Paper Comes from Trees. Does Scripture Come from Forests?
The nation founded, in part, on the principle of religious freedom is beginning to embrace its freedom to practice no religion at all. Americans are turning away from organized worship and, regardless of the cause, this mass departure is threatening the livelihoods of vulnerable communities. The dwindling communitarianism evident in J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy, Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone, and Timothy Carney’s Alienated America sheds light on the all too common occurrence of institutional vacancy. In many remote and low-density areas, religion has often been the primary institution that binds a community together. However, as participation wanes, these institutions’ capacity to serve as a local forum and safety net for its remaining members gradually disappears.
In many places, organized prayer is about much more than just prayer. Congregations are platforms for socialization, charitable giving, professional networking, and hardship support in addition to their religious activities. Without platforms such as these, people begin to feel isolated and forgotten. To be sure, the American civic fabric is perhaps not being torn apart viciously, but what stitching we do have is indeed steadily fraying as our country changes. Rather than wear this fabric out until it’s threadbare, we ought to appropriately resew it while we still can.
Enter Aristotle. Specifically, his writings on forms, physics, and the natural world are philosophical swathes too often ignored in traditional religious rhetoric that would integrate seamlessly with our civic fabric. Natural Theology, which is the name for this set of principles, has the potential to facilitate connection between the religious faithful and skeptical agnostics in a secularizing America. It is a simple idea: study, question, and explore nature as a form of theology or a means of worship.
At first, a rigorous scientific approach to the natural world may seem to be in direct conflict with the unconditional acceptance that is fundamental to religious faith. However, the two practices have never been as different as they may appear. They both seek to understand the world, they simply go about such a task in different ways. To understand floods, for instance, theists may look up to the heavens while naturalists look down to the river. They ask the same questions — of our origin, our niche in the universe, our endgame — and these shared interests signal that there is potential to answer these questions together.
There is a harmony in their differences telling us that science is the handmaiden for theology. Observational scrutiny offers a means to understand the divine. Consider how we study works of art to understand cultures, events, and lessons of the past. We trust artists to tell us their stories through canvas and marble mediums. In some cases, such as with Picasso or Rembrandt, we can even gain insight into the life and personality of the artists themselves.
In the same vein, we can study the natural world to understand the lessons that a divine being might be trying to impart to us, not unlike how theists study scripture. In other words, God is an artist and the earth is a masterpiece with secrets and lessons hidden in its display. Furthermore, the meticulous analysis of this artwork, of nature, may yield answers to the very essence and character of such a being. Reframing faith as inquiry is an invitation for disgruntled former members of religious institutions to rejoin the practice and, critically, their return would strengthen or reinvigorate community well-being in the process.
But will theists be willing to adapt in order to extend this invitation? And if invited, how do we know skeptics would accept such an invitation? A scientific religion is something both religious and non-religious people want, even if they do not realize it yet. I have seen the yearning for it personally. Living for so long in Florida, my family is used to driving in the rain. Every so often after a storm, the clouds will part just enough to let a few glorious beams of sunlight stream down to earth. My mom always mentions that seeing the luminous contrast to the dark sky is a spiritual experience for her. Whenever she sees a rainbow, she says, “Now that’s a sign.” My mother is a religious person. She prays daily and attends church every Sunday.
My father, on the other hand, was never particularly devout. I can only remember him joining us at church on holidays, as he preferred to instead spend most Sundays at the beach. He died when I was ten years old and his own father died young, too. Although he never explicitly spoke to me about religion, he once told me a story of a weekend he spent at a cabin in upstate New York. He went outside one morning and saw an enormous bird circling the cabin. He couldn’t explain why, but in that moment, he felt a very strong connection to his late father. Honestly, since he died, I notice myself taking an extra few seconds to look at a bird perched on a nearby fence or one circling the air above me. If there were any way to communicate, I tend to think that is how he would try it. No matter how my dad felt about the Bible, he went to church. Only he did so, consciously or not, by going to the beach or into the woods instead of going to an actual church. He is certainly not the only one to ever do so, either.
To be clear, Natural Theology is not the worship of nature, as some branches of biocentrism are inclined to engage in. Rather, this structure facilitates the study of nature as a means to interact with what may lie beyond this world. My parents — one a theist, one a skeptic — show that this is the common ground on which all people can practice worship.
Under Natural Theology, sacred texts would certainly remain but would be recognized as the secondary sources that they are, since each religious doctrine is written by mankind. The only truly primary source of God’s word is this world we were given. Importantly, our earth — better yet, our primary source of scripture — is something we all share. So while differences stemming from secondary text details have been the root cause for the many instances of human conflict and suffering throughout our history, Natural Theology offers a shared base of divinity and morality, and therefore has the potential to usher in a unique era of peace and tolerance among different faiths.
While preserving religious worship is certainly intrinsically worthwhile, there are socioeconomic reasons to transform faith-based institutions into inquisitive, harmonic institutions as well. Survey data gathered by the Pew Research Center spanning the last decade shows an increasing share of Americans who are “religiously unaffiliated” which includes atheists, agnostics, and particularly those who identify as “spiritual but not religious.” Crucial to note, this trend is uneven across demographics. Younger generations are fueling this change.
These data were published around the same time as a Cato Institute survey (figures below), which found that civically engaged and religiously affiliated demographics are much more likely to find meaning in their lives than isolated ones. Even this libertarian group, which places significant emphasis on a kind of rugged individualism, acknowledges that a sense of community is essential to a person’s success and fulfillment. These response data illustrate how, going forward, our national culture and quality of living standards will suffer if there is one fewer commons for younger generations to make friends, find love, establish healthy norms, and develop soft skills.
A paradigm shift to Natural Theology is the appropriate prescription for the present institutional exodus from religion because of why participation is declining in the first place. A recent article from The Atlantic, Three Decades Ago America Lost Its Religion, chronicles how the dogma, intolerance, and politicization of religion drove people away and eroded confidence in the institution. A FiveThirtyEight piece, Millennials Are Leaving Religion and Not Coming Back, surveyed key demographics and explains why they are unlikely to return, echoing similar sentiments of decaying confidence in organized religion as a moral authority.
Therefore, we must reimagine religion as an inclusive, responsive, and inquisitive practice in order to save it. Civically important religious institutions can experience a revival — or rather, a reincarnation — through the Natural Theology perspective. Mainly, adopting this practice would result in greater appreciation for and increased conservation of the natural environment as well as stronger local communities built on greater participation in civic activities, both of which are integral to ensuring a more sustainable future for this country.
