
Noah Toly offers an interpretation of environmental politics that draws upon Christian theological insights into the tragic - the need to forego, give up, undermine, or destroy one or more goods in order to possess or secure one or more other goods. Toly engages Christian and classical Greek ideas of the tragic nature of the human, which arises from humanity's great powers of thought and technological mastery combined with a greater capacity to err than that of other species, in responding to intractable or 'wicked' problems of environmental politics. He suggests that Christians have unique symbolic resources - including the cruciform identity of Christ/the Church - to enable societies to exercise power over the environment responsibly while acknowledging the need for mutually agreed, and ultimately normative, legal, restraints
How can Christian theological frameworks provide a constructive approach to the intractable dilemmas inherent in environmental politics? Noah J. Toly, a scholar of urban studies and environmental policy, utilizes the concept of the tragic—the necessity of sacrificing certain goods to secure others—to analyze human interaction with the environment. He argues that by integrating classical and Christian understandings of human fallibility and power, societies can better navigate the complex, 'wicked' problems of ecological management.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Scholars in the field of religion and politics note the text's sophisticated synthesis of classical philosophy and contemporary environmental theory. Readers frequently highlight the academic density of the prose, which is intended for those familiar with theological discourse and political science.
Page Count:
0
Publication Date:
2019-01-01
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0190249447
ISBN-13:
9780190249441
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