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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 June 2020
The aim of this paper is to contribute to the project of recovering aspects of Christian thought which are significant for a contemporary eco-theological sensibility. The work of William Temple, in particular his concept of the sacramental universe, is discussed in relation to three eco-theological principles. Temple’s affirmation that matter has significance coheres with the principle that the Earth has value; his notion that the Incarnation is the pre-eminent expression of divine meaning connects with the principle that creation is expressive of divine mind and purpose; and the inter-disciplinary scope of Temple’s thought coheres with the principle of inter-connectedness. Temple’s concept of the sacramental universe might assist the engagement between theology and the present ecological context.
Deborah Guess is an Honorary Research Associate and Adjunct Lecturer at Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity, Melbourne.
2 Pope Francis, Laudato Si’ (Strathfield, NSW: St Pauls Publications, 2015); Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew II, ‘Ecumenical Patriarch Endorses Climate Change Statement’, https://www.patriarchate.org/-/ecumenical-patriarch-endorses-climate-change-statement (accessed 19 February 2020); Grayson Perry, ‘Rowan Williams: Climate Change “Largest Challenge Ever”’, BBC News Online, 26 December 2019 (accessed 19 February 2020).
3 Dieter T. Hessel and Rosemary Radford Ruether, ‘Introduction: Current Thought on Christianity and Ecology’, in Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim (eds.), Christianity and Ecology: Seeking the Well-Being of Earth and Humans (Religions of the World and Ecology; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), pp. xxxv-xxxvi; H. Paul Santmire, Nature Reborn: The Ecological and Cosmic Promise of Christian Theology (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2000), pp. 6-9.
4 Norman Habel, ‘Introducing the Earth Bible’, in Norman C. Habel (ed.), Readings from the Perspective of Earth (The Earth Bible; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), p. 24.
5 Peter Scott, A Political Theology of Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 3.
6 David Keen, ‘Creation Spirituality and the Environment Debate’, Ecotheology 7.1 (2002), pp. 10-29 (17).
7 Norman Habel, An Inconvenient Text: Is a Green Reading of the Bible Possible? (Adelaide: ATF Press, 2009), pp. xx-xxi.
8 ‘Introducing the Earth Bible’, p. 24.
9 The concept is summarized in a chapter ‘The Sacramental Universe’ contained in William Temple, Nature, Man and God: Being the Gifford Lectures Delivered in the University of Glasgow in the Academical Years 1932–1933 and 1933–1934 (London: Macmillan, 1934). Eco-theologian John Hart considers that Temple was probably the first to use the concept ‘sacramental universe’. John Hart, Sacramental Commons: Christian Ecological Ethics (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), p. 13.
10 Temple, Nature, Man and God, p. 493.
11 Temple, Nature, Man and God, p. 493.
12 Temple, Nature, Man and God, p. 491.
13 Temple, Nature, Man and God, p. 484.
14 Temple, Nature, Man and God, p. 484. Temple’s use of male pronouns and nouns is so pervasive that direct quotations have been unchanged without attempting to insert the numerous, but potentially distracting, comments or changes that would have been desirable to make the language more inclusive.
15 Temple, Nature, Man and God, p. 477.
16 Temple, Nature, Man and God, p. 482.
17 Temple, Nature, Man and God, p. 488.
18 Temple, Nature, Man and God, p. 492.
19 Temple, Nature, Man and God, p. 478.
20 Temple, Nature, Man and God, p. 483.
21 Temple, Nature, Man and God, p. 491.
22 Temple, Nature, Man and God, p. 266.
23 Temple, Nature, Man and God, p. 493.
24 Temple, Nature, Man and God, p. 478.
25 Stephen Spencer (ed.), Christ in All Things: William Temple and His Writings (Canterbury Studies in Spiritual Theology; Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2015), p. 114.
26 Temple, Nature, Man and God, pp. 478, 482.
27 The Sacramental is one of three typologies in ecological theology identified by John Haught (the other two being the Apologetic and the Eschatological). John F. Haught, The Promise of Nature: Ecology and Cosmic Purpose (New York/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1993), pp. 90-110.
28 Temple, Nature, Man and God, p. 305.
29 Temple, Nature, Man and God, p. 493.
30 Temple, Nature, Man and God, p. 36.
31 Temple, Nature, Man and God, p. 493.
32 Temple, Nature, Man and God, p. 489.
33 Temple, Nature, Man and God, p. 486.
34 Part of the subtitle of a collection of works which sees the Incarnation as ‘the one crucial doctrine’ (Charles Gore [ed.], Lux Mundi: A Series of Studies in the Religion of the Incarnation [London: John Murray, 1889], p. 247).
