not guaranteed a position at
the top of our own moral ordering.
Though humans have a falsely exalted place in natural law, all things ultimately
proceed from and return to God. This makes God the primary ethical reference point, just
as in theocentric ethics. Value is given to creation from God, and we relate ourselves and all
life back to God accordingly. In this sense, the idea of exitus et. reditus is also ttue of
theocentric ethics. But Gustafson differs on the point of whether trus implies an
eschatological return to and immortal existence alongside God, seeing no evidence to
support trus (2: 55). Whereas naturallaw theory is teleological-all things have an ultimate
end to wruch they are oriented-theocentric ethics sees this orientation not as an
inevitability, but as an affective sruft in the perspective of the moral agent. A conversion to a
broader view of the world is not done under the compulsion of the divine, but through both
reason and affectivity. In natural law, the fact that the good end is definite means that an
objective moral order is embedded in the universe, and our orientation makes it evident to
us. This is a surety Gustafson cannot claim, since our sense of direction is in part detetmined
by our own creative capacities for action. Though theocentrism affirms that everything
begins in and depends on God, there is much more room for human freedom here than in
naturallaw. Gustafson thinks this, too, is commensurate with the experience of most.
For our purposes, the most important point to recognize in this comparison is the
similarity of natural law and theocentric ethics in their application to those outside the
Christian church. The sources upon wruch they draw, rughlighting experience and empirical
verification, mean that each "can be removed from its theological context to become a basis
for ethics" (2: 43). The word natural in naturallaw refers to the general availability of divine
order to natural reason, wruch is prior to, and can be apart from, religious belief. In the same
68
way, natu1:al piety rises up prior to a religious construal of piety, and so secular persons can
relate themselves to that which orders aIl things. This kind of flexibility is exceptional in the
theological realm. In natu1:allaw, its purpose is to widen God' s grace to reach those outside
of the church, while in Gustafson's thought it serves to demonsttate that a theocentric
orientation is not restricted to nominaIly Christian or even religious individuals. Thus, it
inttoduces an element necessary to the extension of theocentric ethics into the secular arena.
Despite the critiques of his colleagues, Gustafson persists in offering an ethical
theory that is true to life. His view of the world, including a broader understanding of what
can be considered to be of ethical consequence, allows the richness of experience to come
through in ethics. Rather than seeking to impose a foreign and rigid analytical structu1:e onto
the intricate and interwoven sttands of life, he offers clarity of thought and teaches modesty
of ethical ambition. He communÎcates to the agent the urgent need to take responsibility,
and the humility of knowing we are not able to work all things out for our good, or that of
the larger whole.
What is now required is to examine further how this view of the world can be shared
by those outside of the Christian church. In our following chapter we will determine to what
kind of secular philosophy theocentric ethics can appeal.
1 Gustafson, Christian Ethics and the Community, 98. 2 Gustafson, "A Response to Crities," 208. 3 Farley, 'Theocentrie Etlùes as a Genetie Argument," 40. 4 Audi, 178. 5 Martin L. Cook, "Reflections on James Gustafson's Theologieal-Etlùeal Method," Annual rf the Society rf Christian Ethics 17 (1997), 14. 6 James M. Gustafson, Intersections: Science, Theology, and Ethics (Cleveland: Pilgrim, 1996),37. 7 Midgley, Beast and Man, 90. See also her The Myths We Live By (London and New York: Roudedge, 2003), 156. 8 Paul Ramsey, "A Letter to James Gustafson," Journal rfRelifiollS Ethü:r 13:1 (1985), 91. 9 Reeder, 'The Dependence ofEtlùes," 135. 10 Gustafson, "Response," 208, and "Afterword," 241. 11 Reeder, 'The Dependence ofEtlùcs," 128ff. 12 Gustafson, "All1hings in Relation to God," 104. 13 Gustafson, "Response," 218. 14 Reeder, "The Dependence ofEthics," 120-33. 15 James M. Gustafson, "Nature: Its Status in Theologieal Ethics," Logos 3 (1982), 11. 16 Niebuhr, The Responsibk Self: An Ess~ in Christian Moral Philosop~, intro. James M. Gustafson (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1963): 100-13. 17 Midgley, Beast and Man, 155, italics in original. 18 Niebuhr, Radical Monotheism and Western Culture, 106. 19 Gustafson, A Sense of the Divine, 103. 20 Adams, 28f 21 Ibid., 29. 22 Reeder, "The Dependence of Ethics," 129. 23 See also Gustafson,A Sense rfthe Divine, 106.
24 For additional comments on this see Schenck. 25 Midgley, Beast and Man, 346. 26 Gustafson, Christian Ethics and the Communi~, 62. 7:1 Reeder, "The Dependence of Ethics," 129. 28 Niebuhr, The Responsible Self, 61 ff. 29 See James M. Gustafson, The%gy and Christian Ethics (philadelphia: United Church, 1974), 73ff and Gustafson, "Ethical Issues in the Human Future," 501. 30 Gustafson, ''Response to Hartt," 695. 31 Gustafson, A Sense of the Divine, 73. 32 Gustafson, Theoh!J and Christian Ethics, 84. 33 Additional comments on this can he found in Gustafson, "Ethical Issues in the Human Future," 497. 34 Cited in Gustafson, A Sense of the Divine, 23. 35 Midgley, Beast and Man, 249. 36 See also ibid, 258ff. 37 Gustafson, "Possibilities and Problems for the Study of Ethics," 241. 38 Gustafson, "All1bings in Relation to God," 96. 39 Ibid., 92. 40 James M. Gustafson, Can Ethics Be Christian? (Chicago and London: University of Chicago, 1975), 46f. 41 Gustafson, "Response," 215. See also Robert o. Johann, "An Ethics of Emergent Order," in James M. Gustafion j- Theocentric Ethics, 113. 42 In Reeder, 'The Dependence ofEthics," 122. Further explanations of this can he found in Reedei's ''Foundations without Foundationalism," in Prospects for a Common Morali~, eds. Gene Outka and John P. Reeder, Jr. (New Jersey:
69
Princeton University, 1993): 191-214; and William C. French, "Ecological Concems and the Anti-Foundationalist Debates: James Gustafson on Biospheric Constraints," Annua/ of the S ocie~ of Christian Ethics 17 (1997): 113-30. See also Richard J. Bernstein, Bryond Oljectivism and Re/ativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis (philadelphia: University of Philadelphia, 1983), 8. 43 Reeder, "Foundations without Foundationalism," 193. 44 Ibid, 195f. 45 Adams, 31. 46 Ibid. 47 Reeder develops this idea further in his response to theocentric ethics, 'The Dependence ofEthics," 120. 48 Gustafson, "Tracing a Trajectory," 185. 49 Gustafson in "Panel Discussion," 226. 50 Toulmin, "Nature and Nature's God," 48. 51 Gustafson, A Sense of the Divine, 146 and "Ethical Issues in the Human Future," 502f. 52 Cf. Gustafson, ''Response to Hartt," 698. 53 Gustafson, "Afterword," 244. 54 The most prevalent example of this comes in Niebuhr's 'The Grace of Doing Nothing," in which he described his position on noninvolvement after the Manchurian invasion by Japan. While not one of mere quiescence, Niebuhr's ethical position tended to have a scrupulously patient tenor. Christian Century (23 March, 1932): 378-80. 55 Toulmin, The Retum to Cosmoh!J,256. 56 Two practical differences, for example, are their respective conclusions on matters ofbirth conttol and abortion, as Gustafson oudines in 1: 91 and 2: 20f. It should he noted, however, that many Roman Catholic theologians no longer consider naturallaw theory to proscrihe contraceptive methods. Sec the seminal document by Charles E. Curran et al., Dissent in and for the Church: The%gians and Humanae Vitae (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1969). 57 An additional comparison can be found in Adams. 58 Cf. Gustafson, ''Tracinga Trajectory," 185. 59 Gustafson, "A Response to Critics," 189. 60 An implicit critique of androcentrism is also indicated here: the aspect of reason, typicaUy hailed as a masculine quality, does not stand as the measure of greatness for living beings.
70
Chaptcr 3
SECULAR THEOCENTRISM
As indicated at the close of the previous chapter, natural law theory appeals to
Gustafson for its general applicability to non-religious philosophies: ''Thomas's theory of
naturallaw can be removed from its theological context to become a basis for ethics in a way
that nothing in Barth's work can" (2: 43). Gustafson has a clear preference for broad
applications of theology, and it is our thesis here that theocentrism can readily be worked
out in secular fonn. In our introduction it was noted that discussions of ethics-especially
relating to the environment-would benefit if a theocentric worldview was extended to
those outside the realms of Christian and religious faith. As a Christian thinker, Gustafson
conveys a description of God related to the world in language that is generally theological.
However, this is coupled with the assertion that "what can be said in these traditional
theological tenns can also be expressed in more abstract language, and one can find warrants
for it in nonreligious construals and explanations of the world of which we are a part" (1:
196).
In order to pursue this line of thought, we will compare Gustafson to a secular
thinker whose nonreligious construal of the world parallels his theological outlook. Mary
Midgley will be our leaming partner in this chapter, and will act as a concrete example of
what we mean when we say that theocentrism is applicable in the secular realm. While
secularism is, admittedly, a far-reaching tenu, for our purposes it is helpful to highlight
Midgley's nontheistic foundation as what separates her secular philosophy from theology.
We will begin our work by outlining sorne pnmary themes in her thought befme carrying on
with a comparison of Gustafson and Midgley. Their relationship will be illustrated by
recalling several elements of Gustafson's thought that have important implications for
moving to secular theocentric ethics. These include commonsense ontology, religious piety,
metanoia, and the senses.
Perhaps the most pivotaI point of this discussion cornes in addressing the element of
the divine. By de finition, theocentrism includes the belief in God. However, in this chapter it
will be shown that it is possible to extend the divine qualities that are most significant to
71
theocentrism, by way of functional equivalents, without imposing theistic belief.l There is a
connection between what Gustafson affums, and what scientificaIly infonned secular
philosophy can affum: both positions share a certain view of the natural world. Our task is
to oudine the way in which persons outside of religious faith relate themse1ves to ordering
power. Gustafson does not argue theocentrism as a kind of Christian pantheism, as the
divine is not exhausted by nature. Yet, since God is perceived through nature, much of what
can be understood about Gustafson's God is clarified by exchanging the word "God" with
"nature" in his description of the divine. This ex change guides us toward the proper point of
orientation in secular thought. A secular interpretation of Gustafson's theology results not in
pantheism, but in an expansion of vision that recognizes aIl things as interconnected in larger
and larger wholes. In effect, this is a recognition of a whole that is greater than the sum of its
parts.
Though we seek to extend a particular worldview and moral direction, it is not the
intention of this venture to proffer a unifonn philosophy and method of ethical
discemment. Gustafson's respect for cultural and social context prevents this uniformity,
and his ethics reveals his rejection of foolproof systems for ethical reasoning (cf. 2: 147 n. 6).
As he does not advocate for a simplistic universality, what is proposed here is not a common
system of ethics, but a way toward encouraging people, religious and secular, to look at the
world in a larger, more inclusive way, and to integrate additional elements into moral
description and consideration. This may lead to a thicker agreement on certain issues, and it
certainly willlead to a broader discussion of them, but we do not aim for homogeneity.
Mary Midgley
Gustafson cites Mary Midgley frequently in his two volumes, claiming they share
many of the same viewpoints (1: 282).2 Up to this point, we have only addressed the work of
Midgley as it relates directly to or helps clarify Gustafson's theology and ethics. Here we take
up Midgley's position on anthropocentrism, and the solution she puts forward, in order to
present them as secular functional equi,:alents of theocentric conclusions. Our purpose is
not to show that Gustafson and Midgley are in systematic agreement on an ethical process.
Rather, it is to demonstrate that, despite variant contexts, audiences, and aims, both see the
same problem from two different angles and arrive at similar conclusions. They attempt to
transfonn ways of thinking present in their respective contexts. Gustafson's audience
72
includes the Christian church. Midgley seems to have two audiences: the scientific
cotntnunity, and larger secular culture, both of which tend to disregard the connection
between scientific findings and philosophical and ethical worldviews. Gustafson attacks
anthropocentrism, while Midgley, in a parallel vell, makes a complaint against reductive
humanism. Gustafson's theocentrism leads him to posit a view of the world that relates all
values to God. For Midgley, a broader description and moral view leads her to cotntnend the
Gaia theory. Examining these two positions in tandem will bring us back full circle to a view
that what is required in order to care for the earth is an outlook on the universe that takes
into account the ordering of ail aspects of life.
