Readers!
This post is dedicated to some of the thoughts that contributed to my Senior Thesis as part of my Liberal Arts education at Wyoming Catholic College. Although not formatted to the best of my scholastic and practical knowledge; my hopes is that this will give you a taste of my motivation for working and life-styling in the outdoors. Enjoy and be well!
- Teresa
The Necessity of Nature in the Development
of Human Nature
“Let him have
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the
cattle, and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon
the earth” (Gen 1:26).
Introduction
God
created man in a garden because it was most fitting. He saw that a garden is a thing of beauty and
an inspiration to wonderment, a perfect surrounding for man to become the best
sensing, simple, social and spiritual being that God created him to be. Being immersed in and knowledgeable about
nature is essential to human development because our nature is rational, and as
such we have properties that need to be cultivated; these qualities are most
efficaciously cultivated by being immersed in the created natural world. Four of these essential properties of man
have to do with relationships that need to be engaged in. Man's sensing soul is cultivated in nature
when he has a beneficial relationship with his sensual environment; his soul is
ordered and simplified when cultivated
in nature, as he orders the chaos within himself and consequently in creation;
his social nature is nourished in nature, as he recognizes his place in
creation as having dominion over it to insure justice; and finally, man's
spiritual nature is cultivated in nature because nature is intrinsically
beautiful, and when confronted with beauty he develops wonder, the foundation
of all philosophy and spirituality. This
Thesis will prove that knowledge of and immersion in nature is essential to
human development.
“In
the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Gen 1:1). And on the sixth day after creating day,
night, land, sea, sky, vegetation, planets, sea creatures and land creatures,
God created man. More specifically, God created man in His own image. He said: “Let him have dominion over the
fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over
all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth” (Gen
1:26). God purposefully makes and does
things in a certain way that is most fitting. It is most fitting that God
created man in His own image, and on the last day of creation commanded him to
have dominion over all created things. For man is “the beauty of the world” and “the
paragon of animals.”[1]
Originally
God created Adam and Eve, in a garden, the Garden of Eden. He walked with man
throughout the garden and explained to him all that he was supposed to be and
do. After all,
God found man “very good” and made him in His
image, so why would he not help him along as much as he could possibly need?
God knows that in order for man to reach his fullest potential qua rational
animal he must work with his nature, so God and man communicated, and man then
knew what was expected of him. Rational animals have many faculties that they
need to cultivate in order to be what they are to be; in other words, to grow
into their form.
Man
is a homo sapiens which literally means “wise” or “rational”
animal. An animal, as Aristotle says, is
one that has both a vegetative soul, with the ability to grow and take-in
nourishment, and a sensitive soul, enabling it to see, touch, hear, smell and
taste. Man is differentiated from other
animals in that he alone has a rational soul. Rationality is the specific
difference that separates men from all other animals; this is the ability to
think about oneself thinking. Man's
rational soul is tripartite. A person's
rational soul should be formed in such a way that the appetites and passions
are subject to reason, the highest part of his soul. The more a man's passions and appetites are
conformed to his reason, the more god-like he grows. His soul becomes more unified and
simpler. God is the ultimate simplicity
and rationality because he is thought thinking about itself: thinking thinking
thinking. Essentially, man is also a
social animal; a being that needs to be interacting with other people in order
to be who he is to be. Finally, man is essentially spiritual; since he was
created in the image and likeness of God and was given rationality, man cannot be fully man without
being spiritual. Therefore, man qua rational animal
needs to be knowledgeable and immersed in
nature in order to be fully who he is
to be; essentially man is sensitive, simple,
social and spiritual. Being immersed in
nature
provides a fecund environment in which a man
can grow in these four essential ways.
Man
as sensitive, simple, social and spiritual is communicative. Nature fecundates
man's communication and relationship with his surroundings through the use of
his senses, himself through the use of his reason, others through having
dominion over creation, and God through his faculty of wonderment. Nature can
be taken in two ways: the created world and nature as the nature of particular
beings. Looking at the first, a Wyoming
Catholic College student has written: “Many expect God to come to you on the
peaks . . . However, God speaks to you in the quiet of the forest, by the banks
of a stream, in the whisper of the pine trees at night, and then the peace of
your spirit mirrors the clear mountain lakes.”[2] Created nature is constantly accessible to
every person; for more than being a physical place in which one can immerse and
lose himself in physical beauty, it is a intellectual place that is free from
distraction and a gateway to wonderment.
