과정사상과 종말론적 생태- 윤리 (Process Thought And Eschatological Eco-ethics)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국조직신학회
· 수록지 정보 : 한국조직신학논총 / 16호 / 221 ~ 252페이지
· 저자명 : 이승갑

초록

기독교적 신앙과 삶의 많은 전통들을 되돌아 볼때, 무엇보다도 하나님의 창조(자연)에 대한 그동안의 인류의 처신들에
서 그토록 왜곡된 지배와 억압의 관계들을 지지해 온 교리적 주제들
가운데 하나는 다름 아닌 바로 종말론이다. 즉 종말론을 향한 태도는
설교, 예전, 그리고 기독교적 실천, 특히 인간과 인간이외의 피조물들을
넘어선 공동체들 안에서의 기독교적 제자직에 대한 이해와 관련해서
결정적인 함축적 의미들을 가져왔던 것이다. 개인적이든 또한 집단적인
의미에서든 종말론은 필연적으로 윤리를 수반하며, 특히 사람들의 환경
적 주변 상황들에 대한 각자의 윤리적 입장을 구체화함에 있어서 각별
히 중요한 역할을 하고 있으며, 따라서 필연적으로 생태-윤리를 포함
한다. 그러므로 오늘날 요구되는 하나의 책임적인 기독교 종말론은 생
태학적으로 적합한, 즉 생태학적 위기 상황에 관련성을 가지는 종말론
이다. 생태- 여성신학자로서 또한 과정사상의 전통 안에서 신학을 하는
켈러(Catherine Keller)는,“하나의 책임적인 기독교 종말론은 그것이
우리의 지구(행성)를 구하기 위해 설교, 교육, 모델링, 조직화, 정치, 기
도와 일들에 동기를 부여한다는 의미에서 하나의 생태학적 종말론이어
야 한다”고 주장한다. 켈러는 그녀가 주장하는 생태학적으로 개혁된
종말론을 말하면서 이렇게 말한 바 있다. 즉 진정“의미심장하고도 효
과적으로 푸른 묵시(Green Apocalypse)를 말할 수 없다면, 기독교 신
학은 두 번째 천년을 마감하는 현 시점에서 실로 하찮은 추구에 지나
지 않는다.”

영어초록

In this essay, the writer intends to propose a model of a more
relevant eschatological eco-ethics for the Korean churches and
Christian believers, being challenged to respond more actively to their
suffering environment.
Today, ecological crisis is the most pressing issue in theology and
Christian life. Thus theology of today is challenged to expand its
ethical dimensions to nature, that is, non-human creation, which is
suffering because of human exploitation. Anyone who wants to
construct a relevant theology for today must reconsider how to speak
more meaningfully, especially in ecological senses. Then, why do we
have to reconsider our eschatology? Eschatology always implies
ethics. In other words, eschatological vision has critical implications
for any mode of Christian ethical thinking. An attitude toward
eschatology has important implications for preaching, liturgy,
Christian practice, especially the understanding of Christian discipleship.
Yet, eschatology often fails to generate adequate ethics,
because Christian beliefs in God’s ultimate victory over evil, God’s
unilateral act of creation, the reality of the kingdom of God predestined
in God’s cosmic plan, and the absolute discontinuity between
this present world and the coming world of God, tend to degenerate
into a kind of determinism, naive optimism, otherworldly escapism
etc, consequently loosing their significance in the lives of people,
especially within church communities, as witnessed distinctively in
the theology and practice of the Korean churches and Christians in
South Korea.
Meanwhile, why are we challenged to turn to process thought,
namely, its vision of the ways of God’s dealing with the world? A
Christian eschatology is marked by certain cosmological views,
which frame concepts of the nature of God and God’s relationship to
the world. And these cosmological frameworks vary in each historical
period. The traditional parameters of eschatology in the western
Christian theology have been challenged by various modern developments
in the cosmological sciences, e.g. the theory of relativity and
quantum physics, and by those attempts to integrate those scientific
findings into theology. Now, any effective response to the ecological
crises requires that the dominant worldview be succeeded by an
alternative worldview that gives a crucial priority to an eco-logically
sustainable future for the earth, or is enough to face not only ethnic
and religious conflicts and economic injustice but also environmental
destruction. Meanwhile, the Whiteheadean process theology has
challenged contemporary theology with new per-spectives in
cosmology and new eschatological ideas of the future of the world.
Especially, according to the process notions of God, God of
“Primordial” nature lures eternal aims, provides eternal possibilities,
and enables the world/each individual entities to become consequently
determinate at certain values within divinely given freedom.
And God, in “Consequent” nature, feels, experiences, retains,
eternally preserves each completed entities; Nothing is lost in the life
and eternal memory of God, and God takes the complete entities into
God’s divine life as objects of god’s perfect prehension and gives
them “objective immortality” in God’s consequent being by God’s
valuation of their achievement. In the “Persuasive Power,” furthermore,
God is at work using persuasive, non-coercive power to draw
all entities toward a future consistent with God’s primordial nature
(God’s initial aim). Based on those particular notions, process
eschatology proposes that future is not just coming from God, but
becoming in God and of God. The new can be not only something we
encounter but something to which we contribute. And our freedom
plays its role in leading us to a future kingdom, the fullness of God’s
responsive love as experienced in the enjoyment of all entities.
Accordingly, future as results of present, and past happenings, is
genuinely open and risky too. All these process eschatological
visions, that is, “Openness to newness(novelty/future possibilities),”
“Evolutionary creation (relationality of God and humanity in ongoing
c r e a t i o n ) , ” “the kingdom of God in a continuation of the temporal
world” propose a more responsible attitude to the pressing environmental
dangers in these days, by emphasizing the necessity of human
responsibility for the future of the world and challenging human
beings to be ethically more responsive to neighbors, both humans and
non-human creature.
When challenged by a process-relational eschatology and its ecoethical
implications, with its world-affirming emphases upon the uncertainty
of future possibilities, the cooperation of God and humanity
in the continuation of creation, and the preservation of this present
world in eschatological realities, our new eco-spirituality and
theological eco-ethics might express the relevance of Christian faith
to conscientious people in the present world, who need an ultimate
ground for their “ineradicable confidence” in the final worth of
human and non-human lives. Similarly, ethical perspectives coming
from process eschatology challenge the Korean churches and believers
to seriously consider such ecologically relevant teachings as open
possibilities, human contribution, and historical continuity. These
teachings are relevant to the future of people and of creation in the
country. For the Koreans, both believers and non-believers, a decision
must be made regarding a relevant ecological ethics, “not just for
the sake of an abstract future,” but for “a new community” already
beginning to form in the practice of eco-justice.

참고자료

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