Midgley is renowned as a philosopher of human nature and science. Through her
books, articles, and teaching, she has made frequent attacks on scientism, reductive
humanism, and environmental abuse. Her writing displays expert understanding of classical
and contemporary philosophy, and reveals her competence in understanding current
scientific and technological research. Yet she engages these sources with a fresh perspective
and an open mind, often bringing the reader to reject former assumptions. Midgley shows a
certain tolerance for religion, though she is not herself a theist. Like Gustafson, she wants to
open her work up to speak to both religious and secular persons.3 In expressing her own
ontology, she shows great respect for the "necessity of taking seriously the perspective of
ordinary life.,,4 She includes within her philosophy a description of humans as ethical agents,
generaIly relating the ought to the is: "One cannot sensibly ask how people ought to be related
to one another without making some assumptions about the kind of beings that they are."s
She also devotes an entire chapter of Beast and Man to the statement that "there is not ... any
special difficulty about 'reasoning from facts to values.",6 As our desires and wants are part
of our character, and not easily changeable, they are facts of our being that lead us to value
certain things as good. At the same cime, Midgley has difficulties with the nature of fact
value relations in naturallaw. According to her, it is the particular facts one chooses for an
ethical basis that are of distinct importance.7 11Us is similar to Gustafson's approach, which
indicates that m_ere observation of nature does not in itself provide moral guidance. A
process of discemment, including both rational and affective components, is required in
order to be able to notice the cues communicated through the natural world.
In the same way, Midgley emphasizes a kind of discemment process that is required
in addressing the task and findings of the sciences. While Gustafson has been berated for
73
viewing science in a naïvely positive fashion, Midgley's critics have often accused her of
holding a negative view of science. However, it is important to understand before venturing
further into her thought that the flavour of her agenda is not anti~science, but anti
scientism.8 She wants westerners to take a long look at science, and understand that it is not
entirely an objective, disinterested activity.9 Rather, as our primary means of discovery, a
major contributor to our worldview, and the thing in which most people have implicit faith,
it is often a substitution for religion. N onetheless, scientism is a disordered religion; those
who discover something are revered, while what is discovered is merely utiIized.10 We might
drawa comparison here with Gustafson's assessment of the utiIization of God in Christian
theology. Recall the statement that Christian theologians are often more interested in each
other than in God. In addition to this critique, Midgley makes it clear that scientific research
goals, and even research methods, can be manipulated to suit human desires and priorities.
Science is not an incorruptible discipline; it is quite possible to attach values and desires onto
it. Midgley also recognizes that contemporary western society holds on to the modern notion
of the "omni-competence of science," or the ability of science and technology to solve all
problems. This leads to ideas of unending human progress and the freedom of humans to
engage in the activities of their choosing.ll This myth, she comments, is dangerous in that it
isolates humanity from the rest of the natural world, whereas the fact of the matter is that
humans are continuous with the nature around us. The negative effect we have on our
environment cannot be corrected through only technological means, whereas it can be
greatly alleviated when we take more responsibility for our actions.
In noticing the cues of the natural world, and disceming helpful moral indications
from them, both Gustafson and Midgley recognize the same human problem. As Gustafson
attacks anthropocentrism in the religious sphere, so Midgley attacks reductive humanism, a
sis ter term, in the secular and scientific spheres.12 She provides the same answer as
Gustafson, while admitting that they arrive at their conclusions by different means: he by
way of God and she by way of the natural world. Midgley gauges that the heart of the
problem o.f reductive humanism or anthropocentrism is engrained in dominant western
society, rather than the Christian tradition.13 She believes that Christianity is not, at its core,
megalomaniac, since it places humanity under God and God's scheme for the world-a
dogma Gustafson would greatly like to see remembered.14 In Midgley's view, it is only that
Christianity has been corrupted by the human desires for perfection and independence.
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These hold inherent problems for the human sense of self-importance in the universe.15
Certain philosophical sources, including existentialism, tend to orient humanity "as if the
world contained only dead matter (things) on the one hand and fully rational, educated, adult
human beings on the other."16
In addressing Gustafson's work, Midgley critiques theocentric ethics as not quite
reaching to the root of the problem. The root, as she understands it, is not that we view
ourselves as central: "In any system, different elements can be viewed as central according to
the angle from which we consider it at a given time."17 The problem comes when humanity
starts to compete for the whole of value, considering the race as central from all angles. For
instance, evolutionary theory has often been used to position humanity at the top of a
pyramid, as some kind of omega point.18 From some view, perhaps, we are at the top; we
have higher faculties of rationality and affectivity. However, if we consider these capacities to
be alI-important, or objective measures of value, we begin to lose sight of the goodness of
the rest of the world, as weIl as the goodness of those qualities within us that are not unique
to our species, but continuous with other animal life. This critique adds clarification to
Gustafson's move away from anthropocentrism; it helps rein force that one can retain a sense
of human distinctiveness while also seeing value in relation to larger and larger wholes. For
this reason, Midgley's critique actuaIly helps Gustafson's program along, rather than injuring
it.
By considering humanity wholly central, we have become our own object of
worship. Midgley observes that for those who do not believe in a kingdom in heaven, there
is no choice but to look for a kingdom on earth. Humanism rose by promoting the
dominance of one set of human qualities over another, namely will and intellect, making all
other qualities instrumental to them. It has the tendency of subjecting all value to human
standards, thus leading to a reverence for humanity in the character of religious worship.19
While we have ejected God from the seat of power and made humanity the objective centre
of value, we have not been able to rid ourselves of the urge for reverence or the need to
create what Midgley calls "wild cosmic fantasies." Whatever the locations of our centre of
value, "we are liable to build myths around them that are both pernicious and surprisingly
silly."zo Such myths include the idea of infinite human progress. Working alongside this are
our efforts to recoil from any sense of wonder at the natural world.21 These feelings are seen
by many as too close to an actual religion, even though the event of self-worship is ignored.
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Concerns such as these indicate a disordering of value. Midgley's de finition of the problem
at hand, while offering the minor correction we have noted, is remarkably similar to that of
theocentrism:
Reductive humanism, steadily narrowing the field of our concern, has eut short our natural hwnan interests in three stages. It first attacked the heavens, cutting out our idea of God and of nonhwnan spirits. Next it amputated the earth, ruling that nonhwnan nature was alien and did not concern us. But now third, and most alarming, it attacks the structure of hwnan life itself, isolating each individual in the supposedly impregnable fortress ofhis own autonomous will.22
Though Midgley is not religious, the solution she offers is not to give up on our
inclination for reverence, as if religion were actually Freudian illusion. Instead she advises
that humans revere the proper objects in the appropriate amounts. This indudes not only
ourselves, but other life forms, and the world around us. She would like us to recall Darwin's
explication of evolution, which is not set up as a pyramid, but resembles more of a bush,
with each branch moving outward, and stemming off in different directions, yet always
remaining connected to the other branches.23 Showing an understanding for the nature of
incommensurate goods and values in the world she writes, "Creatures diverge, each to its
own way of life, each finding its own characteristic sort of fulfillment.,,24 Understanding that
there are different types of fulfilment and fittedness means respecting forms of life and
aspects of creation apart from hwnanity. Hwnanism must move beyond its reductive form
in order to "understand and save man.,,25 For this reason, Midgley commends holding
hwnanity not apart from the animaIs, but among them, as was discussed in our first chapter.
She first questions, ''Why should not our excellence involve our whole nature?" and then
states, "Our dignity arises within nature, not against it.,,26 Hwnanists tend to see hwnanity as
objectively central; but seeking out what is onlY hwnan means we never arrive at what is JullY hwnan.27 Midgley, too, perceives patterns and processes essential to human existence,
though they are not unique to it. They offer a sense of continuity for our lives, and indude
instincts and habits.28 In this way, she demonstrates that we are not self-sufficient but, as
Gustafson would have it, radically dependent on what is given. What is given includes both
external goods and our internaI nature, which is continuous with the nature outside of us.
Subsequendy, many things we value as good can be found among other forms of life:
We plainly have no monopoly on many valuable elements, such as kindness and affection. We did not, personally and unassisted, invent every aspect of humanity.
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Much of it is drawn from a common source, and overlaps with dolphinity, beaverishness, and wolfhood 29
We share with other animals the capacity to order our preferences, to make decisions, to
value, and to feel pain. To respect humanity in isolation is, in any light, to do a disservice to
other aspects of creation. Midgley wants the reader to understand that only a proper respect
for aIl things willlead to a proper ordering of values in daily human life.
The problem, be it anthropocentrism or reductive humanism, is that humans have
not overcome the desire for self-aggrandizement. Now that we understand Midgley's
approach to the problem from a secular philosophical and scientific point of view, we can
see that both she and Gustafson perceive the same kind of world and the same problems
therein. It becomes necessary to extend theocentric ethics to the secular sphere by showing
commonalities in basic description. In doing so, we will compare their respective rationales
for these assessments. Following this, we will examine the solution at which Midgley arrives,
and relate it to the theocentric directive of valuing all things in relation to God.
Commonsense OntoJogy
Stephen Toulmin has lamented that for too long scientists and theologians have
explored cosmology in ways that have ignored each other's findings. 30 He sees Gustafson as
the person to bring these two sides together and to correct their respective faults. We noted
in our introduction how similar these faults are at their core. Gustafson wams the
theological community that it is difficult to assure humans of eschatological notions of
personal salvation or immortality; however our species finds its end, this will take place long
before the destruction of our habitat, reinforcing our place as one part of creation, rather
than its crown (1: 240 and 268). In the same mode, he wams against secular confidence in
human progress. The self-improvement of humanity will end, and not ail things are or will
be within our control. We must not put up these illusions for ourselves but see ourselves as
part of something much greater and far beyond our own plans.
Toulmin is not the only critic outside of the Christian academy to favour Gustafson's
approach. Our constructive task is, in part, justified by the fact that Gustafson's secular
commentators are more sympathetic to the program than those in Christian theology and
ethics.31 This supports much of what we will see Gustafson say about the application of the
sense of the divine and natural piety to those outside of a religious tradition. He relates weIl
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to the nontheologian because he uses a variety of influences and sources, including science,
literature, law, and the input of nontheologians (1: ix and xz). As we noted in the previous
chapter, he recognizes the truth shown in naturallaw: the basis for knowledge of the wotld,
whether from a religious or secular perspective, must be made up of an initial description
refined by evidences from the sciences. Gustafson brings the reader to the understanding
that there is more than one way to intetpret objects: "One can have a scientific perception
and explanation of the same phenomenon that can be perceived and construed aesthetically
and religiously" (1: 227). For instance, Midgley's intetpretation of the way things are does
not bring her to a construction of theology or religion, but it does venture into a place also
friendly to theological description.32 As Midgley notes, "Asking different kinds of questions
pro duces quite different kinds of answers; they are usually not reducible to one another,
though they must be compatible.,,33 The scientific understanding of an object can
complement its theological construal. Gustafson's reason for looking outside theological
circles for inspiration is that he does not see his own experience of the divine as unique or
sectarian (1: x). While his aim is to help the church discem the ethical situation, his work also
extends to bridge the gap between secular and religious minds.