Created nature is the incarnation of openness to wonder. Therefore, whether it is a window box
bursting with bloom in the inner city or a majestic mountain vista, this is
what is identified as created nature in the first sense.
Using
“nature” in the second sense, as the nature of particular beings, Aristotle's Physics
is the exemplar. Everything has a
nature or whatness (quidity) and deserves to be respected and treated as
such. For example, a river's nature is
to flow and to be a vibrant source of life and nourishment for all the living
things in it's surrounding environment.
It has no rationality and consequently does not deliberately flow
along to a self-determined end. A human
being's
whatness, on the other hand, is rational at its
core. A man can determine his own
actions because
he has free-will; his nature is to reason. Thus it contradicts the very nature of a man
to allow
himself to let his passions or appetites
overrule the reason that is supposed to have dominion over his lower faculties.
An
example of how one can violate the natures of a thing is Xerxes, the ancient
Persian Emperor, who flew into a mad rage because he was mad at the river that
prevented him and his army from reaching their destination. Because of his extreme rage, he took out his
whip and began lashing the river. This
action illustrates a violation of both Xerxes' nature as a rational animal, by
allowing his passions to overrule his reason and fly into a raging, mad temper,
and also a violation of the river's nature; the river was doing what it was
supposed to qua river, and of course, did not have any choice in the
matter. Needless to say, the bestial
outrage of Xerxes benefited neither Xerxes nor the river. Respecting and
treating things according to their whatness is beneficial to both parties in an
action. The natures of things should be known and respected accordingly in
order for there to be order.
When one is gaining knowledge of and is being
immersed in created nature, there is an unfolding of knowledge of the natures
of things in one's mind. Thomas Storck
in his article Aristotle, Your Garden and Your Body recognizes the
importance of understanding the natures of things in order to understand more
fully our own human nature. He writes:
“The key to understanding something is to get to know it's whatness, as far as
one can do that . . . [M]ost
importantly, the key to working with something or healing that thing, is to
respect its nature and,
if necessary, to stimulate or restore it, but always
according to its own nature.”[3] It is
part of fallen
human nature that we see the natures of things
as “indefinitely malleable.”[4] After
all, when God created man, He gave him: “dominion over the fish of the sea and
birds of the air.” Does this not mean that man, since he is the smartest
animal, should do whatever he wants with creation? It does not, and thinking
with this mindset will get one nowhere in the discovery of himself and where he
fits in God's creation.
Chapter
1
Man as a Sensing
Being
First
of all, nature is necessary for man to be immersed in because he is a sensitive
animal. Man needs to be sensitive to his
surroundings before he can develop as a simple, social and spiritual creature
because it is in sensing his environment that he comes to know creation. Not only
is it logically right and necessary that man should come to know through his
senses, but it is also necessary to his nature that he first learns through his
senses. Think of how a young child first
learns; it is all through his senses. He
learns to distinguish the sound of his mother's voice by listening to her, and
he learns what foods he likes by tasting them. A person learning in created
nature is similar to a child learning in his surroundings for the first time;
one's senses must be perceptive and ready to use.
Man
is an animal, and as such he has not only a vegetative soul, the soul that is
“common to all living things”[5] and
whose “activities being reproduction and taking nourishment,”[6] but also
a sensitive soul. This sensitive soul
possesses the capabilities to see, hear, smell, taste and touch. All animals possess the sensitive soul, but
not all to the same degree. A sea
anemone, for example, has a vegetative soul because it is living, but it also
possesses the sense of touch. This
is evident in the way that it backs away from
that which harms it, and gravitates towards things
that can nourish it. This type of sensing is very elementary
compared to the sensitivity that
rational animals possess, which is very acute
and conducive to knowing.
Moreover,
there are different types of knowing.
Aristotle in his De Anima uses the uniquely rational power of
knowing to clarify how the sensitive soul has degrees of potency and act. Potency is a state in which something has the
ability and correct form and matter to become in a certain way,
but because it has not become that way yet, it is not mature and fully actualized. When a thing becomes fully mature within its
own nature, its potentialities have been fulfilled. And it is called act. The type of knowing that occurs in man when
he presents himself to his created environment is that of a potency to sensing
being exposed to innumerable sense objects. Man as a sensing animal is affected
sensibly by all of his surroundings, for it is in the nature of sensible things
to impress themselves upon sensing creatures.
