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If We Lose the Earth, We Lose Our Souls by Bruno Latour
Zev Garber
Bruno Latour, If We Lose the Earth, We Lose Our Souls. Tr. Catherine Porter and Sam Ferguson. Cambridge, U.K., and Hoboken, NJ: Polity Press, 2024. Pp, 90. $49.95, cloth; $14.95, paper.
French scholar and prolific writer Latour (1947–2022) is known for his work in science and technology. In four brief chapters that compose this book, he draws from anthropology, philosophy, and sociology to demand obligatorily Roman Catholics (specifically mentioned, but others are implied) to join the struggle to avert a climate catastrophe. We live in "a world in which the myriad of beings that inhabit the world are interdependent and living in close proximity on a slender, fragile membrane on the surface of the planet" (book cover). If we do not learn and engage collectively, we will collectively die because we are losing the earth.
A foremost objective of Latour's chapters is to awaken Christians/Roman Catholics immersed in Incarnation-Crucifixion theology to overcome their lack in "earthly things" and to be overtly concerned about a new and frightening world order that embraces ecological and cosmological issues hitherto neither [End Page 446] experienced nor comprehended. He emotionally argues that contemporary earth science is an effective challenge to the doctrinal Christian views on the origin and structure of the universe, and the church is obligated to respond. For Latour, Pope Francis's encyclical, Laudato Si' (May 24, 2015), "based on the rearrangements made in the modern period to accommodate the concept of Nature as being subject to laws" (pp. 24–25) is an important guide. "The Creator does not abandon us; he never forsakes his loving plan or repents of having created us. Humanity still has the ability to work together in building our common home" (Laudato Si', no. 13). A key insight here is that Francis's teaching is not about ecology but about creation; it is through the language of Christian theological teaching, such as creation and eschatology, that we can learn to hear the cry of the earth (environmental crisis), which is the cry of the people. Not responding to earth's woes and distraught ways enables the extinction of the earth, equated to the loss of our being.
Latour tackles issues of composition, interpretation, and political message for contemporary times. His methodology is to help the reader access ethical and philosophical teachings and meanings derived from earth science and reconnected to biblical and Catholic imagery and teaching. Sources are consulted and identified in endnotes. Chapter 1 is primarily an interview with Latour conducted by Antonio Spadaro, S.J., and Chapter 2 is Latour's affectionate understanding and application of Laudato Si'. Chapter 3 discusses lessons of immanence confronting end-time issues, while Chapter 4 emphasizes important moral, spiritual, and eschatological issues and teachings directed to preservation of endangered earth and humanity.
Latour uses Christian tradition and theological loci to confront and restore cosmological and humanitarian issues. In Jewish parlance, earth's ultimate despair is to practice the rabbinic teaching of tikkun `olam ("repairing the world")—living with empathy, justice, kindness, and morality. Theology draws from biblical, rabbinic, and mystical traditions that sprout forth the message that the earth is full of God's glory and that every place conceivably is a gateway to Heaven's door. The importance of the Torah (Teaching) to Israel and humanity is to sustain life in this world. Christological death and resurrection are the outer world, which may explain the book's confrontational title.
In sum, Latour's thoughts are interesting and provocative. Though the English translation from the French is occasionally awkward, it is recommended. [End Page 447]
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