A respect for the secular influence within Gustafson's sources allows us to come to
certain conclusions. A person's view of the wotld is shaped initially by the web of beliefs that
are presupposed in moral discemment. While Gustafson is disinclined to posit anything
univers al, even an experience of the ultimate source of value, he does start with the premise
that one can act based on the assumption that creation is good, though not necessarily good
for us. This goodness has the potential to cause awe, and can even orient our action; both of
these responses are fitting. Such assumptions help construct the web of beliefs that can be
considered the starting point for theocentric theology and secular Gustafsonian philosophy
alike. Midgley seems to be in agreement with the idea that there are certain connected beliefs
that we employ in working out our value system. She expresses the nature of these beliefs as
a web when she writes, "What we need is not an ultimate floor at the bottom of the universe
but simply a planet with a good strong reassuring pull that will keep us together and stop us
falling off it.,,34
Midgley's concept of the goodness of things also relates to Gustafson's. Both are
interested in defining the good in relation to our description of what is real. Midgley does
not posit an immutable good order, but, like Gustafson, takes her cues for moral
78
construction from arenas such as nature and culture. Also like Gustafson, she works from
particular elements of human experience of the good toward a more general and unified
description. It is clear to her that good ends are incommensurate. Similarly, what seems good
in our constructed moral codes may not always correspond seamlessly with what is good in
nature; for example, most humans cannot help but feel sympathy for prey, though it is clear
that the predator-prey relationship is a crucial part of the ordering of ecosystems. But the
fact that perceived individual good ends are incommensurate does not mean that they are
not commonly grounded. Midgley takes the position that there is an intellectual need among
humans to view the cosmos as a whole.35 In recounting Platonic thought, she reveals her
impression that there is a single notion of the good:
It is, as Plato righrly said, a central notion, because it expresses our belief that aIl the other things we calI good do in some way at some remote point convCfJ!,c-that our nature, in spite of its conflicts, is not radicalIy and hopelessly and fina11y plural, but essentialIy one. The notion of good is central to us, because of its place in the structure.36
While Midgley's concern is with a moral notion of oneness and goodness, her emphasis on
seeing humanity and nature together, rather than separately, leads to an understanding of the
goodness underlying ail thingS.37 Gustafson also relates everything to the unity of experience,
and his web of beliefs infers the goodness of God and God's works. Individual goods may
be incommensurate, but they are yet linked to the concept of a good that is beyond what is
good for humanity. This orients our moral framework.
As our two focal thinkers, despite their separate contexts, begin with similar sources
for description, there are ideas that come out of Gustafson's theological requisites that can
be transposed onto secularism through the device of functional surrogates or equivalents.
For instance, the initial experience of the natural world described by various people is similar
enough to alIow individuals from different places and traditions to engage in moral
discernment together. In order to understand this we must reca11 Reeder's oudine of the
three dimensions of Gustafson's ethics: theocentrism, substantive notions for flourishing,
and functional requisites for human society. The latter two of these, which are dependent
upon the first, can be non-theological and thus contain prospects for wide agreement. As in
theological ethics, philosophical systems have premises upon which they are dependent. AIl
ethical systems begin with a web of beliefs founded upon that knowledge to which the
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subject has access. Reeder would daim that Gustafson's philosophical rationale, which takes
the fonn of theocentrism, is understandable in tenns both theological and non-theological:
The rationale is a composite of elements that produce a principle to the effect that the good of the whole creation should be attended to. Part of the rationale for this principle can be shared with others, namely, beliefs about the solar system, gratitude, the value of the whole. Keeping sorne of Gustafson's views and adding others, Mary Midgley or Mahayana Buddhists, for example, could come up with a similar first principle; the welfare of all sentient beings or of the whole cosmos.38
This rneans that, from start to finish, a secularist or a person from a different
religious tradition can have a philosophy functionally similar to theocentrism. In Gustafson's
description, the rationale takes on the element of theism, while from the perspective of a
nonreligious person it might be similarly articulated in a nontheistic manner. What makes
this possible is Gustafson's own consttual of the nature of theistic belief as a source for
ethics. He understands Jhat, for all individuals, personal devotion and perceived moral
responsibility rest with questions about the object of our confidence, loyalty, hope, and
affections (1: 224f). While everyone will be morally devoted in a certain way; not everyone
will describe the same object of affection: "For many persons the answers do not lead to an
affirmation of the presence of an ultimate power sustaining and bearing down upon life.
There are functional surrogates to religion as 1 understand it" (1: 225).
Locating functional surrogates or equivalents requîtes finding the elements of
theocentrisrn that can be transposed onto secularism without altering what it means to be
nontheistic. One source of description that cannot be forced is Christian tradition, induding
its scripture, theology, and community .. While this may appear at first to leave theocentrism
at a loss, there is opportunity in Gustafson's thinking for this. In fact, the critiques we have
seen him make regarding his own tradition make room for a parallel secular philosophy.
Neville Richardson highlights the flexibility of Gustafson's outline of the God-human
relationship in the following way:
Theocentrism ... does not mean the obliteration or even the diminution of the value of the human. Nor does it imply the availability of a God's-eye-view of things. It seems to suggest the (human) ability to see things as a whole and especially to see oneself and even all humanity in tenns of a far greater (now) empirically evident whole.39
Gustafson's moral philosophy largely eschews metaphysical description, which does
much to open the door to morality without a theistic foundation (1: 76 and 2: 97). Though
his primary concem is always with the church, it is clear in his work that neither the church
80
nor religion in general holds any unique moral authority. A practical example adds weight to
this conclusion. In his earlier book, Can Ethics Be Christian?, he recaIls an experience in a bar
with a secular colleague, who, in an awkward situation involving an intoxicated third party,
acts like a "moral virtuoso." Gustafson admires his behaviour and is shamed by his own
inability to determine how to participate in the situation. His observation is that "a secular
ontology can serve as weIl as God to satisfy the quest for the necessary conditions for
morality.,,40 William Schweiker also recognizes the possibilities for exchanging the divine
with a secular ontology, saying that Gustafson both caIls the agent to order life according to
divine purposes and acknowledges that there is no certain insight into these purposes
provided by particular religions. Thus, "Gustafson's theology seeks to address the authentic
natural piety of secular but morally serious persons.,,41
We must ask whether the device of the functional surrogate for God gives rise to the
complaint, voiced by William J. Meyer, that it is erroneous for theological ethicists to accept
the idea that ethics can be founded on something other than theism.42 Since theism requires
a belief that aIl aspects of life are dependent on or related to God, ethics that does not posit
a God cannot communicate how to relate anything properly. Gustafson do es indeed relate
aIl things to God as the source of value. However, in introducing functional equivalents of
theology he allows the secular person a nontheistic source of value. Whatever this surrogate
may be, it is still considered the source of what is real and ultimate. For those with a religious
interpretation, what is real and ultimate will be translated into God and God's relations with
creation. For the nontheist, the real and ultimate may be limited to the perceived patterns
and processes, or their ordering. Midgley has an affinity for the idea that affectivity can be
religious or nonreligious in nature:
Wonder, the sense of otherness, is one of the sources of religion (not the other way around), but it is also the source of curiosity and every vigorous use of our faculties, and an essential condition of sanity. And there is less difference than some people suppose between its religious and its scientific expression. When the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, he only said what any true naturalist may say to himself, whether he believes in any god or not.43
Gustafson has shown that if a pers on has properly ordered values, this is indicative of an
understanding of a source of value that is beyond the human. The experience of an ultimate
source of value, then, can be common among religious and secular persons, though
interpretations and affective responses are shaped differendy.
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Following this line of thinking, Reeder likens Gustafson's concept of religion to that
of Clifford Geertz: religion is not a matter of being tied to a notion of the divine, as opposed
to the profane, but a matter of being concerned with what is ultimately real.44 Gustafson is
not only conscious of the way religious people are aware of ultimate dependence; he also
observes that most humans in the world attempt to relate themselves to ultimate power.
Edward Farley, the critic who has pointed out that Gustafson's ontology is of the
commonsense variety, also agrees that Gustafson's starting point it not the positing of a
divine being. Rather, itis the description of ~'a situation and a concatenation of realities.,,45
We now understand why the phrase "how some things really and ultimately are" is so
important to associating theocentrism with the secular sphere. It allows for the outline of an
ethics that "is generally accessible to Christians, atheists, and others in our pluralistic
world.,,46 While theocentric ethics certainly is God-centred, we can argue that what is
essential to its normative content is not theism so much as the commonsense ontology
underlying that theism. Gustafson's initial description of our circumstances prompts him to
develop a theology that is his own affective response to the description. However, one can
move from a similar description to a compatible philosophy without going through religious
affectivity: "Although one may have a theology that justifies a certain worldview, another
participant doesn't necessarily have to agree with the theology in order to agree with that
view of the world.,,47 It follows, then, that since the middle portion of theocentric ethics is
dependent on commonsense ontology, anyone with a similar ontology, be it theistic or not,
can use Gustafson's ethics. And so the following statement made by Midgley is one with
which Gustafson would agree:
The first point to consider is not whether there is a God .... It is how, in this life, we are to view and interpret both the world around us and the world within us. We need ways of thinking which are unifying enough to give us guiding patterns, but not so strongly reductive as to leave out something important.48
Common Sources
Identifying secular equivalents is accomplished by understanding the flexibility of a
commonsense ontology rising out of the sources of reason, emotion, experience of the
natural, and scientific evidences. It was reasoned before the event of modern science that the
world is not the playground of humanity. Not aIl Greek philosophers held to the
Protagorean assertion that man is the measure of aIl things (1: 88 and 190). Despite his
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awareness of these reasoned conclusions, and bis respect for the source of reason,
Gustafson does not aim toward the rational persuasion of secular persons. Ibis is
unnecessary according to bis own understanding of human nature and expenence.
Secularists are no more limited to rationalism than are religious persons, but are also aware
of experience that is subjective.
Gustafson understands that most people can agree, "there is a knowing that comes
through loving, through fearing, through pleasure" (1: 229). The relationsbip between
rationality and affectivity is evidenced by the use of both in daily living.49 Midgley, too,
attempts to unite the reason or will and affectivity among secular readers. She understands
emotion to be ordered and guided by reason, though the domination of one by the other
should not be part of that process.50 As she reminds us, ''Natural feelings ... are not just
loose facts about us; they are the sort of thing that constitutes our central goOd.,,51 ln order
to exercise free will, basic desires and feelings about things are required to help form one's
desires and direction. Without emotion, we cannot determine what is a desired good; but
without reason, we cannot choose responsibly between two conflicting goods.
ln discovering a secular equivalent for theocentric orientation, affectivity is certainly
not a feature to be left out. As Harlan Beckley interprets, "The religious consciousness,
whether in natural piety or religious piety, feels and articulates the presence of a reality that is
beyond what can be inferred from scientific investigation."52 Midgley's contribution is to
distinguish God and the soul from those things for wbich we have no evidence, those
"unimaginably distinct unicoms.,,53 While God and the soul are not scientificaIly verifiable,
she gives credence to the "evidence aIl around us" for such things, and does not dis credit
altemate ways of knowing. Gustafson provides a further word on the matter:
Religious dimensions of dim or articulate senses of dependence on the environment and interdependence with it, a sense of the contingency of our lives and the natural world relative to our powers to control them, are probably present in all the world's religions, on a continuum from those that have been caIled aninùstic to the most radical views of divine transcendence. They are also found in the natural piety 1 have noted to be present in many secular persons as weIl. 54
ln finding ways in wbich theocentrism can be translated into the secular arena, we must
include the need for rational proofs and the more subjective element of affectivity.
One of the most clearly stated reasons why Gustafson's ethics can arise out of the
same description as that of many nontheists is presented in bis treatise on environmental
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awareness. In A Sense of the Divine, Gustafson clarifies that the natural world provides
humanity with a common source of experience from wruch we reason:
What is finaUy indisputable, 1 think, is that human and other forros of life are dependent upon forces we do not create and cannot fully control, forces that bring us into being and sustain us and life around us, but forces that also limit and destroy us and deterroine the destiny of the cosmos. This dependence--a matter of fact, no matter how it is interpreted--evokes a sense of the . sublime, or for some of us a sense of the divine. 55
He concludes trus thought by writing, "Nature is the theatre of the power and glory of the
Divine. It provides a moral stance." Since rus description of the way things really and
ultimately are rests upon a modem understanding of the fluidity of nature, rus basic ontology
is perceptible to the secular mindset, even apart from rus theistic position.56 Gustafson is in
line with most contemporary secular thinkers as far as a description of human existence is
concemed. The other sources he uses, wruch highlight human experience and the sciences,
come out of trus naturalistic basis, also finding affinity with secular lines of reason.57 Apart
from the more particular eiements of rus theistic description, then, Gustafson's sources find
their functional equivalents in secular ontology.
