Human Dignity and the Environment
Dignitas Infinita, the Vatican’s recent declaration on human dignity, restates the Catholic perspective on the value and freedom of human persons. Let’s explore how the concept of dignity supports Laudato Si’ and its call for environmental justice.
First, Dignitas Infinita states the Catholic doctrine that every human person possesses an infinite dignity that cannot be taken away or infringed for any reason. This is termed ontological dignity to differentiate it from other definitions of dignity that are popular today. Human dignity is a gift from God, essential to our being, and is founded on three convictions:
Humans are all created in the image and likeness of God (18)
Jesus Christ elevates the dignity of the human person, body and soul, by assuming human existence (19)
Our ultimate destiny is eternal communion with God (20)
Our dignity reflects the glory of God and is intended for our ultimate participation in that glory in Heaven. This dignity applies to both our bodies and our souls, which means that our bodily needs for good food, adequate shelter, a safe and healthy environment to live in, are requirements for human dignity (18).
Human freedom is a primary expression of our dignity. We can choose to express or obscure our dignity through our decisions (22). If we make bad choices, or we become ill, injured, or lose our faculties, our dignity is obscured but not reduced.
This understanding of human dignity is so important and foundational! It underlies everything else in our morality and social interactions. Human freedom expresses our dignity because our free will reflects God’s free will. He gave us our free will as a gift. Our freedom flows from our dignity. If God is good and there is no evil in God, then his freedom and our freedom are always to choose the good. God never chooses evil, even to accomplish good ends. The ends never justify the means. We are never to choose evil, although sometimes we do. The Christian term for choosing evil is sin. Sin is an offense against dignity, both human and divine.
That’s the theology of human dignity in a nutshell. Dignitas Infinita acknowledges that respecting dignity and practicing freedom in the real world is difficult and frequently limited (24-32). A common philosophy of freedom today is obstructive to dignity (30). It goes something like this:
I am free to do whatever I want. Some actions may be wrong, like robbing a bank, murder, or using racial slurs, but in general I get to decide what’s good and what’s right. You may think something is wrong, but if I think it’s right, it’s OK for me to do. I’m a good person, I’m not a sinner. God doesn’t really care what I do, and anyway, he’s not really present in my life, he’s off in the universe somewhere doing his God thing. My freedom is for pursuing my pleasures and interests. Anyone who disagrees with me is judgmental and evil. Anything that infringes on my liberty is wrong.
In this world view, people have few obligations to others or to the social order. The common good disappears: it’s everyone for themselves. The concept of sin becomes meaningless or nonexistent: the final arbiter of good and evil is the person’s own mind. Deciding what is true is up to the person: there is no common definition of truth. If God exists, he is distant, disengaged, or absent.
This view of freedom is not grounded in Christianity, and it quickly degrades human dignity. It does not recognize the person’s own dignity, let alone the dignity and worth of others. People stop caring about others outside their immediate circle of friends and family. Without a common sense of right and wrong, society tends toward chaos.
This viewpoint is everywhere today in the West. We can see it in the divisiveness and partisanship of our politics. It is behind our preference for violence and war as a means to gain power and domination. It underlies our mistreatment of workers, especially the poor. It affects the way we think about marriage and relationships. And it is very evident in our response to climate change, pollution, and other environmental crises.
This is why I find Dignitas Infinita so relevant to our mission with the environment. Our primary challenge is not fossil fuels and carbon emissions, it is getting people to agree that there is a problem worth modifying their behavior for. We are not going to save the planet if only half of us are invested. We must work together. This means talking to each other about problems and solutions, based on a shared view of reality. It means getting people to make decisions to change what they drive, what they eat, how they travel, and what they consume. Right now, we share the planet with people that live in lots of alternate universes. We are surrounded by people making up their own reality or having it fed to them by corporations and dictators.
Human dignity is a place to start the dialogue. We all share an innate understanding of human dignity as a part of our humanity. We may get off-track a bit with its definition and implications, but it’s common ground. We need common ground right now, especially on topics like the climate crisis. Dignitas Infinita speaks about war, poverty, and the treatment of migrants as violations of human dignity. These topics are also prominent in Laudato Si’, where they are shown to be driven by environmental crises. A healthy environment is required for human flourishing. Another way to say this is that a healthy environment is required for human dignity. We save the planet to save ourselves, as Dr. Katherine Hayhoe has put it so eloquently. The value of the human person, and the quality of our lives on Earth, are reflected in our care for the environment.