Biodiversity
Copyright National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
CHAPTER 55
A CHRISTIAN VIEW OF BIODIVERSITY
JOHN B.COBB, JR.
Ingraham Professor of Theology, School of Theology, Claremont Graduate School,
Claremont, California
Most people are distressed by the widespread destruction of species of living things.
There is a deep sense that this is a serious loss to the planet. The major problem does not
arise from direct approval of the destruction of species and of the simplification of the
environment. It arises from the lack of awareness of the consequences of our actions and
from the primacy of other concerns. In the pursuit of economic gain, most people do not
want to be bothered by questions about biodiversity.
This volume, and the activities of many of its authors, are designed to heighten
awareness of what we are doing to our biosphere. The correct assumption is that
heightened awareness and intensified attention are the primary needs. People will act more
appropriately if they are reminded again and again of the effects of their actions.
The authors of this section have a different role. We were asked to reflect on why
biodiversity is important. It is not necessary to answer this question for people to recognize
its importance. Nevertheless, good answers to our question are urgent, because the
intuitive sense of importance is gradually weakened if its justification is not articulated.
Also, there are ways of viewing the world that make concern about endangered species
appear to be an esoteric or sentimental matter. Indeed, this type of world view is dominant
in much of our society. We can all remember many of the disparaging comments that were
made about concerns that a species of snail darter interfered with the building of a dam.
Staying power in defense of biodiversity probably depends on a world view that grounds
it more deeply than sentiment, however natural and healthy that sentiment may be.
The most obvious way to argue for biodiversity is to show how it benefits human
beings. In the foregoing sections, much evidence was given for the risk to the
A CHRISTIAN VIEW OF BIODIVERSITY 481
Biodiversity
Copyright National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
human future that would be presented by a drastic simplification of various ecosystems.
Hence there is a strong argument that for the sake of the future of our own species, we
need to be concerned with biodiversity.
On the other hand, this argument is limited. Human beings have survived the
disappearance of thousands of species with relatively little practical loss. If the only reason
for preserving a particular species of insect or fish is its value to us, there will be many
occasions when other needs will seem far more pressing. Furthermore, our sense of the
importance of biodiversity is in fact not adequately reflected in the practical
anthropocentric arguments. We feel that other species should have their place, even if they
do not benefit us. Can we explain or justify this feeling?
One argument, a valid one I believe, is that all living things have intrinsic value. Not
only are they of instrumental value to one another and to us, they also have value in and of
themselves. They are of value for themselves. Hence, our destruction of other living
things, while inevitable, should never be taken lightly. The reasons for destruction may be
good ones—our need for food, for example. But we should not underestimate the cost to
others. We should tread lightly on the Earth rather than bulldoze away all inconvenient
objects.
Whereas this argument is a good one in itself, it does not go very far to explain the
specific value of biodiversity. It does explain why we should avoid unnecessary
destruction of living things, but it does not explain why a variety of such things is better
than a monoculture. If by destroying the biodiversity of a prairie we can bring about the
monoculture of a wheat field, and if the total number of insects and animals that are
supported is not fewer, then there would seem to be no loss. The value of members of the
lost species is made up by the value of more members of the species that is preserved.
Another argument, also valid in my opinion, is based on relations. The human species
is not apart from others but is instead intricately and intimately related to the remainder of
the web of life. When we experience the whole biosphere in this way, we experience
destruction of any of its species as a diminution of ourselves.
The sense of relatedness has two dimensions. One dimension is genetic. We are kin to
other living things. We have a common ancestry that has impressed itself in common
genetic elements. The same sensibility that gives us a special sense of responsibility
toward other human beings who are related to us can operate to give us a sense of
responsibility for the other species to which we are also related.
The second dimension is ontological. We are increasingly realizing that individual
entities, including individual human beings, do not exist apart from relations with other
beings. We are constituted by our relations. Of course, many of our most important
relations are with other human beings. But by no means all. We are related to the whole
world of inanimate and animate things. We are part of them, and they are part of us. To
feel this relationship with other things is not sentimentality but reality.
Although this is all true, it still does not go far enough to explain our sense of the
importance of biodiversity. It does strongly support the sense of the intrinsic value of other
living things. It cuts against the widespread Western dualism that places human beings
above and outside nature. It works against the dominant
A CHRISTIAN VIEW OF BIODIVERSITY 482
Biodiversity
Copyright National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Western ethics that has taught us that only human welfare really matters. It reintegrates us
into the web of life and thereby heightens our sense of its importance for us. But it does
not tell us specifically why biodiversity has its own inherent value.
The category that comes to mind when we reflect on the value of diversity is
aesthetics. At least in traditional art we have thought that the complexity of forms that
could be brought into unity and harmony correlated with the greatness of a piece of art.
Today, some qualifications would be required, but the general principle still holds. The
same applies to experience generally. There is a richness of experience that correlates with
the manifold contents that jointly make their contributions.