NaturaJ Piety
We have only begun to outline the link that commonsense ontology provides
between secular and religious persons. Using the common sources of reason, affectivity,
nature, and science is not enough in itself to pro duce a sense of something greater than
humanity. What Gustafson's theology requires for trus leap is religious piety and metanoia or
conversion. Religious piety, of course, by definition cannot exist in secularism, and
conversion is often considered exclusively religious, as weIl. The question is whether these
more overtly religious elements of theocentrism have secular functional equivalents.
Theology, as Gustafson considers it, is an articulation of a pious orientation. When
we speak about functional equivalents of theology, we are speaking in particular of what is
parallel to religious piety. Gustafson gives reason to think that piety is not purely a religious
thing. First and foremost, piety is a human affective response to the powers that sustain and
bear down upon us, and to what is perceived as real and ultimate. Piety can extend, as
Gustafson puts it, to "the scientist, the dedicated hedonist, the hard-driving corporate
executive, and every pers on" (1: 199). While it is true that developments like
84
anthropocentrism have led many people to a contracted view of reality, when secularists are
opened up to another "dimension" of life beyond the realm of immediate personal concems,
they make a leap similar to the kind made by religious persons in relating aU values to God
(1: 135).
Gustafson's point is not that some secular pers ons are unknowingly theistic. Nor
does he want to make Christianity or other religions indistinct from secularism (1: 18). An
aspect of character often considered purely religious, such as an orientation toward
something ultimate, is really something more common than a particular religious sentiment.
When Gustafson writes that the main questions of religion relate to the ultimate object of
our confidence, loyalty, hope, and love, he does not require that the answers be overtly
religious, nor does he understand these to be questions addressed only by the religious
person (1: 225). It is appropriate here to import the definition of religious affections offered
by William James: "Religious awe is the same organic thrill which we feel in a forest at
twilight, or in a mountain gorge; only this time it comes over us at the thought of our
supematural relations.,,58 Our affections, then, are not primari1y religious, but natural and
common. As Midgley has already proposed, it is only a secondary movement to construe
them religiously. At one point Gustafson explains his approach to theology in the following
way: "Theology is the noun, Christian is the modifier" (1: 278). We might aIso say,
"Affectivity is the noun, religious (or secular) is the modifier." Religious piety is a particular
move one makes to relate natural affectivities and their objects to divine ultimate power or
powers (1: 195f). It is not a necessary move, but one that stems from context. The affectivity
of religious people is, in part, directed by their position within culture, society, religious
community, and even by their own individual characters. These things can evoke a sense of
the divine (1: 227).59
Similarly, natural affections can give rise to a naturally pious philosophy. This means
there is a tenable position on the spectrum between radical secularity and pious religiosity,
which we might consider a pious secularity. Gustafson's name for it is natural piety.
The experience of a lovely landscape, or of remorse for causing suffering, does not evoke religiousaffectivity because somewhere 1n the Bible it says the heavens declare the glory of God or that one is guilty when one causes harm to others. Rather, a moment of deeply appreciated aesthetic response is, in the consciousness of the beholder who has consented to certain fundamental aspects and oudooks from the biblicai tradition, aiso a moment of "natural piety" (1: 233).
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TIùs is articulated more succincdy by saying that just as it is claimed that there is a natural
law available to aIl, so there is a piety in which aIl pers ons can participate: ''What we have are
different ways of describing and explaining it.,,60 Natural piety occurs when the world around
us evokes in us senses of awe and corresponding obligation, while theocentric piety is
shaped when the natural world evokes in us aIl these things by way of a sense of the divine. 61
It is usually within a religious tradition that one begins to relate experience religiously to an
ultimate power, while others outside of those traditions, or rejecting those traditions, tend to
remain in the realm of natural piety. Gustafson does not see one as a more authentic
response than the other, though he may deem one more persuasive according to his own
experience.62 Both provoke the same kind of moral discemment, even from differing
contexts.
TIlls supports the idea that the theistic belief suggested in theocentric ethics is not
actuaIly the hinge on which the program turnS. Gustafson claims as much in writing that
theocentrism
does force persons to perceive and interpret man in relation to the ultimate power and orderer of aIl of the creation .... This is not to claim that Mary Midgley and many others cannot adequately perceive the place of man in relation to nature without a theology or an avowed theocentric interpretation of life. The enlargement of vision that a theocentric perspective enables certainly can be achieved, at least in considerable measure, from nontheological perspectives (1: 308).63
He is obviously very comfbrtable with secular individuals such as Midgley, who, though
agnostic or atheistic, have a sense of wonder and appreciation for nature.64
Midgley understands natural piety within the concept of reverence for all things.
While we have seen that Gustafson encourages a respect for living things that faIls short of a
consideration of inttinsic value, Midgley insists on the word reverence for its affective value.
Both religious and nonreligious belief systems should encourage wonder. This is necessary in
order to as certain what is of value.65 Awe, then, is not indicative of religion in the proper
sense, but it does have religious aspects, as might Marxism.66 She defends reverence on the
same ground that she defends anthropomorphic language for animaIs: it is not possible to be
neutral or objective toward nature because we always tend to project onto it, to make it
personal. In doing so, we will either view it with contempt and prey upon it, or view it with
respect and care for it.67 In aIl our attempts to rid the world of mystery, humans have not
been able to exclude from this process some element of personification. And, of course,
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Midgley scoms the contempt of nature prevalent in the seventeenth century, which
characterized nature as a female and subsequently raped her.
Gustafson generaily shies away from overtIy religious speech, so it is of great interest
that in explaining the need for a new description of aU things, Midgley tends to favour highly
religious language. For instance, Midgley caUs for humanists to consider more things as
"sacred" than merely human life.68 ln her understanding, this language helps us in conceiving
a moral outlook that unites science and spirituality.69 What is significant about these religious
terms is not that they lead her in a different direction than Gustafson. In essence, they are
striving toward the same thing: an appreciation of nature, and the ways in which nature is
ordered, apart from its instrumental value to humanity. Gustafson's concem, relative to his
Christian audience, is to keep God and nature separate, at least in a definitional way,
remaining true to Christian monotheism and avoiding any hint of pantheism. Midgley,
however, has no such loyalties, and is more concemed with bringing nontheistic persons out
of reductive humanism. Since some form of reverence will always exist in human
consciousness, it must be directed somewhere. Midgley has no interest in positing a god, and
so reverence must be directed toward the most ultimate thing to which a nontheist can
relate: the ordering of nature. While Midgley might be accused of understanding value as
inttinsic to nature, her concem is not to show that individual parts of nature are sacred, but
that the larger ordering itself is sacred and worthy of reverence. Midgley cails us to think
about the ways in which the terres trial whole, of which we are a part, directly concems us, and would still do so even if we could get away with abusing it. As 1 am suggesting, we shail never grasp the nature of that kind of concem so long as we try to model it on the civic concem that links feilow-citizens. Dulies 10 wholes, of which one is a part, nalural/y differ in flrm jrom dulies 10 olher individuals.70
A second difference between Gustafson and Midgley in their use of tenus comes
with the word "piety." However, this difference is only superficial. Midgley defi.nes natural
piety in relation to ultimate trust. Ultimate trust, she writes, "is a matter of ptofound reliance,
of what one believes lies under the surface of life, what will endure when that is shaken.,,71
Altemately, Gustafson divorces piety ftom trust. He comes at the ptoblem ftom a
theological context, which, for too long, has commended trust in God for the human good.
This is the ptoblem he needs to correct. Midgley, however, has a different context and a
different problem to correct; she needs to speak to those of a scientific mindset and help
them remember that we ail put our trust, fundamentally, in something. Like Gustafson,
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Midgley is trying to point out that we must expand our vision to recognize that which is
larger than ourselves or our species. Rather than relating Midgley's idea of trust to
Gustafson's critique of faith, it is more instructive to see the former as connected to the
theocentric notion of consent. Both must be measured and considered, but, ultimately,
offered wholeheartedly.
While there is a place in secular society for natural piety, what is largely present is an
attitude of anthropocentrism. Gustafson's program begins with a critique of the current
situation, c1aiming that a process of repentance and conversion is required to recentre
human society. Though he does not wish to turn nontheists into theists, he would still claim
that some kind of conversion, or metanoia, is important for the expansion of ethical
concem. What is indicated, then, is a kind of transformation that must take place in the
secular arena as well as the religious one. In secular metanoia, a person is oriented to a
natural idea through natural affections. This reorientation is akin to the ethical conversion
discussed by James.72 He helps point out that conversion is not only a religious occurrence; it
is a human one. Gustafson's expansion of vision to include the whole applies also to secular
per~ons:
1 am persuaded that a turn in ethical thinking is required, if not from humanity to God, at least from humanity to the signs of an ordering of life which is objective to individuals, objective to communities of persons, and objective to our species.73
Part of the secular avoldance of the concept of metanoia comes with the idea that
conversion is an instantaneous change in thinking and values that is the product of unbridled
emotion and religious compulsion. However, we avoid this problem when we connect
metanoia to James's understanding of a second type of conversion. This type is classified as
volitional, and consists of a lengthy and gradual process characterized by a largely
subconscious adoption of new moral and spiritual habits.74 It is a change in the character of
that group of ideas to which the individual is devoted, ideas we might include within a
primary web of beliefs. James calls a person's ideas the "habituaI centre of his personal
energy," indicating that one's basic beliefs and ideas help shape moral discemment and
action.75 The" conversion comes when one set of ideas moves from the periphery to the
centre of consciousness. While a person converts from one ideology to another, this
conversion is considered to be psychologically, not supematurally, initiated. Moreover, it is a
settled disposition arrived at not in order to appeal to a divine power, but to come to a closer
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understanding of how some things really and ultimately are. Quite obviously, this is what
Gustafson means when he speaks even of religious conversion. An orientation toward God
is an affective shift associated with the conclusions that arise from examining one's web of
beliefs about the world, and determining one's current view of life to be too narrow. This
idea is also present in Midgley's thought. She considers religion at its core not to be about
factual belief, but about seeing oneself in a greater whole, with larger aims than one's own.
This calls for a change in attitude from scientism and reductive humanism to a view that
takes in the world around us, evocative of Gustafson's enlargement of vision and metanoia.76
Therefore, while Midgley never uses terms like natural piety or conversion, she does develop
something like them in her work.
Gustafson argues that natural piety, as a response to the natural world, can increase
with greater scientific understanding of that world (1: 227 and 262).77 This is an assertion
echoed by Midgley.78 She commends those scientists who seem to exhibit something akin to
Gustafson's natural piety through the course of their work, naming among them Julian
Huxley, Bertrand Russell, and Theodosius Dobzhansky.79 What it is that they understand,
she writes, is "the inevitable slightness of the whole scientific achievement and its absurd
disproportion to the vastness of what there is to be known."80 Audi has compared natural
piety to the relationship of a worker to her tools: "Respect for the material with which you
work daily is a natural attitude.,,81 However, there are those who detract from this claim,
holding up science as a value-free enterprise.82 To speak against this, we return to Midgley,
who perceives that there are certain values scientists hold that are native to the discipline,
whether they are identified as values or not. Devotion to finding the truth in research is
supposed to be one of them. If science holds any values at all, it must value nature.83
Science, even at its most objective, disinterested level, is still value-laden. Neither
Gustafson nor Midgley wishes to disagree with this, as they understand the myth of value
free science to be a contributing factor to the phenomenon of scientism (1: 97ff). As it is
impossible to undertake any research without bringing one's assumptions, biases, and
interests to the table, these values should be accepted as part of the human scientific venture.
The fact that our science comes from our own observations does not make it any less
significant of a pursuit. Any breach that exists between our technological capacity and our
ethical responsibility must be repaired by aIl of us, including scientists. Scientists must come
to understand that research has ethical consequences, and will both reflect and shape the
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moral values of a community. If piety is a response to the ultimate power or powers of the
cosmos, then the moral emphasis is on giving oneself to and for what is greater than oneself
or humanity. This is the change in orientation, conversion to a larger scope, and submission
to a new set of ideas for which Gustafson caUs.
