Description:
A fresh and more capacious reading of the Western religious tradition on nature and creation, Thinking Nature and the Nature of Thinking puts medieval Irish theologian John Scottus Eriugena (810-877) into conversation with American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882). Challenging the biblical stewardship model of nature and histories of nature and religion that pit orthodoxy against the heresy of pantheism, Willemien Otten reveals a line of thought that has long made room for nature's agency as the coworker of God. Embracing in this more elusive idea of nature in a world beset by environmental crisis, she suggests, will allow us to see nature not as a victim but as an ally in a common quest for re-attunement to the divine. Putting its protagonists into further dialogue with such classic authors as Augustine, Maximus the Confessor, Friedrich Schleiermacher, and William James, her study deconstructs the idea of pantheism and paves the way for a new natural theology.
Review Quotes: "In this original and significant study, Willemien Otten presents two major authors for the first time in a comparative perspective. Writing with erudition and elegance, she adds considerably to our understanding of both Eriugena and Emerson, and in doing so establishes herself as a serious religious thinker in her own right."--Brian Stock, University of Toronto and Collège de France