Much of our negative reaction to the destruction of species seems to stem from this
sense that there are possibilities of experience forever lost. We are aware that some of our
environments have already been simplified in ways that have impoverished our
experience, and we are disturbed at the prospect that such impoverishment continues.
Some of the experiences that were possible for us will not be available to our children. We
rightly feel this as a loss that we should try to prevent, even at considerable cost in more
practical realms of life.
This, too, is a strong and valid argument that goes far to reflect the feelings that are
engendered by our awareness of the simplification of the biosphere. Yet it still fails to deal
with our total concern. There are myriad species that have lived and died unknown by
humans. It is true that their disappearance sets limits on what future generations can
experience. But often in ordinary human experience, the ones that are lost do not differ
sufficiently from others that remain to affect any but the most perceptive human beings.
Judged simply by their potential contribution to the richness of human experience, many
species seem to be of limited importance.
There is a deeper sense on our part that even when we are not ourselves able to
benefit even aesthetically from the presence of other species, they are still making a
contribution to the whole that is irreplaceable. Indeed, in one sense, this is self-evident.
Surely the whole is diminished in some way by the loss of any of its parts!
The problem is that it is not so easy to locate this loss. We often try to locate it in
human experience of the whole, but we have already seen that this is too limited a locus. It
seems to be the whole-as-such that is impoverished. Yet this makes sense only if we can
speak of the whole as having its own unity, its own perspective, its own experience.
We theists believe that just such unity, perspective, and experience does characterize
the whole. From our point of view, the sense of the importance of biodiversity reflects an
often unconscious recognition that the whole is indeed much more than the sum of its
parts. Human beings sense that every creature, and especially every species, makes its
contribution to the richness of the inclusive or divine experience.
It is this inclusive experience that provides the norm by which all of us are truly
evaluated and judged. God knows us better than we know ourselves, and it is this
knowledge of us that is the truth about us. For God, I am of no more worth than
A CHRISTIAN VIEW OF BIODIVERSITY 483
Biodiversity
Copyright National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
my neighbor, and hence when I treat my neighbor as a mere means to my own advantage I
act wrongly. For God, no one nation is inherently of more worth than others. Hence, we
act wrongly when we seek our own national advantage at the expense of other peoples.
For God, every species has value. We do wrong when we treat other species as if they
existed only for our sake and as if they could be destroyed with impunity when it is
convenient for us to do so.
It would be going too far to say that the value of biodiversity is explicitly taught in
the Bible. What we mean by this term presupposes much scientific knowledge that is not
reflected in the Jewish and Christian scriptures. Nevertheless, the rudiments of the idea are
present, and the extension of Biblical teaching into our own time strongly supports the
concerns of biodiversity.
Consider the first chapter of Genesis. This account of creation has had profound
effects on Western culture. There are features of this story that have been used to justify a
mode of human relation to other creatures that has been profoundly destructive. But let us
look at the story again.
One point that is striking in this account is that when God created the various plants
and animals, God saw that they were good. There is no suggestion here that they were
good because they would be useful to human beings. They were good in themselves and
thus contributed to the divine satisfaction. Specifically, the story says that God blessed
them and told them to be fruitful and to multiply, each according to its kind.
Now it is true that human beings are presented in a special light. We are one species
among others, but we are also more than that. We are that species that is made in the
image of God, and this is closely related to the assertion that God has given us dominion
over other living things.
The resulting sense of rightful dominion has been important to the readers of the
Bible, and this sense can be reaffirmed today. However, there is no question but that the
story has been interpreted to mean that human beings are free to use and destroy other
living things at will; and this interpretation needs to be strongly rejected.
Human beings are placed in a position in relation to other creatures much like that of
God in relation to the whole of creation. God has dominion over all. We have dominion
over the other creatures. God exercises dominion for the sake of those over whom the
dominion is exercised. Similarly, the political ruler of Israel is to rule for the sake of those
who are governed. A king who uses his power to amass riches for himself at the expense
of the suffering of the ruled is a despot, not one who exercises rightful dominion. There is
no justification here to suppose that human dominion over other creatures is a sanction of
selfish exploitation. The meaning of the dominion given to us is much better expressed in
servanthood and stewardship than in exploitation.
This book's content expresses a profoundly biblical view of the relation of human
beings to the other species who with us constitute the biodiversity of the world. It
recognizes that we human beings do exercise a determinative power over other creatures.
Whether hundreds of thousands of species survive depends on the decisions of humans. It
would be pointless to deny that we exercise dominion. But
A CHRISTIAN VIEW OF BIODIVERSITY 484
Biodiversity
Copyright National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
unlike so many who have asserted their dominion, we are acknowledging that with power
comes responsibility—specifically, responsibility to God. To wipe out unnecessarily
whole species of those creatures over whom we exercise stewardship is to betray that
stewardship and to impoverish the experience of God. It is a crime against our Creator.
A CHRISTIAN VIEW OF BIODIVERSITY 485