As to the question of whether natural piety can then be univers al, Gustafson knows
that he cannot make this claim, and he does not consider the relationship between scientific
understanding and natural piety a priori.84 Piety is not active or apparent in an persons
because it includes not only the cognitive relating of experience and empirical observation to
our philosophy or theology. It also requires an affective element that is not always evoked or
does not always arise. This refers us back to Gustafson's critique of naturallaw theory: fact
and value do not seamlessly relate. A condition for theocentric discernment From fact to
value is a pious orientation.85 It is interesting, too, that Midgley, who is adamant in asserting
her own lack of religious faith, dismisses the idea that any serious pursuit of knowledge
could occur exclusive of a reverent attitude for an thingS.86 Underlying Gustafson's caveats is
a similar oudook. He posits that pious affectivity is something quite common throughout
human experience, and displays a suspicion that most, if not an, people have some kind of
sense of the sublime or the divine.87 It seems to be the goal of both these thinkers to
encourage those persons with a sense of something greater to come to a kind of metanoia
that will alter human action and direction.
The Status of the Divine
We now devote space to considering what role, if any, an equivalent of the divine has
to play in a secular variation on Gustafson's thought. Evidendy, he does not go out of his
way to introduce a dogmatic description of God into his theology, which provides us with
flexibility from the start. For example, Gustafson's leap to monotheism is somewhat
subjective and unnecessary, and the option of polytheism is left open to those outside of the
tradition looking in. Certainly, he does not dis credit the affections of nontheists ordered
toward a nontheistic object. Having said this, it should be clarified that simply because
theism can be discarded in a secular adaptation of Gustafson's ethics, this does not mean
that he views God as unimportant to his work. As Kaufman has observed, "For Gustafson
God is not an extra and dispensable reality of interest only to 'faith'; rather God is our name
for the ultimate reality with which humans must come to terms in life.,,88 Gustafson's ethics
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are particularly theocenttic, and not simply naturalistic. It is true, though, that while God is
bis name for that ultimate reality, secular persons are not generally led to call reality God.
Having respect for the relativity of experience, Gustafson must allow that secularists are
warranted in rejecting the idea of the divine, and in not taking recourse to theology; they
have not been persuaded to engage in the same interpretation. We make the judgement here,
then, that God is not superfluous to moral life for Gustafson, as Meyer has accused.89
Rather, what Gustafson sees as divine through bis affectivity, others see as natural (1: 260).
What then, is the status of God in secular Gustafsonian ethics?
Part of Midgley's avoidance of religion is that she sees God as "notoriously a most
obscure and ambiguous word.,,90 ln seeking out a Eunctional surrogate for the divine, we
could take into account several divine characteristics that might be carried over. The notion
of a first cause comes to mind. Gustafson does suggest that a secular image of a purely
transcendent God is worthy of consideration, as science leaves room for this possibility (1:
270). For individuals who do not conceive of God as active in the world, .but as simply some
kind of creator, theocenttic ethics might be appealing because of its focus on the doctrine of
creation over redemption. But deism is not the option Gustafson appropriates for
theocentrism, because the ordering of the patterns and processes is interactional. While God
is Other, God is also immanent. Gustafson contends that bis theology is incarnational,
meaning that it shows that God is present in the world: "If 1 confront God in the world, 1
confront God in natural and bistorical events.,,91 We may be unable to experience God
directly, but we can begin to form an understanding of the way God is working through
observing the patterns and processes of interdependence. Whether or not God is the first
cause, secular theocentrism cannot be mere deism.
An issue that is perhaps a more relevant consideration has been taken up by many of
Gustafson's critics, who have long debated whether his God is equivalent to nature. Lisa
Sowle Cahill pointed out soon after the publication of the first volume Ethics from a TheocentTic
Perspective that nature and God are essentially indistinguishable in Gustafson's thought.92 His
naturalistic basis for theology encourages such speculation, as does the observation that the
words God and nature often seem synonymous in Gustafson's phrasing. We have observed
that the de finition Gustafson gives to the divine is that God is the ultimate ordering power
of the patterns and processes of interdependence (2: 1). This definition is impersonal,
limiting our ability to associate agential qualities with God. He attaches no other formaI
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designations to the divine. But both God and nature work through this ordering activity.
Gustafson often refers to the following quote from Calvin: "1 confess, of course, that it can
be said reverendy, provided that it proceeds from a reverent mind, that nature is God"
(quoted in 1: 251 and 258).93 This prompts Jeffrey Stout to align hitnself with Cahill, going so
far as to say that Gustafson is never clear why it is necessary to conceive of a divine element
behind the powers that bear down upon us.94 Neville Richardson agrees, pronouncing that
there is litcle need for the divine in theocentric ethics if God can so easily be replaced in this
95 way.
However, this is not Gustafson's final word. "Cod is not nature without remainder, but
the historie doctrine of creation certainly affirms that God orders life through nature. Thus,
knowledge of nature contributes to, but does not finally determine, what can be said about
God.,,96 Edward Farley adds that God can be distinguished from natural processes because
he provides purpose and direction to those processes.97 Natural processes are not only
conditioners; they themselves are also conditioned by a larger ordering activity. Therefore, in
relating God and nature, Gustafson does not want to confuse God with merely all things or
the whole of things. He posits that the being of God is not exhausted by the patterns and
processes, or those things ordered by them: ''While 1 use the language of parts and wholes, 1
deliberately do not use that language in relation to God and the world, as if all the 'parts' of
the world made up the 'whole' of God.,,98 However, when we apply Gustafson's
interactional ethical mode!, we come to understand that the whole is more than the SUffi of
its parts. There is more to the whole than simply an aggregate of smaller wholes, and
Gustafson does not want to confuse the divine with such a conglomeration. What Gustafson
labels God can be construed to be equivalent to that which unites all parts into a whole,
while at the same cime standing over that whole.
What we arrive at, then, is a variation on panentheism, influenced by a vision of
ecocentricity. We do not consider panentheism proper, since a theistic element is not of
concern here. An ecocentric orientation, which places value upon the whole of things as a
system takes the focus off a divine being, while also avoiding making any one part of the
system the source of value. However, it is not enough to be ecocentric or to place value in a
natural system; we must retain the ideas of both immanence and otherness. Panentheism
allows for openness to those things sensed empirically, and also those things sensed by our
other ways of knowing, since it puts forth the idea that what is real and ulcimate is not nature
92
without remainder.99 This worldview takes in both the quality of othemess in the ordering of
pattems and processes and the recognition of an immanent connection of the other in life
experience. What is real and ultimate encompasses all aspects of life, though it is also greater
than and distinct from them. It can be concluded that what is necessary for a secular
Gustafsonian philosophy is not belief in the divine, but an understanding of life. as being
both radically depeùdent on and interdependent with a whole greater than the surn of its
parts.
It is possible, then, to find a place in secularism for a respect for something greater
than the self, the human race, and even the greater environment. This respect is not only for
the content of life forms and ecosystems; it is a respect for the way these things continue to
be interrelated. Such a view of the world leads both the theist and the nontheist to the same
ethics. As Toulmin points out, when Gustafson writes that the Christian should relate all
things according to their relation to God, this is much the same as saying to the secular
person that we should deal "with aIl our feIlow creatures in ways appropriate to their places
in the overaIl scheme of thingS."lOO This scheme or ordering does not have to be divine, and
it certainly does not have to be personal.
At the same time, it is important to recognize that in his theology, Gustafson wants
God to be separated from God's ordering, though he is never clear how this is to be
accomplished. Perhaps it is as Toulmin suggests: Gustafson does not focus on metaphysics,
or an elucidation ofhow God is different from God's ordering, because he does not want to
be caught up in the abstracto His real concem is with the practical consequences of
theocentrism, or the ways in which we relate aIl thingS.101 What seems to matter most to
Gustafson is that the intensity of our moral beliefs is related to our affective response to
ultimate reality.l02 The salient point here is that Gustafson is not concemed with preserving a
certain rendering of the composition of God. God needs no defender.
In recalling Adams's complaint that Gustafson's ethics is very biocentric, and
perhaps even biophilic, we can now conclude that this interpretation misconstrues the centre
of value. Even for the secular nontheist, the centre of value is not simply life. Ouly within
the understanding that aIl the organic and inorganic components of the universe make up a
whole that is greater than the sum of its parts can one affinn the centre of value as the whole
of the universe. Positing this is not an attempt to tum secularists into theists.103 Rather, it is
about finding a source of value that is beyond the human, and also beyond any one
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particular aspect of life. It is a value that is inclusive of all things, and all patterns and
processes, just as the valuer continues to recognize larger and larger wholes.
A Sense of the Sublime
We have seen that religious affections are not distinct from natural affections except
insofar as they construe their object theologically. At some point, the religious consciousness
understands the affectivities and their ultimate object to have religious value. As weIl,
Gustafson has argued that those experiences that are not claimed as religious can often have
underlying religious significance. We are left to question what he means by this, and what
implications this has for persons of natural piety. It will be our thesis in this section that
what Gustafson intends to show is that the naturally pious have a sense of something other
that is not formally religious or theistic. However, a sense of the sublime in nature does have
implications for a person's web of beliefs, view of the world, and moral behaviour-in short,
for the whole of life.
In speaking of affective senses, Gustafson says that for those persons who are apt to
construe things religiously, the senses of affectivity come together to form a sense of the
divine, which can be expressed in many ways and through many kinds of faith, according to
context. He also makes a unique extension of this sense to those pers ons who are not
religious, but still sense something worthy of awe and respect in their observance of the
world around them. Inviting secular, nontheistic persons into religious theory, Gustafson
records four significant impulses he observes in his secular friends. These consist of a natural
piety, including gratitude and respect for what is given, a perception of some patterns of
ordering in life that serve as benchmarks for human activity, a consciousness of a human
defect, and a (Cmuted honoring of Another about which not much is said."l04
W e inferred at the opening of this chapter that Midgley caUs for more attention to be
paid to what is given, and less to human achievements. Despite this emphasis, when she
reflects on the given, she does not conclude that belief in a Giver is warranted. The aspect of
agency associated with givenness can be very impersonal and does not require a divine being.
She outlines this in a way similar to Gustafson's differentiation between purpose and
intention, defending her view by drawing on the concept of teleology.105 Teleology, she
writes, is an explanation of function, rather than of cause. It refers direcdy to design and not
a designer, and in this way, nature can be purposive without having intentions. An example
94
helps clarify her thought on this point. Songs are sung, she writes, "on purpose," but not as a
means to an end:
The fust notes of a song are not a means to its cadence .... The essential teleological question is not "what later thing is this leading to?" It is, more widely, "what is this for? what is the point of it? what part does it play in a wider whole?"106
Midgley is able to consider a teleological order without positing an intended end. On the
other hand, she also indicates that it is difficult, if not impossible, to depersonalize a view of
the cosmos altogether. Because of the need for measured anthropomorphism, humans will
tend to view the universe as either purposive and benign, or purposive and malignant.107 This
is the problem Cahill introduced in reaction to Gustafson's impersonal God: the alternative
to a personal deity ends up looking evil. For this reason, in common speech, Midgley is not
immune to conjecture about "whatever powers that be," though she certainly would not be
prepared to commit to statements about them on the level of dogmatism.108
We retum to the above quotation of Gustafson and the idea of a muted honouring
in natural piety. Gustafson caUs this a sense of the sublime.109 He does not give special
de finition to the sublime, but certainly it relates to Kant's general understanding of the
sublime as those aspects of nature which give rise to feelings of respect, admiration, and
even fear. 110 The sublime consists of those things that reveal to us how small we are, how
weU we fit into our environment, and how large that envÏt:onment is. Objects that are
sublime are not divine; they are not gods, nor do we worship them. Rather, they demand our
respect for reasons other than our own self-interest. They reveal to us a reality in which we
are not the central figures. It is the natural wot:ld, then, that leads many people to have an
implicit sense of the sublime, if not an explicit sense of the divine.111 "Indeed," as Gustafson
comments, "it is difficult not to be deeply grateful for these gifts that are not created by
man" (1: 209). Perhaps this is the reason why Gustafson devotes so much energy in relating
God and the patterns and processes of nature, as opposed to those present throughout
history, culture, and society. Midgley, too, places great importance in the recognition of the
sublime in nature, writing, "Stunting this response is stunting our highest faculties.,,112 An
ardent respect for the whole of things that works itself out in our moral discemment is
something indicative of natural piety. Midgley caUs the sense of the sublime a sense of
wonder at otherness: 'We are receptive, imaginative beings, adapted to celebrate and rejoice
in the existence, quite independent of ourselves, of the other beings on this planet.,,113 ln
95
reaction to those humanists who avoid the love of nature in fear of worshipping it, she
writes, "things much more unclean than traditional religion will follow the death of
wonder.,,114 Clearly, this nontheistic and nonreligious philosopher understands how natural
piety must be the outworking of a sense of the sublime in nature.
