Islamic Environmental Stewardship: Nature and Science in the Light of Islamic Philosophy

The Separation of Science and Sacred Tradition

The divorce between science and sacred tradition is rooted in a number of things. In regards to Islam, the decline of the Islamic sciences seems tied to the decline of Islamic civilization, and there are reports today on both correlation and causation between the two.23 Internal and external factors in Islamic civilization, such as socio-political issues in Muslim lands and the Mongol invasion of Baghdad in 1258, are held somewhat responsible for the loss of the Islamic sciences. However, the true instigating factors behind the decline of both the Islamic sciences and Islamic civilization seem to be a topic of debate in Western literature.24 Regardless of these causes, it remains today that the “Golden Age” of Islamic civilization is far behind and the Islamic sciences of today are in no way near the pinnacle they had reached then.

On a universal level, the loss of a public connection between science and sacred tradition seems rooted in a number of inter-connected events. In the spread of Christianity into the West, and in its dialogue with Hellenist Greeks who seemingly had a metaphysical intelligibility of nature but not of God, a Christian movement had come about in which there was no transcendental approach to nature, but only a strictly nominalist theological way of understanding and reaching God.25 As noted by the philosopher, metaphysician and Perennialist thinker, Frithjof Schuon:

If a simple and rather summary formulation be permissible, one could say that for the Greeks truth is that which is in conformity with the nature of things; for the Christians truth is that which leads to God.

Thus Christian attitude, to the extent that it tended to be exclusive, was bound to appear to the Greeks as “foolishness”; in the eyes of the Christians the attitude of the Greeks consisted in taking thought for an end in itself, outside of any personal relation to God; consequently it was a “wisdom according to the flesh”… it was in some respects a dispute between a love-song and a mathematical theorem. It could also be said that the Hellenists were predominantly right in principle and the Christians in fact, at least in a particular sense that can be discerned without difficulty. 26

The Hellenist approach to nature was one of intellectual thought and understanding, but was restricted by the limitations of empiricism. Western Christianity saw the Hellenists’ pagan-like understanding of the world as an obstacle to their potential realization of God. Thus, according to Schuon, in lieu of intellect of this world as a path to God, Western Christianity emphasized love as the path to Him.27 Consequently, the distinction between the natural and the supernatural became so strict that it deprived most people a proper understanding of nature’s spiritual qualities.28 The focus on nominal theology, and moreover the influence of doctrines like rationalism on this type of theology, later contributed to a European revolt against Christianity.29 In turn, this aided to a mentality of secularization that permeated the scientific arena and finalized the separation of science and sacred tradition. With that said, there are peripheral exceptions to this, as evidenced by annual speeches given at the Gifford Lectures since 1888, the general field of natural theology and the beliefs of creationist scientists.

In regards to this Western Christian movement, it is important to note that it does not represent all of Christianity. The movement came about as a Christian response to a world of empirical naturalism; however, some of its principles seem at great odds with the actions and beliefs of others within the religion. On one hand, with an array of examples quite widely ranging from Saint Francis of Assisi to the contemporary Evangelical Climate Initiative,30 it seems that there have always been Christians who recognized the human role of stewardship towards nature.

On the other hand, studies of metaphysics can be found in the writings of Western Christian figures throughout the ages, with thinkers such as Origen, Erigena, Dante and Jacob Böhme providing prominent examples.

In his presentation at the Rockefeller Lectures and in his book, Man and Nature: The Spiritual Crisis of Modern Man, Nasr emphasized the need for Christians to return to a theology of nature as understood in the “intellectual light of the early Church Fathers, the Christian metaphysicians of the Middle Age, such as Erigena and Eckhardt, or in the sense of the theosophy of Jacob Böhme.”31 He also stressed the need to learn from Oriental traditions that still studied metaphysics.32 They are steps needed so that Christians today may both regain the Christian understanding of the metaphysical domain of reality, and reestablish more of the early Christian recognition of the sacred connection between humanity and the rest of God’s creation. Other thinkers, such as Mircea Eliade, Dom A. Graham and G. D. Yarnold, have voiced the same or a similar message.33