The End of Nature?

This week, we take up the nature of “nature.” We take the opening chapter to Oliver O’Donovan’s Begotten or Made? as our starting point, particularly this passage:

When every activity is understood as making, then every situation into which we act is seen as raw material, waiting to have something made out of it. If there is no category in thought for an action which is not artifactual, then there is no restraint in action which can preserve phenomena which are not artificial. This imperils not only, or even primarily, the ‘environment’ (as we patronizingly describe the world of things which are not human); it imperils what it is to be human, for it deprives human existence itself of certain spontaneities of being and doing, spontaneities which depend upon the reality of a world which we have not made or imagined, but which simply confronts us to evoke our love, fear, and worship. Human life, then, becomes mechanized because we cannot comprehend what it means that some human activity is ‘natural’. Politics becomes controlled by media of mass communication, love by analytical or counseling techniques. And begetting children becomes subject to the medical and surgical interventions which are the theme of this book.

This interview with NT Wright also came up during the show.

We were joined this week by occasional Mere-O writer and doctor extraordinaire Matthew Loftus. And, as always, follow Derek and Alastair for smart thoughts on this and much more.

Special thanks to Christopher Hutton for editing work.