In comparing the sense of the divine to the sense of the sublime, we again see little
difference apart from the theistic emphasis. In fact, two of Gustafson's critics interpret the
sense of the divine as having more consequences for one's worldview than for an
understanding of what is divine:
The primary function of the "sense of the divine," therefore, is not to provide the existence of a transcendent object but to provide experience with an ordering general environment which keeps it open, expansive, and reconciling. The centrifugaI pull of the religious dimensions can counteract the perennial human tendency to selfabsorption and conferring ulcimate devotion on causes that are limited.115
So, while Gustafson's theocentrism is a religious task, Midgley's reverence for all things
shares with it the idea that what is required o~ us is a new world picture. In essence, it is a
new description. New pictures do not ignore old ones; they simply build upon them,
recontextualizing them. It is Midgley's observation that humans have always needed to form
pictures of the world that include corresponding belief systems.116 We noted earlier that in
relating the is to the ought, what is important is not only widening our view, but also
discerning the right or most important facts to shape our description. In this line of thought,
Midgley continues: "Describing involves selecting what matters, and what matters always
tells us more than we now see.,,117 She adds clarity to Gustafson's device of description,
then, by observing that the descriptions underlying our ethics are more like conceptual
schemes than records of every observable detail. They are "vast imaginative extensions
raying out from experience. They are not drawn at random, but generated by our
imaginations on such principles as they find natural and helpful for the sort of understanding
we need.,,118 And just as Gustafson is not committed to an objective or immutable moral
order, so Midgley is not committed to an objective or immutable world picture. Certain
world pictures are appropriate to certain cimes, and when cimes change and a certain picture
becomes more harmful than beneficial, a new picture develops.ll9 Our world picture; or
worldviews also have a thick connection to both imagination and observable facto For
instance, we cannot verify scientifically that aIl aspects of the cosmos are orderly. However,
from our limited experience of the cosmos, this is a very educated assumption. We can
96
responsibly work out our thinking and action upon this basis. Doing so helps us gain a better
sense of the interdependence of life too easily neglected in our current worldview, which has
tnisconstrued Darwinian theory by aligning it with the Great Chain of Being, placing
humanity at the top of a biological and valuation al pyratnid.
Midgley also agrees with Gustafson in saying the conceptual scheme we develop in
the future must be one open to the salient features of alllife, not simply those of immediate
importance to humanity.120 She wams against taking our global problems either too lighdy or
too fatalistically, reminding us that while we do not have ultimate control, there are things
within our grasp which must be set right, including our way of thinking, our ethical oudook,
and our treatment of nonhuman life. A new world picture must include the idea that the
world sus tains us more than it needs us, and our response should be one of awe.121
At the end of her search for this new world picture, she has written a short book in
commendation of the scientific-philosophical hypothesis of Gaia. While a complete
examination of the theory is not possible here, we can point out the significant likenesses it
has with a theocentric worldview. Gaia is orny beginning to be defended biologically, though
it is a conceptual theory needed for ecological reasons.l22 Conceived of by atmospheric
scientist James Lovelock, the theory employs the name of a Greek goddess, considered as
Mother Earth, to describe the whole of life on earth.123 The biosphere functions as a single
organism, independendy organized. A strange notion on the surface, there are immediate
connections to be made with our line of thought here. The patterns and processes of
interdependence point to the interrelatedness of alllife on earth, and the dynamism and self
regulation of the earth point toward its life as a whole. This system of life is responsive, but
not intentioned, as is the object of value in both theistic and nontheistic Gustafsonian ethics.
Gaia, Lovelock writes, is alive
not as the ancients saw her-a sentient Goddess with a purpose and foresight-but alive like a tree. A tree that quiedy exists, never moving except to sway in the wind, yet endlessly conversing with the sunlight and the soil. Using sun1ight and water and nutrient mineraIs to grow and change. But all done so imperceptibly, that to me the old oak tree on the green is the same as it was when 1 was a child.124
Thus, the Gaia theory indicates not orny that the biosphere has been influenced by life, for
example, through the carbon cycle.125 It goes even further, to the extent of concluding that
the biosphere is, in fact, itself alive. The mountains and oceans are a part of the patterns and
processes of life, and indeed are necessary to the functioning of the whole system. Those
97
things without the scientifically defined qualities of life-for instance, the ability to
reproduce-are not in any consequential way distinct from those that do meet the criteria.
We are aIl inextricably bound up in this system, and radically interrelated. Importandy, Gaia
does not orny teach about interdependence, but also that wholes and parts are equally real. l26
Species and life forms are not simply individual elements that must come together to survive.
Rather, together they make up a whole that is more than the sum of its parts: an organism.
While a student of Gaia might be led initially to consider life itself of intrinsic worth, what
the true object of awe is, and what stirs the sense of the sublime, is the wtfY in which the
earth is enabled to function as a living organism. The centre of value in the Gaia theory can
be considered panentheistic: "If the system of life itself is taken to have participated in the
history of evolution in the sort of way that Gaian thinking suggests, then a substantial part of
this reverence is surely due to that system.,,127 The system is the centre, as the living whole
that is more than the aggregate elements of life. As Aquinas has noted, a perception of
interdependence and of radical dependence on what is real and ultimate leads to a perception
of the unity of all things (cited in 2: 53). We are left with the conclusion that, as in
theocentric ethics, the idea of the intrinsic value of particular life forms is replaced with the
concept of a value in relation to the ordering of the whole. l28
The point of bringing in the Gaia theory is not to set it up as a perfect secular parallel
of Gustafson's theocentric environmental ethics. There are differences in the conclusions of
both that could be explored further. But Gaia, quite evidendy, provides a helpful conceptual
scheme for an expanded secular view of life. And, as Gustafson points out, not only do our
conceptual schemes need revision. Our loyalties must also be changed in a kind of metanoia.
He praises the Gaia theory for encouraging affective overtones, and a sense of the sublime
or even of the divine: "Earth as the fecund mother on whom aIl living things depend is not,
in any culture, simply a scientific or rational moral justification of our respect.,,129 Indeed,
senses of awe and gratitude, says Midgley, were in the minds of the Greeks who named the
earth as a goddess.130 Just as Gustafson reminds Christians of evolutionary theory, so
Midgley reminds secular culture of the Gaia theory, with the aim of bringing their science
and affectivity together and avoid what she calls "inteIlectual apartheid."131
In using Gaia to promote an understanding of the uni!] of aIl parts of the whole,
though, we must be careful to avoid setting up a false ideal of hanno'!)' among these parts,
whether ethicaIly or in an evolutionary description.132 In Gaia, conilicting goods exist, and
98
there are no simple paths to resolution. Midgley presents Gaia as a model that indudes both
competition and cooperation, both of which help maintain a dynamic equilibrium on a large
scale.133 Healthy and functioning biodiversity is maintained even though individuallife forms
and species do not aIl win out. She agrees with Gustafson that our goods are bound to
conflict, writing tongue-in-cheek, "The ambition of finding a single underlying rationale for
all our aims is vacuous. (Maybe God can see one, but certainly we cannot.),,134 Her world
picture does not require the realization of aIl goods; the larger good is, rather, in the larger
whole. So, while our goods and desires are not to be ignored, they are, in some way, to be
subordinated to the good of the Gaia system. Midgley goes on to daim that what humanity
needs is an ordering of priorities called culture: "What we want help with is building a wider
conceptual scheme, within which the partial ones that distract us can be related.,,135 Using
our agreed upon ways of thinking and acting ethicaIly, then, it will be necessary to come to
painful and tragic decisions. These things are not eschewed by either Gustafson or Midgley.
However, the benefits of the models they suggest, be it a theocentric view of the world or
one drawing on the Gaia hypothesis, show a way toward solemn certitude that the actions
we take are aimed toward fulfilling our responsibilities within our niche. In essence,
theocentric responsibility, for both religious and secular humanity, can be articulated in the
following words of Richard R. Niebuhr:
Human faithfulness presents itself as the great personal act or course of actions in which a man. . . commits and aligns himself to the one coercive and persuasive power in the world that is the recapitulating expression of the meaning of the whole. So wherever and whenever we see men giving themselves for that which is greater than themselves and greater than ail the particular forces impinging upon them, there we meet faithful human beings (quoted in 1: 203).
What has been accomplished in this chapter is not a description of the real and
ultimate that will appeal to ail kinds of people. However, it is an example of how the
rationale of a religious theology can have a btoadet application among those outside of that
confessional sphete. We have seen this not only through our theotetical postulation of a
secular theocentric ethic, but also through the demonstration of such thinking in the thought
of Mary Midgley. The sense of the sublime includes an orientation of being and value towatd
the whole of things that, while not divine, is something greater than the sum of its parts.
This is the most significant aspect of the theological rationale within Gustafson's theocentric
ethics. Since it includes no theistic element, but only the requirement of a tum towatd the
99
sublime through natural piety, a secular Gustafsonian ethic may appeal to secular persons
who respect both their rational and affective capacities.
In making the application we have not imposed theism on nontheistic persons.
Nonetheless, perhaps the question of whether secular Gustafsonian ethics can be devoid of
religion is misplaced. We have been made aware of the kind of piety that links many
outlooks on the morallife, and it is a piety that does not arise in consequence of religious
conviction. What has become evident through discussion with a confessionally religious
theologian, as weIl as a scholar who confesses no religion, is that both religious and secular
ways of thinking are elements moulded onto a deeper need for a sense of orientation, and
goals motivated by affectivity. 1bis works itself out in a sense of the divine, leading to an
explicit religiosity, and altemately by way of a sense of the sublime, leading to commitment
to a larger world picture. Though a secular reading of Gustafson's ethics does not include an
element of the divine as such, this implies no negation of the importance of God to
theocentric ethics. Rather, it indicates the truly indispensable considerations made about
God, including the idea of something other and greater than the self, the human race, or the
collection of life forms we know. 1bis is ultimate ordering power, which both bears down
upon life and sus tains it.
Regardless of what we sense, be it the divine or the sublime, underlying each is what
unites one with the other. Theocentric theology says much less about God than does
traditional theology. Altematively, the conflating of order and orderer in secular
theocentrism says more about the ultimate centre of value than do many other philosophies.
It is, perhaps, that the two meet somewhere in the middle; there is a whole that is greater
than the sum of its parts-greater in that it bears power to order, sus tain, and bear down
upon its components-that is not personified. But any view of this power must include an
affective orientation. Just as the term "God" finds its "full religious significance only within
piety, religious affectivity," so the Gaia world picture finds its full significance only within
natural piety and affectivity (1: 264).
The question, then, is not whether the secular verSion of theocentrism avoids
religious characterization. The question is, rather, whether secular Gustafsonian ethics avoids
piety. It does not, and nor should it. A sense of awe toward something greater should not be
given up for fear it appears too religious. Natural piety, being not overtly religious but very
100
much about affectivity, is critical for nontheists to uphold. Being nontheistic, then, does not
exclude relating oneself to what is greater, other, or even to what is perceived to be ultimate.
