Getting Right with Nature

Abstract

The past century has witnessed unprecedented economic growth and prosperity along with unprecedented depredations upon nature. To resolve these developments, there is debate between two moral postures. One takes a human-centered, or anthropocentric, view of our relationship to nature to emphasize the value of securing the resources needed for further development. The other takes an environment-centered, or ecocentric, view of our relationship to nature to emphasize the value of conserving her integrity and beauty. This article explores tensions underling these two views and finds that neither adequately reconciles us to nature. This article offers an alternative, theocentric view of our relationship to nature, founded upon Catholic Christianity, that reconciles in God our value for resources and nature and establishes a divine order of man and nature apart from human egoism and intentions. This article concludes with a discussion of the implications of this theocentric view for environmental policy and practice.