A person cannot fully turn off his senses, however hard he might try,
because the power of sensing is universal to all animals and more or less acute
depending on the individual species.
However,
since man is not only a sensing animal but also a rational animal he can choose
to what degree each and every sensible thing affects him. And this distinction is very important
because man is the only sensing animal that can perceive that he is sensing a
sensible, think about it, and think about himself thinking about
sensing. It is in these thoughts about
thoughts that man is no longer only sensing, but has achieved a nobler kind of
knowing.
St.
Thomas states in his Compendium Theologiae,that “man needs sense powers
in order
to understand.”[7] He
posits that the senses are receptive to the particular forms of things without
their matter, but not the universal forms of
the particular sensible object. For
example, a man who sees a stone will sensibly understand its particular form,
but the matter of the stone will not be “lodged into the eye.”[8] Hence,
people who open their senses to the sensibles of created nature will
masterfully cultivate them. And since,
according to St. Thomas Aquinas, man cannot fully understand without the use of
his senses, it is necessary to understand sensibly before trying intellectually
to understand the natures of things. Is
it not true that infants first learn through all of their senses? An infant knows the feeling of hunger before
he can communicate this feeling in an intellectual way. A cowboy understands a horse better by
actually riding it and being physically around it than by studying a horse's
universal characteristics in a book.
Moreover,
learning to sense around beautiful and awesome things will sharpen one's
knowledge of the magnificence of the surrounding environment. Beauty should be the standard for learning
environments because it raises the mind towards the intellectual level. Analogously, a person who comes to a full
knowledge of his senses in nature will understand the full capacity of his senses and will see creation as the
foundation of all material sensible things.
Furthermore, sensually learning in nature will lead to higher learning
because the environment is uniquely beautiful.
This beauty is essentially good because all of creation is God's
handiwork, and all other sensible things are imitations of God's creation. All art imitates nature, so if a person
sensibly understands the creation's grandeur he will not stop there but will
continue on to discover more beauty.
Let
us return to the point that St. Thomas makes about how man needs sense powers
in order to understand. It is elementary
and foundational to the development of man to hone his ability to sense things
in a correct way, for if he is not given the full opportunity to fill up his
senses with the sensibles of nature from the
beginnings of his childhood he will lack a full
understanding of the natures of things in his
adulthood. Created nature is a haven for
learning to use ones senses without hindrance.
In nature one can use all five senses with ease, and yet it tests them
at the same time. Contrary to modern,
technological, entertainment culture, which bombards a person with only active
sensibles that act upon a person's senses with or without his consent, nature
allows a person actively to participate in the living world in which he lives
and is a most essential part. Being
perceptive of nature with one's senses allows a person physically to observe
and learn in a most basic and essential way about his abilities as a sensing
creature, and most importantly about his environment.
An
environment is the created world that surrounds a person. It involves all land forms, bodies of water,
buildings, weather, vegetation, animals and the pinnacle and ruler over all
creation, the rational animals. A
natural environment like a park is either harmonious or disharmonious in the
living thing's interactions within it.
Harmony depends upon whether each individual being acts according to its
nature. Of course, this makes sense only
with beings that have a choice whether or not to work in accordance with their
nature. Grass, trees, and irrational
animals do not have to deliberate whether or not to take in nourishment,
reproduce, or treat other animals according to their nature because they lack a
deeper knowledge than that of sense. The
only animal that is able to make this kind of deliberation as to how each and
every created thing should be treated is the rational one.
Chapter 2
Man as a Simple Being
Man
was created by God in His image and likeness, and when God created him, he
called
it “very good” (Gen 1:31). On every other day of creation, before He
created man, God was
happy with what He had made and found it good,
but something unique happened on this sixth day when God created the pinnacle
of all creation. God made a thinking
animal. This ability of man to be
rational is an awesome gift to man and one that needs to be cultivated in order
to be made fruitful and for man to achieve his fullest potential. A man's fullest potential is achieved when he
is immersed in nature because nature is simple, and men are created in the
image and likeness of the Simple. The
word simple is used here in two senses: simple as in ordered and not chaotic
and simple as in the kind of simplicity that God possesses.