1 Recall that fi.mctional surrogates or eqtÙvalents are what philosopbical systems of ethics use in place of theology (1: 225 and 2: 97f). These are referred to again in Gustafson's Gan Ethics Be Christian?, 86. 2 Gustafson, A Sense of the Divine, 46. 3 Mary Midgley, 'The Paradox ofHumanism," in James M Guskifson's Theocentric Ethics, 187. 4 Midgley, Beast and Man, 97. 5 Mary Midgley, ''Toward a New Understanding of Human Nature: The Limits ofIndividualism," in HOUI Humans Adopt, 527. 6 Midgley, Beast and Man, 185. 7 Ibid., 149. 8 Hans Oberdiek, Review of Science and Poetry, by Mary Midgley, Ethics 114:1 (2003),187. 9 Mary Midgley, Science and Poetry (London and New York: Routledge, 2001), 13-20. 10 Mary Midgley, Evolution as a Religion: Strange Hopes and Stranger Fears, rev. ed. (London and New York: Roudedge, 2002), 70. 11 Ibid., 24. 12 Midgley indicates that her initial concem in writing philosophy was the value ofhumanity, in "The Paradox of Humanism," 187. 13 Ibid., 199. Midgley also engages in a noteworthy critique of androcentrism early in this article, 188. 14 Midgley, Beast and Man, 186. t5 Ibid., 244f. 16 Ibid., 18. 17 Midgley, "The Paradox of Humanism," 188. 18 Midgley, "Toward a New Understanding ofHuman Nature," 519 and Science as Salvation, 26f. 19 Midgley, Beast and Man, 244. 20 Midgley, "The Paradox of Humanism," 191. 21 Midgley, Beast and Man, 349. 22 Midgley, ''The Paradox of Humanism," 193. 23 Midgley, ''Toward a New Understanding ofHuman Nature," 519. 24 Midgley, Beast and Man, 152. 25 Ibid., 350. 26 Ibid., 196; cE 187. 27 Midgley, ''The Paradox of Humanism," 193. 28 Midgley, Beast and Man, 277. 29 Ibid., 153. 30 Toulmin, "Nature and Nature's God," 49. 31 Compare Konner and Rottsschaefer in "Profile: James M. Gustafson," Zygon 30:2 Oune 1995): 159-226 to Gustafson's colleagues in ''Focus on the Ethics of James M Gustafson," Journal ofRefiJious Ethics 13:1 (1985): 1-100, 185-209 and Beckley and Swezey,james M Guskifson's Theocentric Ethics: Interpretations andAssessments. 32 Gustafson, Intersections, 71. 33 Midgley, Beast and Man, 97. 34 Midgley, The Myths We live By, 25. 35 Midgley, Evolution as a RefiJion, 159. 36 Midgley, Beast and Man, 185. 37 See Midgley's pamphlet Gaia: The Next Big Idea (London: Demos, 2001), 19f, in which she explains the current need for a world picture that goes beyond Cattesian dualism to understand mind and body, humanity and nature, as a whole, rather than as elements set against each other. 38 Reeder, 'The Dependence ofEthics," 128. Reeder is perltaps unsound in relating these patticular first ptinciples to Gustafson's, but bis point about shared rationale is worth noting. 39 Neville Richardson, "A Theocentric Ethic in a Scientific Age?" Journal ofTheolagy for Sou/hem Africa 60 (September 1987), 48. 40 Gustafson, Can Ethics Be Christian?, 86. 41 William Schweiker, 'Theocentric Ethics: 'God Will Be God,'" Christian Century (15 January 1986),37 E 42 Meyer, 150.
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43 MidgIey, Beast and Man, 349. Bill McKibben fleshes out this idea from a Christian perspective in TheCtmiforling Whirlwind: God, Job, and the Scale of Creation (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1994). 44 Reeder, 'The Dependence ofEthics:' 127. Cf. Gifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973),87-125. 45 Farley, 'Theocentric Ethics as a Genetic Argument," 44. 46 Gustafson, "A Response to Crities," 189f. 47 Gustafson, "All1bings in Relation to God," 99. 48 MidgIey, Science as Salvation, 93. 49 Cf. comments by William A. Rottschaefer in "Gustafson's Theocentrism and Scientific Naturalistic Philosophy: A Marriage Made in Heaven?" qgon 30:2 (June 1995),218. 50 MidgIey, Beast and Man, 249 and 'The Paradox of Humanism;' 194. 51 MidgIey, Beast and Man, 73. 52 Harlan Beckley, "A Raft That Floots: Experience, Tradition, and Sciences in Gustafson's Theocentric Ethics," qgon 30:2 (June 1995),203. 53 MidgIey, Science as Salvation, 106. 54 Gustafson, A Sense of the Divine, 100f. 55 Ibid., 44. . 56 Gustafson, "All1bings in Relation to God;' 90 and "Response to Hartt," 694. 57 Cf. Gustafson, "Response," 216ft: 58 James, 40. 59 Gustafson aiso uses the word "evoke" inA Sense of the Divine, 44 and 'Tracinga Trajectory," 182. 60 Gustafson, "AU Things in Relation to God," 91. 61 Schweiker,36. 62 Gustafson, "Response," 217. 63 Similar comments are made by Stout in 'The Voice ofTheoIogy in Contemporary Culture," 258. 64 Gustafson, A Sense of the Divine, 46. 65 Midgley, Science and Poetry, 184. 66 Midgley, Evolution as a Re/ilion, 130f and 189. 67 Midgley, Science as Salvation, 73f. 68 Midgley, Gaia, 11 f and 25. 69 Ibid., 21. 70 Ibid., 29, italics in original. 71 Midgley, Science as Salvation, 125. 72 James, 170. 73 Gustafson, "A Theocentric Interpretation ofLife," 755. 74 James, 172f. 75 Ibid., 165. 76 Midgley, Evolution as a Religion, 16. 77 1bis is supported by Audi, 166. 78 Midgley, Gaia, 24. 79 MidgIey, Evolution as a Reli.fion, 128t: 80 Ibid., 129. 81 Audi, 185. Ame Naess aiso affums the respect an ecological-field worker gains for aUlife forms in the second principle of deep ecology, in "The ShaUow and the Deep, Long Range Ecology Movement: A Summary," Inquiry 16 (1973), 95. 82 Cf. comments made by Frederick Ferré and Neville Richardson in a discussion of Audi in Jaml!s Gustqfson's Thl!ocmtric Ethics,183ff. 83 Midgley, The Myths We Live lh', 2Ef 84. Gustafson, A S /!nse of the Divine, 41. 85 1bis is how Gustafson defines himself against process theology, which he interprets as similar to his own position, except in that it is purely rationalistic and lacking in any defioitive "religious orientation," 1: 61. 86 Midgley, Science as Salvation, 71 and Beast andMan, 350 n. 44. 87 Gustafson, "All1bings in Relation to God," 91 and "Tracing a Trajectory," 182 and 189. 88 Kaufinan, 16. 89 Meyer, 154. 90 Midgley, Sci/!nce as Salvation, 8.
91 Gustafson, "A Response to Critics," 199. 92 Cahill, "Consent in Tttne of Affliction," 29.
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93 Gustafson is also careful to include the statement that follows immediately in Calvin: God must not be confused with the inferior course of God's work. There is a tension between these two ideas that Gustafson values. 94 Stout, «The Voice ofTheology in Contemporary Culture," 258f. 95 Rich.an:lson, "A Theocentric Ethic in a Scientific Age?" 51. 96 Gustafson, 'The Sectarian Temptation," 92, italics added. See also h.is "Response to Hartt," 694. 97 Farley, 'Theocentric Ethics as a Genetic Argument," 51. 98 Gustafson, "Afterword," 247. 99 A similar interpretation of panentheism is taken up in Rosemary Radford Ruether, Gaia and God: An Ecofeminist Theology ofEorth Healing (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1992). 100 Toulmin, The Return to Cosmology, 269. 101 Ibid., 270. 102 Gustafson, "Possibilities and Problems for the Study of Ethics," 246. 103 Gustafson, A Sense of the Divine, 47. 104 Gustafson, "A Theocentric Interpretation ofIife:' 758. 105 See Midgley, "The Paradox of Humanism," 195 and Science as Salvation, 11. This should be understood as distinct from the theological construal of teleology critiqued by Gustafson. 106 Midgley, Science as Salvation, 10. 107 Midgley, Evolution as a Religion, 159. 108 Midgley in "Panel Discussion," 232. 109 Gustafson, A Sense of the Divine, 34 and passim. 110 Immanuel Kant, "Analytic of the Sublime," in Critique ofJudgment, trans. Werner S. Pluhar (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987): 97-140. Cf. Midgley's comments in Beast and Man, 347. 111 Gustafson, A Sense of the Divine, 17. 112 Midgley, Beas! and Man, 348. 113 Ibid. 114 Ibid., 349. 115 William C. Spohn and Thomas A. Bymes, "Knowledge of Self and Knowledge of God: A Reconstructed Empiricist Interpretation," in Christian Ethics: Problems and Prospects, 124. 116 Midgley, 'The Paradox of Humanism," 196f and Science and Poetry, 24. 117 Midgley, Beast and Man, 106. 118 Midgley, Science as Salvation, 96f. 119 Midgley, The Myths We Live By, 4. 120 Midgley, Evolution as a Religion, 170. 121 Midgley, Beast and Man, 349. 122 Midgley, Evolution as a Religion, 74f and ScienceandPoetry, 172 and 176. 123 James Lovelock, Gaia: A New Look at Lift on Earth (Oxford: Oxford University, 1979). 124 James Lovelock, Gaia: The Practical Science ofPlanetary Medicine (London: Gaia Books, 1991), 12. 125 Midgley, Gaia,16f. 126 Midgley, Science and Poetry, 185f. 127 Midgley, Gaia, 24. While her acceptance of the Gaia theory indicates piety rather than theism, Midgley does signify that the problem with most theism is not that a God is posited, but that a personal nature is attributed to God. 128 Gustafson, A Sense of the Divine, 34f. 129 Ibid., 34. 130 Midgley, Science and Poetry, 183. 131 Midgley, Gaia, 18. 132 Midgley, Beas! and Man, 90 and 156. 133 Midgley, Gaia, 37f. 134 Midgley, The Myths We Live By, 156. 135 Midgley, Beast and Man, 180.
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Conclusion
We have undertaken a secular translation of theocentric ethical theory with practice
in mind. It should be apparent at this point that such an exercise opens up possibilities for
religious and secular dialogue on a variety of ethical issues. Here, however, we seek
particularly to encourage ethical dialogue on matters relating to the larger natural
environment. While the practical examples illustrated in the second volume of Ethics from a
Theocentric Perspective do not particularly highlight environmental concerns, Gustafson has
since made it clear that the welfare of the natural world was in his mind throughout the
composition of his ethics.1 And, with the writing of A Sense of the Divine, he has come to be
recognized as an ecologically-oriented theologian and ethicist.2
While ethical responsibility lies within the human 4omain, according to our
heightened capacities for rationality and intentionality, what remains of ethical concem does
not. Gustafson's commonsense ontology, or his web of beliefs, demands that the agent have
concem for the ordering of all things. In secular environmental ethics, this bears a
resemblance to an ecocentric orientation, and Gustafson's theocentrism reminds interpreters
that what is important about ecology is the fact that nature is continually ordered, and that
all parts receive their value through this larger ordering. With this in mind, we now conclude
our exatnÏnation of theocentrism by pointing to the possibilities for its use in environmental
ethics. Space does not allow us to discuss the details of particular environmental concems
here, but what we are able to do is sketch out the direction a theocentric worldview gives to
questions of environmental ethics.
Attitude Toward Nature
By including the sciences among his sources, Gustafson shows that we cannot avoid
incorporating into our ethics the scientific findings that illuminate the relationship of
humanity to other life. Acknowledging what science tells us about human nature and about
nature at large has the potential to point to a radical alteration of our scheme of value. But
correct knowledge in and of itself is not entirely adequate when approaching environmental
ethics. In Gustafson's words,
104
Whether it is Gaia. the deity of process theology, or some new version drawing from the biblical traditions, whether it is the religious traditions rooted in Southern and Eastern Asia, there is a calI to conversion to expand affections and interests.3
It is not certain that knowledge will lead us to expanded ethical concern if it 1S not
accompanied by piety, or a sense of wonder at the sublime in nature. Gustafson
demonstrates that a change in our affective disposition, one that moves from sensing orny
human value to sensing the value of alI things, must have a place alongside this correction in
our understanding. In this way, thinkers involved in the discipline of science and those in
theology may have something to learn from one another.
A new picture of the world that avoids anthropocentrism, then, affects not oruy our
ontology, but also our attitude toward and interaction with the nonhuman. Toulmin has
written that the ecology movement has been the cause of a reSurgence of Stoicism
throughout various themes, induding piety toward nature and an obligation to live in
stabilized activity with nature.4 These daims indude the idea of a shared logos, though in
theocentric language this is amended to a shared relation to God's purposes. Sirnilarly, in a
secular tone, we might say that all things share a relation to the ordering whole. We know
that Gustafson is not interested in expounding on the intrinsic value of nature. He
differentiates between having respect and reverence for nature; the latter position is, for him,
representative of the extreme opposite of the utilitarian use of nature, and is ;ust as
impractical. Generally, Gustafson considers that reverence for life is too mystical.
