Physical death, biotic death, more than theology
But touch on interface between
Based on essay on the phenomenology of death in ecology
As a biologist, death is not optional. Death can even be good
- What is death?
- What is the ecological purpose of death?
- How does this view see problem of pain, suffering?
A central theological challenge
A deep look at recycling
Death recycles nutrients, cycles between biotic and abiotic to reproduce
Life is this continuous cycling
Death is ever-present, pervasive phenomenon in ecological relationships. Ecological systems are animated by endings.
Biology of Death (2000). We need to “Copernicize” death.
Natural selection is one of the basic mechanisms of evolution, along with mutation, migration, and genetic drift
Lots of theological work in nineteenth century to integrate Darwin and Christianity
Fundamentalism in the twentieth century reacted against this
Types of Death
- Starvation
- Malnutrition
- Predation
- Parasitic Disease
- Accident
- Failure to mate
- Failure to be born (From Colinvaux 1993, Ecology 2)
Hard to see death as anything but evil
But death shapes our entire biotic world
Programmed cell death. Cells die under genetic control.
What does this mean?
Death sculpts organs, deletes structures, adjusts cell numbers, and eliminates dangerous or injured cells
Apoptosis: programmed cell death Necrosis: injured cells are cleaned up through death
The “PCD” (programmed cell death) system is genetically conserved across several levels of complexity: bacteria, fruit flies, mammals (single -> multi-cell organisms)
PCD is operating at the ecosystem level
Whole phyoplankton blooms would die at once, participating in broader biogeochemical pathways of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous, etc., cycling those elements through the system
Whole biosphere, ecosystem level processes
What sustains, supports, supplies, renews the abundance of nature?
What is the infrastructure of the ecosystem?
Death (or endings) are operating at every level of the universe (except probably the elementary particles…)
We need to theorize death
Are viruses alive? Replicators? Water bears?
Life is not some vitalist force
Death isn’t easy to explain either
In the medical field, experts are having a harder and harder time delineating death
Physical Death: Ecological Applications to Creation care
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Biotic death present from the beginning. Are fruitfulness and death twins in Creation? Biologists cannot get through one day of fruitfulness without attendant death. In the West, we have neatly divided plant life and animal life. Our very lives are dependent on death. We are tied together, in a deeply relational way, by death. Theology of relational creation (biophilia) reflects relational God.
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Land is a gift that includes death. Moses, Deuteronomy 30. Choose life or choose death, and the land will witness.
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Flourishing depends upon endings. Think of pruning.
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Theodicies will not likely answer. Aquinas vs. Duns Scotus: Univocity of Being. What is God in relation to the created order? Is God transcendent and other, or a being? The Reformation said yes, God is a being of a character with creation, which set up the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution. But now we’re stuck looking at creation to discern God’s character.
If we think that death is an unmitigated evil, where does this lead us?
We need to recover finishing well
“I think life is an expression of God’s love”
God didn’t have to create, but out of his perfect love came life
“When you’re talking with your students, give them time to go on the journey that you have gone one”