There
is a certain simplicity that exists in God that St. Thomas defines in his Summa
Theologiae. He states “That God
is simple.”[9]
Furthermore, he states that “Even in composite beings we observe that the
simpler things have a priority.”[10] This is
evident when one thinks of how God is
infinite and eternal. He is simple in
that He has no parts. God created the
universe out of nothing save himself.
Creation is an extension of God.
All of creation, all of its parts are one in God. How then can man, who is complex, animal and
emotional, be created in God's image, a being that is pure simplicity?
Every
thing that is found in the material world is diverse and multiple. There are thousands of species of insects,
let alone plants and animals. One can
hardly call created nature “that which has no parts.” But in the widespread diversity that is found
in the created world, an
orderliness can be found. It is found in man. Every perfection in creation, with its
diversity and
multiplicity, illustrates the broadness of
God. It is this way because every
perfection in nature is first and primary in God. Order can be cultivated in this diversity
through one that has rightful dominion over it, the reasoning animal.
Man,
as Aristotle claims, has a tripartite soul[11]. Two of these parts are subordinate to the
reason which is highest. A man's reason
is what is supposed to rule his life because being rational is his form, his what
he is to be. The well-ordered soul
should be structured so that a man's reason is the ruler over his passions and
appetites. Animals without reason act
upon their passions and appetites without premeditation because this is how
they are made. But when a man does this,
he is acting viciously and is rebelling against the very thing that makes him
who he is. Being sensibly knowledgeable
of and immersed in nature greatly equips man with a certain knowledge of himself
as an ordered being because upon viewing created nature one can see the harmony
that moves within it. The non-rational living things that interact
within nature act according to instinct, passions and appetites, not according
to reason. It is the duty of man to be
the reason that rules over every other passion and appetite that lives upon the
earth. “God commanded him to have
dominion over the fish, the birds and all creeping things upon the earth.”
Before
the fall of man, when man sinned against God by acting beyond his nature, there
was a supernatural harmony that existed between
man and nature. All animals were
submissive to reason and man did not have to try to “work with the
natures of things” because everything was acted according to its nature of its
own accord. Man fell because he violated
his nature by thinking that he was like God.
He wanted to be like God: simple, with no parts to order. God's
simplicity is His own and no one else can
posses it, although man has something like God's simplicity within himself.
This
simplicity can be defined as a kind of well-ordered multiplicity. Man is simple in the sense that he has an
order in his complexity, a beautifully organized complexity. Mankind can try to rectify themselves in their
rational nature by reigning in their inordinate passions and bestial appetites
to the purpose of achieving the well ordered soul that they were originally
created with. This knowledge of the
harmonious simplicity of creation and the order of living things existing
within it helps man to cultivate an ordered relationship within himself as a
rational animal. This knowledge comes
from sensual experience and reason.
Furthermore,
there is another sense of simplicity that nature possesses that helps man to
realize his own calling to be simple.
This sense of simplicity is one that is personified in the life of St.
Francis of Assisi. St. Francis lived a
life of pure austerity. He lived a life
directly contrasting with that of the rich young man in the Gospel of Matthew,
who thrived precisely because he possessed material wealth. It is common in modern culture to think of
St. Francis merely as a stone statue holding a bird bath in a front-yard flower
garden-traditional yet “green.” The shallow knowledge and misunderstanding of
this saint's mystical life is too common.
St. Francis lived a life of deep spirituality and in harmonious
relationships with God, his fellow man and creation.
But,
G.K. Chesterton, who has something to say concerning every matter of modern
confusion, states that St. Francis was not a lover of nature. Properly understood, a lover of nature was
precisely what he was not. The phrase
implies accepting the material universe as a vague environment, a sort of
sentimental pantheism.[12] St.
Francis was a lover of nature precisely
because it was created by God, and so he did
not love nature as an end in itself.
This proper love that is due to anything that is created by God, is a
product of the knowledge of one's own human nature. Nature was created by God for man in order to
help him grow in a most beautiful relationship with it so that he could
understand it, himself, others and God through his experiences of direct
immersion in it.