On the other hand, there are instances when he uses religious terminology with
regard to the value of nature. In writing on the governance of the world, he admits, "Its
presence, however, evokes awe and respect, natural piety, toward nature" (1: 262, italics
added). In Midgley's thinking, awe represents a religious attitude that involves the reuniting
of reason and feeling. If we recall that her idea of reverence rests not so much with
individual parts but with the whole, perhaps this word, then, is not so out of place as
Gustafson suggests. Midgley's reverence is not biophilic, and she does not advocate
nonintervention nor reject all killing. Rather, reverence promo tes a dispositional change, just
as religious piety in theocentric orientation leads Gustafson to a respect for the way things
are continually ordered. Midgley's main concem is to show why we should not separate
ourselves from the natural environment, and the extension of reverence is her way of doing
this. Gustafson's main concem is to show how the environment and humanity are both
105
valued in their relations to God, and so a limiting of reverence to God is his way of doing
this. Nonetheless, both arrive at the same finishing point: an attitude that considers nature as
valuable apart from its instrumental use to humanity, respects the ordered and ordering
whole, and looks to the largest concerns possible.
Whether reverence or respect is preferred, theocentric relational value theory means
that aIl creation is of nonabsolute value. It is a common relation to the larger whole, and the
web of interrelation within that whole, that prompt us to recognize the extension of value to
aIl things.5 Our relationship to and dependence on nature, then, leads to a responsibility to
nourish, protect, and develop that which both bears down upon and sustains us. Our task is
to value things according to their relation to the larger ordering of the patterns and processes
of interdependence of life. What makes concern for the larger environment possible in
theocentric ethics is a conception that downplays the distinctiveness of humanity from
nature and embraces the idea of a larger ordered nature of which humans are a part. An
important caveat to introduce here is that this shift in worldview does not diminish
humanity, except that it does repudiate certain anthropocentric claims of humanity; it rather
recontextualizes our relationship to what is outside us. Gustafson wishes to be clear:
The proper inference to he drawn here is not that the value of plants, snail darters, and Hereford steers is the same as the value of human life. Rather, because man is interpreted to be interdependent with the rest of nature, the parts of which have "purposes" relative to others in patterns of functional interdependence in larger wholes, restraints of purely human ends can be more readily established (2: 307).
A final word must he said on the relationship of a pious attitude to environmental
ethics. In our introduction we made note of the impending environmental crisis as a
potential source of motivation for a shift away from anthropocentrism. Retaining an
anthropocentric viewpoint that considers human action as beyond the impact of natural
consequences is destructive, even self-destructive. Midgley believes,
It cannot really be plausible today that world hunger, destruction of the hiosphere, and the atms race fotm a slight temporary difficulty which our civilization cannot fail to surmount as it lifts us onward in the steady, inevitable progress of humanity.6
Though Gustafson doubts that a spontaneous and wholesale conversion of western culture
is likely, there would be litde point in encouraging metanoia if catastrophe were its only
catalyst. The aim of this work has been to reveal the latent piety within many of us, as weIl as
to encourage individuals to regard their affectivity toward nature as an ethically valid human
trait. An expanded scope and a value theory that relates humanity to aIl other things means
106
that we begin to address issues by considering "a common 'earth community.",7 If
theocentric conversion continues to be encouraged in this way, environmental catastrophe
can perhaps be avoided. The hope, then, is for a proactive approach to concerns that relate
to the whole of things; this may reverse some of the trends we have helped set in motion.
Theocentric Environmentalism
Cahill has remarked that the most important divine characteristic is that God is
beyond human control. 8 With the close association of God and the ordering of aIl things, a
theocentric environmental ethic means that we must recognize that nature, too, is largely
beyond human control. If we are to "let God be God," we must also, in a sense, let nature
be nature. By this we do not mean simply letting nature take its course. Rather, the phrase
denotes a respect for the ways in which nature continues to be ordered, for the patterns and
processes of life. In letting nature be nature, we restrain any urge to dominate it and instead
live in it as part of the larger whole.
This idea, while a primary point of guidance in our ethical relationship to the
nonhuman world, does not, however, lead to nonaction. "The ultimate destiny of the world
is not in human hands. . . . But shorter range destinies are subject to the intentional
interventions of man in our highly developed culture."9 Our ethical action must always take
into account our restricted capacity for aligning the outcomes of action with our intentions
and desÏtes. What this seems to designate is a relationship to ail other things that includes
limited intervention. Clearly, Gustafson's ethics are not so romantic as to support
nonintervention in nature. While there may be an existing ordering to which we should
conform, there is no harmony that can be preserved by letting nature take its course. Since
neither in our action nor in our nonaction can we return to Eden or ensure a tragedy-free
future, we can permit ourselves to intervene and expand in cautious, modest, and carefully
measured ways (2: 243).
An ethic of limited intervention means that humans, as a matter of course, will
change some things. There is nothing inherendy wrong with this, so long as we remember
that we do not become God in our reordering of or interaction with nature. Humans are
always fundamentaily reliant on nature as the source and sustenance of life (2: 273).
Nevertheless, the limitations placed upon our interventions demand careful thought about
the potential consequences of our actions to other life forms and aspects of the
107
environment. Any action that will have far-reaching consequences demands ngorous
reflection and justification. Gustafson goes so far as to say, "those [actions] that are
irreversible ought not to be done except for very powerful reasons that support
compensating laudable ends" (2: 280). And these ends always relate to the centre of value.
Taking the position of limited intervention means Gustafson does not support
refraining from scientific exploration or technological development, as was noted in our
second chapter. Within his interpretations of nature and culture is the observation that
animaIs, particularly humans, have a history of developing ways to control the forces bearing
down upon them (1: 4). Part of having respect for human capacities is to encourage our
natural urge to create and explore. If instead of properly harnessing this urge it is suppressed,
we are not being responsible to it: "We deny our 'nature' by refusing to accept its distinctive
place in the wider ordering, with its possibilities and responsibilities for sustaining,
cultivating, and developing the world of which we are a part" (2: 283). However, an
approach of limited intervention does have consequences for our understanding of
"technological improvement." Our efforts to create and exp and no longer carry with them
the tones of scientism, and cannot be viewed as mechanisms of salvation. Technological
improvement will not lead to human independence of nature, and neither will it rid nature of
the problems we have created in our unbridled intervention. Limiting our growth is more
fundamental to curbing environmental destruction than are technological solutions (1: 104).
If we are to interact with ail things in a theocentric way, our expansion of value
requites that current ethical models be reexamined and perhaps altered. Just as Gustafson
does not view ethical norms as flowing seamlessly from empirical observation of nature, so
he does not observe any model of justice within nature. Still, observable patterns of "right
relationships" are present ail the same.10 Life is characteristically interdependent, and
includes mutualism or give-and-take relationships, though these are not harmonious or
static. Viewing a general justice within nature, Gustafson sees no need to reject rights
language altogether, and understands the concept of rights as preventative of the tyranny of
anthropocentrism. However, the cail to justice or the extension of rights and duties must not
be based on a particular outline of merit. l1 In theocentric perspective, it does not make sense
to grant rights to those who fit a particular description of humanity, since ail our possibilities
for being and achievement are given to us, not intrinsic to us. Midgley agrees, arguing further
that to limit rights and duties so they are applicable only in the human realm is either to be
108
trivial or to daim that what is nonhuman does not concem us at aU.12 Instead, rights are to
be based on need.13 AlI those with goods to fulfill have a right to do so, according to their
value to the ordering of the larger whole. Those of us who have been given a capacity for
moral responsibility have a duty to respect these rights. Rights are never absolute, just as
values are not, but they are indicators of points to consider in making ethical decisions.
A respect for nature means that those occasions in which it is justifiably necessary to
cut off an aspect of nature from its own good must be seen as sacrificial. H. Richard
Niebuhr developed the idea that aIl killing becomes sacrifice when the cirde of value is
expanded.14 Gustafson takes his cue from this, making note of his observations of a Hindu
student, who, while studying neurobiology, was also a vegetarian. In order to reconcile her
beliefs with her occupation, she considered her experimentations with rats to be sacrifices
goods she had to cut off in order to achieve larger objectives.15 This attitudinal change does
not alter the suffering or destruction of the rat. It does, however, alter the orientation of the
agent, which likely prevents other instances of destruction that might, in an anthropocentric
light, seem acceptable. AdditionaIly, sacrifice is not necessarily restricted to single life forros.
Gustafson specifies that not every endangered species should be preserved at aIl costs, since
physicallife, and even the life of a particular species, is not ultimate (2: 243). This is not to
daim that the endangerroent of any life forro is not of ethical concem. Nor is it to
underestimate the significance of biodiversity as a mechanism of the ordering of aIl things. It
is simply to indicate that when our concems relate to the larger and larger wholes we
perceive, the possibility of tragedy is very real.
The reality of tragedy is also present in relationships that do not involve humans.
Destruction and suffering are inherent in interdependent relationships in the wild, since
goods are incommensurate. Gustafson perceives that God values diversity, even though
diversity may not be good for humans or for aU aspects of nature. "The purposes of nature,
relative to 'anything that exists' and to the interdependence of an, are conflictual relative to
the human good and even various 'goods' of the nonhuman world.,,16 Since suffering and
destruction within the whole are inbuilt, theocentric ethics does not imply the ending of aIl
natural suffering as a mandate. While caring for nature as we interact with it is a significant
ethical responsibility, our role as agents is not the idealistic "man the maker." Rather, we are
participants who contribute to the existing ordering in the best ways available to us. Ethical
ambiguities al ways remain, as does suffering. While cruelty and the infliction of unnecessary
109
suffering remain repugnant to us, to remove aIl suffering would he to remove competition
for goods, thus changing the patterns and processes of life. Even if this were possible, its
consequences are completely unknown to us, and so this path cannot he condoned.
While these comments by no means exhaust the exploration of theocentric
environmental ethics, they do lift out several significant areas in which we must revise our
consideration of and interaction with the natural world. The goods sought by nonhuman life
are of value, just as human goods are. Each good is to be respected as an important ethical
consideration, which means that human intervention must be done in a carefully limited way.
But ethical decisions that have a hearing on the environment will never preserve an goods.
Our responsibility as humans is not to "fix" nature or to rid it of what seems negative to us.
Rather, we are to act within the patterns and processes of life, always maintaining a respect
or reverence for the ways things continue to be ordered.
Gustafson's commonsense way of understanding our relationship to an things, which
can be applied to affective theistic and nontheistic consttuals, provides clarity to our search
for resolution of the impending environmental crisis. Our picture of our world will grow
over rime, presenting us with new problems and points of disorder. But the promise of
theocentric ethics is enduring, and will continue to furnish a starting point for dialogue about
the concerns we must recognize as common. Only together can people of aIl contexts and
traditions discern courses of action fitting to the patterns and processes of life.
1 Gustafson, A Sense rf the Divine, xiii. In volume 2 of Ethics from a Theocentric Perspective, one of four outlined practical concems, that of population and nutrition, does take some ecological concems into account. 2 French, 113. 3 Gustafson, Intersections, 123. 4 Toulmin, "Nature and Nature's God," 47. 5 Gustafson, Christian Ethics and the Communi!J, 149. 6 Midgley, Evolution as a Religion, 161. 7 French, 124. 8 Cahill, "Consent in Ttme of Affliction," 31. 9 Gustafson, "Nature: Its Status in Theological Ethics," 22. 10 Gustafson, "Ethical Issues in the Human Future," 503. 11 Ibid., 493 and A Sense rf the Divine, 32f. 12 Midgley, "Toward a New Understanding of Human Nature," 527. 13 Gustafson, "Ethical Issues in the Human Future," 493. 14 Niebuhr, The Meaning rfRevelation, 167. Gustafson also shows appreciation for Barth's understanding of the sacrifice of other forms oflife in 1: 95. 15 Gustafson, A Sense rf the Divine, 57. 16 Ibid., 49; cf. 44.
110
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