Thinking Nature and the Nature of Thinking : From Eriugena to Emerson

Revisiting the history of Western religious thought and the role of nature and creation therein, this book paves the way for a new natural theology by bringing medieval theologian John the Scot Eriugena into conversation with American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. "This book takes a humanistic and theological approach to the religious culture of the West by emphasizing the importance of thinking about nature. It argues that in the current environmental crisis, our thinking about nature is under siege, for nature is too quickly seen as victimized and humanity too often considered the culprit. Turning to theology as a way out of this bind, the author examines an old tradition of Western religious thought about nature in which God, the self, and nature are placed on a continuum. Engaging various thinkers who have previously (and unduly, to her way of thinking) been left out of religious discussions, the author privileges an unusual pair of protagonists, John the Scot Eriugena, the early medieval theologian and author of the Periphyseon, or The Division of Nature (considered a final word in the tradition of ancient philosophy but also condemned at the Council of Sens in 1225), and modern American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. Arguing that these two thinkers shed light on each other while offering a third way between the objectified, instrumentalized nature of contemporary science and environmentalism and the mystical nature that is the exclusive alternative we find in most eco-religious and eco-philosophical thinking, the book rehabilitates the importance of reflecting on nature in terms of nature's own relevance and agency. As she puts her protagonists in conversation with both each other and with a range of further interlocutors, the author casts a wide net, bringing in figures both secular and confessional, remote in time and in space. This coming together of congenial minds makes for a Platonic Symposium of sorts, as she puts it. Eriugena is illuminated via Augustine and Maximus the Confessor, representing the Western and Eastern Christian traditions, respectively; Emerson is at the center of a wider circle, in dialogue with both the continental founder of modern theology, Friedrich Schleiermacher, and the American thinker of religious experience, William James. The result is not a new natural theology, the tradition of which this book to some extent deconstructs, but rather a religious reconceptualization of the meaning and development of nature in the West"-- Provided by publisher A fresh and more capacious reading of the Western religious tradition on nature and creation, Thinking Nature and the Nature of Thinking puts medieval Irish theologian John Scottus Eriugena (810–877) into conversation with American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882). Challenging the biblical stewardship model of nature and histories of nature and religion that pit orthodoxy against the heresy of pantheism, Willemien Otten reveals a line of thought that has long made room for nature's agency as the coworker of God. Embracing in this more elusive idea of nature in a world beset by environmental crisis, she suggests, will allow us to see nature not as a victim but as an ally in a common quest for re-attunement to the divine. Putting its protagonists into further dialogue with such classic authors as Augustine, Maximus the Confessor, Friedrich Schleiermacher, and William James, her study deconstructs the idea of pantheism and paves the way for a new natural theology.