He
did not, like many moderns, call the earth “mother nature.” But instead, he saw trees and animals as his
sisters and brothers because their “souls” are made by God too. In the multiplicity of his interactions with
the creatures of God's creation, he recognized the powerful simplicity that is
in God. His view of the created world
was not one of sentimentality or materialism.
He knew that it has beauty, not only for beauty's sake, but also so for
the salvation of humanity. St. Francis
recognized this and saw everything not as a perfect background in which he
would lead his life of simplicity, but as a place that was given to him by God
to know and love. Seemingly contrary to
the modern stereotypical characterization of St. Francis the nature lover, St.
Francis knew the proper place of nature in a human beings life. He called every animal “sister” and “brother”
but he did not think of himself equal in dignity with them. He knew that, unlike beasts, he was called to
more divine things than this earth. By
being in tune with the nature of creation he knew its rightful place in God's
plan of salvation for him. This harmony
led him to adopt the life philosophy of contemptus mundi or contempt of
the world which exemplifies St. Francis' extreme spirituality. For ultimately creation was made for him to
lead him closer to the creator of it.
St.
Francis is exemplary in his lifestyle of being poor in spirit. He was attached to nothing save God. In the wild when a person is going on a
journey, he carries everything he
needs to survive on his back. This is another
type of simplicity that nature demands: pack light, pack fast. Backpacking in the wilderness is a good
awakening into the wonderful world of material simplicity. Many material belongings are not necessary in
order to live and thrive. This fact is
well known by students at Wyoming Catholic College, who have been regularly
backpacking since their first immersion freshman year. These students have all spent more than three
weeks in the back country surviving on only what they carry on their back. Living in this simple way they grow to depend
on things other than technology. They
grow in wonderment, teamwork, communication and so many other virtues necessary
to be a virtuous human being living in community.
Chapter 3
Man as a Social Being
In
order to fully understand what a thing is, it is essential to know where a
thing came from and where it is going.
In the beginning of time, on the sixth day of creation, after God had
made the land, sea, sky, birds, fish and land animals, he created Adam. The first man God made out of the dust of the
earth and breathed into him an immortal soul.
But God saw that man was wanting of something and said “It is not good
that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him”(Gen
2:18). So God made every animal that
lives on the earth, every fish in the sea and every bird of the air and brought
them to Adam and Adam named each one of them, but “for the man there was not a helper fit for
him” (Gen 2:20). God then formed Eve,
taking a rib out of Adam's side while he was sleeping and when Adam awoke he
stated: “This at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh” (Gen 2:23).
From
the beginning of time, God stated that “it is not that man should be
alone.” All
things are good because they exist. Evil, according to St. Thomas Aquinas[13] is the
non-existence of a good thing that should be there. Therefore, it would have been an evil if Eve
would not have
been created.
But God, who does everything that is the most fitting, created Eve to
live with and
be a helper to Adam because man should not be
alone. It is clear from mankind's birth
that man was created in community needing another human, not just an animal,
but a rational animal, to share life with.
It
is an essential property of man to be social.
This property is common among the animal kingdom. Living in a community provides for basic
necessities to be met, such as protection from predators, food gathering and
the continuation of the species. While
human beings live in communities for these same basic reasons, “a human being
is more of a political animal than is any bee or than any of those animals that
live in herds.”[14]
There are also other higher reasons why they live in communities, having to do
with the the unique property that differentiates him from all other animals; and this is his
rationality. “[N]ature . . . makes
nothing in vain, and humans are the only animals who possess reasoned speech.”[15]
As
has been discussed previously, when God had made all of creation and showed it
to human beings, He told them to “have
dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every
living thing that moves upon the earth” (Gen 1:28). He specifically did this because humans not
only have the need to live in community, but also because they have the faculty
of reason and capability of virtue.
Aristotle, in his Politics discourses on the topic of society and
how it is in the nature of human beings to be social and live in
community. The greatest social virtue
that a man can possess is justice, because justice is giving to each according
to his due.
As the only rational animal upon the earth, and because God gave man
dominion over the whole of creation, man not only has the opportunity but also
a duty to practice justice within creation.
Through
his sensory knowledge and relationship with his environment, he will naturally
come to realize that he is not just an onlooker to a vast and diverse living
world, (as is common in our modern culture saturated with images from Discovery
Channel and National Geographic), but come to understand that nature
is an essential part of his being.
