Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
a topic which could reveal the works of the Lord in a manner similar to the Scriptures. In
the early exegetical writings, God was regarded as being made manifest in his works:
There is a topic of nature which when read along with the topic of God,
allows men to know and understand Him and his creation; not only man
but nature suffered from the curse after the Fall; one may admire and love
the beauty of the earth if this love and admiration is associated with the
love of God.
(Glacken 1967:203)
This view of nature played an important role in establishing a favourable attitude towards
wild country. St Augustine (in Glacken 1967:204) wrote, 'Some people in order to
discover God, read topics. But there is a great topic: the very appearance of created
things.' Pulpit eloquence was 'adopted by medieval mystico-philosophical speculation,
and finally passed into common usage' (Curtius 1953:321, in Glacken 1967:104).
Reading the topic of nature for the word of God was eventually to lead to the reading
of nature itself, but the notion of nature as a topic was also to prepare the way for the
development of a natural theology in the writings of St Francis of Assisi, St Bonaventura
and Ramon Sibiude. To St Francis, living creatures were not only symbols, but also
'placed on earth for God's own purposes (not for man's), and they, like man, praise God'
(Glacken 1967:216). St Francis' theology represented a revolutionary change in Christian
attitudes towards nature because of the distinct break they make from the anthropocentric
nature of earlier theology (L.White 1967). Upon the foundation built by the natural
theologians and their intellectual heirs, such as John Ray and Gilbert White, came to be
built the framework for the discovery of nature by the Romantic movement.
Nevertheless, despite a continuing appreciation of nature as part of God's divine presence
by some theologians, the dominant attitude in the Judaeo-Christian tradition until the
seventeenth century was that true appreciation of God could be gained only by looking
inwards, not out at nature. Nature was provided for humans to utilise. Wilderness and
wild lands were to be tamed and cultivated to display the divine order as interpreted by
humankind. However, while in the minority within Christian attitudes towards nature, the
environmental theology of St Francis remains a significant theme within Christian
thought not only because of attitudes towards wild nature but also in the development of
a broader understanding of humankind's responsibilities for environmental stewardship.
The dominant Judaeo-Christian view of wilderness may be contrasted with that of
eastern religions. In eastern thought, wilderness 'did not have an unholy or evil
connotation but was venerated as the symbol and even the very essence of the deity'
(Nash 1967:20). The aesthetic appreciation of wild land began to change far earlier in the
Orient than in the West. By the fourth century AD, for instance, large numbers of people
in China had begun to find an aesthetic appeal in mountains, whereas they were still seen
as objects of fear in Europe (Nicholson 1962; Tuan 1974). Eastern faiths such as Shinto
and Taoism 'fostered love of wilderness rather than hatred' (Nash 1982:21). Shinto
deified nature in favour of pastoral scenes. The polarity that existed between city and
wilderness in the Judaeo-Christian experience did not exist outside European cultural
traditions (Callicott 1982). In contrast, western civilisation has tended to dominate, rather
than adapt, to its surrounding landscape whereas traditional eastern and non-European
