Incapacity of the Human Society

¶ … incapacity of the human society to blend and properly integrate the two main approaches that are used in describing both the reality around, the birth of the Universe and the scope and purpose of mankind on the Earth. The two main approaches are the religious approach (the author refers only to the Christian perspective) and the naturalistic and scientific approach. In his opinion, neither approaches cover, at this point, all issues in a sufficient manner and he notes their incapacity to explain satisfactorily everything going on. At the same time, neither approach places the Earth and nature at its center, increasing the probability that it would be destroyed at some point because of the incapacity of human beings to properly manage it.

The author adequately blends a philosophical with a historical approach in order to argue his thesis. From a historical perspective, he is keen to enumerate and to include in his discussion events from the 14th century (the Black Death), from the 16th and 17th century (the birth of scientific explanations and naturalistic treaties) and, later on, the 19th and the 20th centuries.

At the same time, however, this historical perspective comes only so as to back up the philosophical perspective with historical facts. The philosophical perspective approach does seem to be used more often throughout the article, since the author is preoccupied with the fate of mankind and, even more importantly, with the fact that the current system that mankind has is not one to efficiently propose and monitor the appropriate moral approach. His concern is also that the religious model is not one that will satisfactorily tackle all the additional events coming out of the ambiguity of the two systems, including the way that the planet will handle its extensive and constant abuse that both the naturalistic and the religious approach do not take into consideration in their systems.

Q1. Mr. Berry, you constantly refer in your article to the ideal of combining the religious with the scientific approach. At the same time, it is quite obvious that none of the two approaches is willing to focus on the role of the Earth and of nature in everyday existence: on one hand, Christianity (and most monotheistic religions) is concerned with redemption, as you have pointed out and, from that perspective, the focus is not on this life, but on the afterlife. On the other hand, science and nature do not propose a sufficiently moral approach to consider this. How should the integrated approach be constructed such as to take into consideration all the ecologist and environmental concerns you have pointed out in your article? How do we try to focus more on the existence of a healthy nature?