“Direct experiences involve physical contact with nature in settings
where nature is not controlled.”[16] When man looks at himself, he will recognize
an organized being, one with a tripartite soul that needs to be cultivated
correctly in order to be what he was made to be, simple. Through having these experiences within
nature and being sensibly knowledgeable of it, one will have a better
understanding as to why human beings are the only animals who can correctly
rule over creation with justice.
God
gave man dominion over creation, but what exactly does that mean? That human beings are the strongest and
therefore have the right to rule? On the
contrary, human beings do not have advantage in the senses; practically every
other animal can smell, see, taste, feel and hear better than man, nor does he
excel in physical strength or swiftness; a lion or cheetah would rule the world
if dominion had to do with that. No,
dominion is much more meaningful than just “domination” over the world; it is
instead ordered by justice and filled with harmony. The world dominion comes from the Latin Dominum,
meaning “lord.” A lord is a man who
practices the virtue of justice while having the power and authority to rule
over others. A good lord does not
suppress his subjects because he sees the
possibility of good in every individual.
He knows that
even if goodness is not being acted upon, it
must be cultivated so that it will be practiced and
actualized.
When
a person is immersed in the natural world, the virtue of justice can be
actively
cultivated.
Having dominion over creation can be one of the greatest
responsibilities and joys of
being in this world. But it can also be a great burden and
downfall of man if he does not interact with nature in justice. Because “it is just to give to each what is
owed,”[17] human
beings should strive to become familiar with and knowledgeable of nature,
sensibly knowledgeable and knowledgeable of themselves as rational. If man does this thoroughly, he will live in
the mean or harmony with his surroundings: not at the extremes of worshiping
nature as a god because it is so wondrously beautiful, or treating it as his
possession to suppress, mold, experiment with and control. These types of extreme relationships that man
can have with nature are neither in accordance with the nature of creation nor
our own.
Why do men then now not
reck his rod?/Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;/And all is smeared with trade, bleared smeared with
toil;/ And wears mans smudge and shares mans smell,/ the soil is bare now, nor can foot feel for being shod.[18]
The
poet, Gerard Manly Hopkins, correctly illustrates the detrimental effects that
industrialization has on man. Man's
reason was used to build machines and factories to help him produce more and
much faster to the extent that he has forgotten his duty as a just dominum, and
now views himself only as a scientist and worker. The soil has been raped by man of all its
beauty because he did not respect its nature or his own. Thus, the virtue of justice can and needs to
be learned and practiced in nature because nature provides ample and immediate
feedback
from the things in nature, the soil, plants and
animals without harming the whole structure of society by learning later.
Being
in nature also provides a direct learning setting. This is a setting where immediate
consequences occur when any action is
taken. For example, chemical farming,
the simple
“pumping in of synthetic chemicals, ignoring
the soil's own whatness”[19] leads
to the sterility of the soil's own natural fertility. Chemical farming is happening because
humanity has lost the understanding of the natures of things. We are the most intellectual of all animals,
and somehow find it acceptable to impose our wants on to other forms. This is one of the many examples of the
ignorant arrogance of human beings thinking that they can rightfully impose
themselves (though they know not what they are) on to other more malleable
forms. Further illustrating direct
experiences with nature show dramatic and immediate consequences. This is illustrated when a young man tries to
defy the natures of things in the well known book by Jon Krakauer, Into the
Wild.[20]
This book relates the true story of a young man who hiked alone into the bitter
and lonely Alaskan wilderness. “Unlike
Muir and Thoreau, McCandless went into the wilderness not primarily to ponder
nature or the world at large but rather to explore the inner country of his own
soul.”[21] This
mission of McCandless was ambitious and
passionate;
he was a young man not satisfied with how the
working world knew him, but strove to know himself in a much deeper way beyond
the limits of the urban world. He was
not crazy but he did underestimate the dreadful and awesome power of nature,
which ultimately led to his untimely death. It is in not knowing or ignoring
the natures of things or the natures of ourselves that injustice occurs.
The
mentality of misunderstanding and forcfully conquering nature has been approved
by Bacon, Descartes and Newton, the founders of the new age of scientific
thought and practice.
