RT Article
T1 Toward an Earthbound Theology
JF Open theology
VO 4
IS 1
SP 71
OP 83
A1 Roberts, Austin J.
LA English
PB De Gruyter
YR 2018
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1830002678
AB This article considers some metaphysical and theological implications of the Anthropocene, which is the proposed name for a new geological epoch that is characterized by massive human disturbances of the Earth system. This stratigraphic time unit concludes the Holocene epoch that offered a relatively stable climate for human civilizations to emerge and flourish. The Anthropocene therefore marks the end of such natural stabilities - both real and imagined - along with a growing awareness of the dynamic agency or subjectivity of the Earth. By magnifying nonhuman subjectivity, the new epoch is widely interpreted by scholars across a range of disciplines as unsettling modern dualistic notions of human exceptionalism. Consequently, nonhuman nature is no longer a relatively inert background for human cultural activities. Humans and nonhumans must now be seen as interrelated Earth subjects. This nonmodern perspective suggests an ecological metaphysics of intersubjectivity along the lines of Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophy of organism, which redistributes subjectivity, creativity, and transcendence throughout nature. Theology in the Anthropocene must therefore account for this nondual view of reality, which arguably implies a divine-world relation characterized by mutual immanence. The proposed earthbound theology ultimately envisions the divine as poetic exemplification of intersubjectivity.
K1 Alfred North Whitehead
K1 Earth system
K1 Gaia
K1 Climate Change
K1 Ecology
K1 Environment
K1 Metaphysics
K1 Nature
K1 New Materialism
K1 nondual
K1 Process theology
K1 Stratigraphy
DO 10.1515/opth-2018-0006