The World as Illusion: Environmental Implications of the Doctrine of Māyā: Journal of Vaishnava Studies

Abstract

In 1967, Lynn White argued that Christian attitudes toward the environment were at the root of the ecological crisis in the twentieth century. In particular, he believed that Christianity’s ideas regarding humanity’s “dominion” and “superiority” over nature made it the most anthropocentric and ecologically unfriendly of all religions. Stung by Lynn White’s critique, which became known as the Lynn White Thesis, many Christians have responded by bringing attention to nature’s holiness in passages of the Bible and in the writings of such giants as John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, Francis of Assisi and Thomas Aquinas.