“It is part of our human arrogance that when we
begin to look on created natures as indefinitely malleable, we begin to demand
whatever we want, with no regard to whether that is harmful to our environment
or even possible to obtain.”[22] Hence, simply because human beings possess a powerful
will and intellect that can manipulate things to conform to their will does not
mean that it is a righteous action. And
as rational animals, people have the duty to always use their abilities for the
good of the whole since they indeed are an integral part of the whole, through
governing it as reason governs the passions and appetites.
Therefore
knowledge of the natures of things, especially man's own nature, is the
foundation of justice, the virtue of the social and rational animal. Through being immersed in nature, knowing our
place in it, ordering it correctly, and acting within it, nature can be seen to
be essential to man's social development.
Justice must be practiced in the natural world and it can be easily
cultivated while immersed in nature. Man
was made to be a just lord, and it is in his nature to act in this certain way
over creation.
Chapter
4
Man as a Spiritual Being
“[I]t
is the property of the human being to need to belong both to the 'environment'
and to be oriented toward the 'world', or the totality of being; . . . further
it [is] the nature of the philosophical act to transcend the 'environment' and
to encounter the 'world.'”[23] Josef
Pieper in his book Leisure the Basis of
Culture delves into the relationship that man needs to have with
himself and the eternal. Wonder is the basis of all philosophy and the
fuel of theology. By knowing God’s creation, man will necessarily come to know
the creator of it all because it
reflects Him. “It is fortunate perhaps, that no
matter how intently one studies the hundred little dramas of the woods and
meadows, one can never learn all of the salient facts about any one of
them.”[24] It
is interesting to contemplate this statement knowing who the speaker is, for
Aldo Leopold was, as some have said, a professional conservationist, naturalist
and natural philosopher of sorts.
Leopold was a man who spent years observing nature and natural
phenomena. He read weather patterns,
observed activities and knew the scientific names of many birds, animals and
plants in his surroundings. Yet even he,
a most intelligent man, possessed a sense of wonderment.
Nature
is essentially beautiful. And things
that are essentially and objectively beautiful are awe-inspiring and
wonderful. There is a unifying reason as
to why St. Francis immersed himself in
nature and praised God for creating it; why Chris McCandless went Into the
Wild; why Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati always climbed “to the top” and why
Aldo Leopold spent the better part of his life observing and studying the
nature that surrounded him. It was
because they loved the way they were in nature. Immersion in nature allows a wild peace to
enwrap a person, as one is open to the tranquility that threads itself into
natures core.
These
men all somehow recognized in their own way that they were made for much more
than what the workaday world told them.
They sought beyond the troubles of the working world and sought after a
place that is much higher: a place that human beings were created for, a world
greater and more beautiful than any eye has ever seen or any ear has ever
heard. Wonder is the
foundation of philosophy, for it is a place
where man can let his mind do what it was created to do; it is the bridge
between this earthly life and eternal life.
“[T]o be human is: to know things
beyond the 'roof' of the stars, to go beyond
the trusted enclosures of the normal, customary day-to-day reality of the whole
of existing things, to go beyond the 'environment' to the 'world' in
which that environment is enclosed.”[25]
As
has been illustrated previously in defending how man is essentially a sensing
being, a simple being and a social being, all of these properties of a man can
be learned and practiced while we live and interact with our natural
surroundings and the beings in it. Man
interacts with nature and discovers himself sensibly, simply and socially. This temporal life that exists now is the end
for which man develops these properties of his.
For being a sensitive being is essential to man's understanding and
integrity here on earth in knowing his environment, but once he dies he loses
his sensing capabilities and his soul lives on without his sensing body and
earthly surroundings. Knowing oneself as
a simple and organized animal is essential to life here on earth, but leads
more to the afterlife than sensing (knowing surroundings) because it is in
knowing oneself that one truly realizes where one came from and where one is
heading: from God and to God. Similar to
these previous two properties pertaining to man here on earth, but more-so
pertaining to the afterlife, the social property of man is learned first here
on earth by interacting with the things of creation and developing a relationship
of justice with them. But being a social
being who strives towards justice also points more directly towards the
spiritual aspect of man.
Aristotle
in his Politics comes to this conclusion after discoursing about what
the best
regime is, kingship: “the best ruling the
best.”[26] What
Aristotle means by this is that the best and most virtuous man should lead the
most virtuous people, and this type of ruling is called
kingship.
“The goal of this regime is happiness, or the perfect exercise of virtue
without qualification.”[27] Thus God who is the most just and highest
king is the leader of men towards
happiness.
