This book provides a comprehensive overview of the relationship between pantheism and ecology, particularly considering different cultural approaches and diverse religious, theological, and philosophical traditions. Environmental ethics arises from the dangerousness and harmfulness of human beings with respect to nonhuman species and, more generally, with respect to the environment. A common starting point for environmental ethics standpoints is that human beings are responsible for damaging nature. The famous four laws of ecology drafted by Barry Commoner precisely express this guilt on the part of human beings, who very often voluntarily violate the behavioral indications that emerge from nature itself. These aspects concern environmental ethics outlooks. Eco-theology, then, takes a further step: not only do we damage the ecosystem but also, as many authors suggest, when we humans destroy the natural world, we are wounding God. Such an idea implies a possible coincidence of God with the natural world –or the ecosystem. From this assumption, different questions may emerge: what is the kind of coincidence between God and the natural world? Are God and the ecosystem coextensive? If so, are we re-sacralizing the natural world and grounding intrinsic values in theological postulates and statements? These questions lead us to reconsider the cosmological assumptions that ground our environmental judgements, from theology to different religious traditions and cultures to philosophical worldviews. In particular, we will focus on the cosmological assumptions of pantheism (considering its differences with panentheism), discussing the symmetrical (or asymmetrical) relationships between God and the finite ways in which God manifests Godself. In this regard, the book is divided into three main parts: in the first part, the question of pantheism is approached from different traditions and with a special focus on the main thinkers in the history of thought, from Greek Stoicism to the present day. In the second part, some current ecological concerns are considered in relation to pantheistic cosmology: the authors will deepen issues from the discussion of the different “pan-conceptions” to the problem of evil, to Anthropocene. Finally, in the third part, the different chapters will focus on ethical issues in the field of the current environmental crisis with a huge connection with the pantheistic cosmologies. This book is oriented to a wide public, interested in environmental issues and looking for an approach from different cultures and traditions. Evidently, due to its “academic” nature, this book is also intended to be a great support for researchers interested in eco-theology and, more specifically, in the relationship between pantheism and ecology. It is not, in this sense, a “classic” book on environmental ethics, but a book that delves into the fundamentals of environmental philosophy, privileging the Ibero-American approach.

Pantheism is the idea that God and the world are identical—that the creator, sustainer, destroyer, and transformer of all things is the universe itself. From a monotheistic perspective, this notion is irremediably heretical since it suggests divinity might be material, mutable, and multiple. Since the excommunication of Baruch Spinoza, Western thought has therefore demonized what it calls pantheism, accusing it of incoherence, absurdity, and—with striking regularity—monstrosity. In this book, Mary-Jane Rubenstein investigates this perennial repugnance through a conceptual genealogy of pantheisms. What makes pantheism “monstrous”—at once repellent and seductive—is that it scrambles the raced and gendered distinctions that Western philosophy and theology insist on drawing between activity and passivity, spirit and matter, animacy and inanimacy, and creator and created. By rejecting the fundamental difference between God and world, pantheism threatens all the other oppositions that stem from it: light versus darkness, male versus female, and humans versus every other organism. If the panic over pantheism has to do with a fear of crossed boundaries and demolished hierarchies, then the question becomes what a present-day pantheism might disrupt and what it might reconfigure. Cobbling together heterogeneous sources—medieval heresies, their pre- and anti-Socratic forebears, general relativity, quantum mechanics, nonlinear biologies, multiverse and indigenous cosmologies, ecofeminism, animal and vegetal studies, and new and old materialisms—Rubenstein assembles possible pluralist pantheisms. By mobilizing this monstrous mixture of unintentional God-worlds, Pantheologies gives an old heresy the chance to renew our thinking.

To comprehensively address the complexities of current socio-ecological problems involved in global environmental change, it is indispiseble to achieve an integration of ecological understanding and ethical values. Contemporary science proposes an inclusive ecosystem concept that recognizes humans as components. Contemporary environmental ethics includes eco-social justice and the realization that as important as biodiversity is cultural diversity, inter-cultural, inter-institutional, and international collaboration requiring a novel approach known as biocultural conservation. Right action in confronting the challenges of the 21st century requires science and ethics to be seamlessly integrated. This book resulted from the 14th Cary Conference that brought together leading scholars and practitioners in ecology and environmental philosophy to discuss core terminologies, methods, questions, and practical frameworks for long-term socio-ecological research, education, and decision making.

At the creation of the world, God gave mankind the responsibility to exercise dominion over the earth. Man was to use the earth and its abundance of resources to satisfy his physical needs, but he was also to care for the earth and its creatures as a wise and godly steward. Reading about endangered species or another oil spill will make it abundantly clear that the human race has failed miserably in its God-given mandate. How did we get to this point? Where should we go from here? This classic by Francis Schaeffer, now repackaged, looks at contemporary ecological crises through the lens of theology and Scripture. Renowned for his work in applied philosophy and theology, Schaeffer answers serious philosophical questions about creation and ecology. He concludes that we must return to a profoundly and radically biblical understanding of God’s relationship to the earth, and of our divine mandate to exercise godly dominion over it. Repackaged and republished, Pollution and the Death of Man carries an important and relevant message for our day. With concluding chapter by Udo Middelmann.

Many people who do not believe in God believe that 'everything is God' - that everything is part of an all-inclusive divine unity. In Pantheism, this concept is presented as a legitimate position and its philosophical basis is examined. Michael Levine compares it to theism, and discusses the scope for resolving the problems inherent in theism through pantheism. He also considers the implications of pantheism in terms of practice. This book will appeal to those who study philosophy or theology. It will also be of interest to anyone who does not believe in a personal God, but does have faith in a higher unifying force, and is interested in the justification of this as a legitimate system of thought.

God and Gaia explores the overlap between traditional religious cosmologies and the scientific Gaia theory of James Lovelock. It argues that a Gaian approach to the ecological crisis involves rebalancing human and more-than-human influences on Earth by reviving the ecological agency of local and indigenous human communities, and of nonhuman beings. Present-day human ecological influences on Earth have been growing at pace since the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions, when modern humans adopted a machine cosmology in which humans are the sole intelligent agency. The resultant imbalance between human and Earthly agencies is degrading the species diversity of ecosystems, causing local climate changes, and threatens to destabilise the Earth as a System. Across eight chapters this ambitious text engages with traditional cosmologies from the Indian Vedas and classical Greece to Medieval Christianity, with case material from Southeast Asia, Southern Africa and Great Britain. It discusses concepts such as deep time and ancestral time, the ethics of genetic engineering of foods and viruses, and holistic ecological management. Northcott argues that an ontological turn that honours the differential agency of indigenous humans and other kind, and that draws on sacred traditions, will make it is possible to repair the destabilising impacts of contemporary human activities on the Earth System and its constituent ecosystems. This book will be of considerable interest to students and scholars of the environmental humanities, history, and cultural and religious studies.