35 Alan M. Suggate, William Temple and Christian Social Ethics Today (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1987), p. 44.
36 J.R. Illingworth, ‘The Incarnation and Development’, in Gore (ed.), Lux Mundi, p. 134.
37 On the other hand, Williams also warns that incarnational ideology is one-sided if it fails to deal with the question of judgement. Rowan Williams, On Christian Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), p. 85. Italics are Williams’s.
38 Temple, Nature, Man and God, p. 306. Italics are Temple’s.
39 From a Charge delivered to the Diocese of York in 1931, cited by Spencer, Christ in All Things, p. 144. William Temple, Thoughts on Some Problems of the Day: Diocesan Charge (London: Macmillan, 1931).
40 Owen C. Thomas, ‘William Temple’, in William J. Wolf (ed.), The Spirit of Anglicanism: Hooker, Maurice, Temple (Wilton, CT: Morehouse-Barlow Co., 1979), p. 116.
41 William Temple, Christus Veritas: An Essay (London: Macmillan, 1924), p. 138.
42 Cited by Spencer, Christ in All Things, p. 4. William Temple, ‘The Faith and Modern Thought: Lectures’, (London: Macmillan, 1910), pp. 16-24.
43 Temple, Nature, Man and God, p. 483.
44 Temple, Mens Creatrix: An Essay (London: Macmillan, 1917), pp. 353-54.
45 Temple, Mens Creatrix, pp. 353-54.
46 Temple, Nature, Man and God, p. 257.
47 Temple, Mens Creatrix, p. 4.
48 Temple, Mens Creatrix, pp. 353-54.
49 Temple, Christus Veritas, p. 274.
50 Spencer, Christ in All Things, p. 15.
51 Temple, Nature, Man and God, p. 486.
52 Commission on Christian Doctrine, Doctrine in the Church of England: The Report of the Commission on Christian Doctrine Appointed by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in 1922 (London: SPCK, 1938), p. 17.
53 Perry Butler, ‘From the Early Eighteenth Century to the Present Day’, in Stephen Sykes and John Booty (eds.), The Study of Anglicanism (London: SPCK/Fortress Press, 1988), p. 41.
54 One of the Lux Mundi contributors notes that ‘the Incarnation may be taken as necessarily including the Atonement’. R.C. Moberly, ‘The Incarnation as the Basis of Dogma’, in Gore (ed.), Lux Mundi, p. 233.
55 Commission on Christian Doctrine, Doctrine, p. 17.
56 For example, see John Hick on the logical impossibility of the square circle: John Hick (ed.), The Myth of God Incarnate (London: SCM Press, 1977), p. 178.
57 For example, Temple chaired the BBC Council, was a member of the Privy Council, and preached at the disarmament conference in Geneva in 1932.
58 Temple, Nature, Man and God, p. 486. Italics are Temple’s.
59 Temple, Mens Creatrix, p. 1.
60 Spencer, Christ in All Things, p. ix.
61 Temple, Nature, Man and God, pp. 17, 55.
62 ‘The Faith and Modern Thought: Lectures’, pp. 16-24.
63 Temple, Christus Veritas, p. 94.
64 Arthur Michael Ramsey, From Gore to Temple: The Development of Anglican Theology between Lux Mundi and the Second World War 1889–1939. The Hale Memorial Lectures of Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, 1959 (London: Longmans, 1960), p. 4.
65 Teilhard (1881–1955) wrote concurrently with Temple (they were born in the same year), but unlike Temple, most of Teilhard’s works were published posthumously.
66 Temple, Christus Veritas, p. 139.
67 Temple, Christus Veritas, p. 139.
68 See especially Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 1955).
69 Spencer, Christ in All Things, pp. 112-14.
70 William Temple, Christianity and Social Order (London: SCM Press, 1950), p. 227.
71 Owen C. Thomas, ‘William Temple’, in Geoffrey W. Bromiley (ed.), Encyclopedia of Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008), p. 334.
72 Temple, Christianity and Social Order, pp. 101-10.
73 John Booty, ‘Standard Divines’, in Sykes and Booty (eds.), The Study of Anglicanism, p. 170.
74 Spencer, Christ in All Things, p. xi.
75 Owen C. Thomas, William Temple’s Philosophy of Religion (London: SPCK, 1961), p. 4.
76 For example when reading Temple’s comment that historical drama is being ‘enacted upon a planet which is losing its power to sustain life’ it is salient to note that the comment’s provenance is the cosmological prediction of the world ultimately ‘wearing down’ and naturally not to subsequent questions of ecological decline or the threat of nuclear war. Temple, Nature, Man and God, p. 449.
77 Spencer, Christ in All Things, p. xi.
78 Spencer, Christ in All Things, p. xi.