It is a key point to note that the first man and woman were made in a
garden, the most beautiful garden that any eye has ever seen. Humanity was made sensing so that we could
fully appreciate the unique beauty of it
all. We were made in the image and
likeness of our creator, who is all loving, wise, simple and just. As the pinnacle of his creation we have the
ability and tremendous responsibility to act upon our nature and fulfill whom
he created and wants us to be.
It
is a common thread in nature, philosophy and observation that when one is in
the state of wonderment observing nature, one is simply receptive, not acting
upon nature in a scientific way but appreciating and filling his senses with
the grandeur of his surroundings.
Silence, it has been said, is higher and more spiritual than singing or
speaking, for there are such things at which we wonder that can not be fully
appreciated with words or song. In 1869,
Charles Cook discovered the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone; when Cook came
upon this natural wonder, he could not speak, for he was so entranced with the
sensual glory of the place. “I sat there
in amazement, while my companions came up, and after that, it seemed to me that
it was five minutes before anyone spoke.”[28] Wonder is the foundation of philosophy, and
philosophy is the love of wisdom. The
ultimate wisdom is God. When man is
immersed in and knowledgeable of nature, he will be in a state of wonderment
that ultimately leads to the discovery of the spiritual:
his own spirituality and a relationship with
the creator of all nature and the natures of things, which is God.
Conclusion
Being immersed in
and knowledgeable of nature is essential to human development
because our nature is to be a rational animal,
and as such we have properties that need to be
cultivated.
These qualities are most efficaciously cultivated while being immersed
in and knowledgeable of the created natural world. Four of these essential properties to man are
also relationships that need to be fecundated.
Man's sensing soul is cultivated in nature when he has
beneficial relationship with his sensual
environment; his simple and well ordered soul is cultivated in nature, when he
orders the chaos within himself and consequently in creation; his social nature
is nourished in nature, when he recognizes his place in creation as having
dominion over it and as such should insure justice, and finally man's spiritual
nature is cultivated in nature because nature is intrinsically beautiful, in
beauty there lies wonder, and wonder is the foundation of all philosophy and
spirituality.
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23
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24
[1] William Shakespeare, William
Shakespeare The Complete Works, Hamlet (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2005), Act II Scene II, lines 308-309.
[2] Matthew H. McGee, “The Importance of Direct
Experiences in Nature for Liberal Education.” Via Sapientiae IV, 2010.
[3] Thomas Storck, Aristotle, Your Garden, and Your Body (Homiletic
and Pastoral Review 93.5 (1993).
[4] Ibid., 11.
[5] Saint Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on
Aristotle's De Anima. (Notre Dame, Indiana: Dumb Ox Books, 1994), 100, p 310.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Saint Thomas Aquinas, Compendium
Theologiae. (Lander, WY: The Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred
Doctrine, 2009), Cap. 82.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Saint Thomas Aquinas, Compendium
Theologiae (Lander, WY: Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine,
2009), Capitulus 9.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Plato, The Republic (United States of
America: Basic Books, 1991), Book IV, 436 a.
[12] G.K. Chesterton, St. Francis of Assisi (New York:
Doubleday, 2001), 78.
[13] Compendium Theologiae, Capitulus 142.
[14] Aristotle, The Politics of Aristotle (Chapel
Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 1253a7.
[15]
Ibid.
[16] “The Importance of Direct
Experiences in Nature for Liberal Education.” Via Sapientiae IV.
[17] Plato, The Republic of Plato Second
Edition (The United States of America: Basic Books 1968), 331e.
[18] Gerard Manly Hopkins. God’s Grandeur (1877).
[19]
Aristotle, Your Garden, And Your Body.
[20] Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild (New York: Villard Books, 1996).
[21] Ibid., 183.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Josef Pieper, Leisure the Basis of Culture (South
Bend Indiana: St. Augustine's Press, 1998),
98.
[24] Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here
and There (New York/ Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1949), 32.
[25] Leisure the Basis of Culture, 94.
[26] The Politics, Book 4,
Chapter 13.
[27] Ibid. Book 4, Chapter 13 introduction.
[28] Lee Whittlesey, Yellowstone Place Names a Montana
Historical Society Guide (Two Bears Press, 1941), 39.
