The current theological and philosophical thinking concerning man’s stewardship of creation has some serious flaws. We originally interpreted the first reading from Genesis 1 to mean that after creating man, God put him in charge of caring solely for the environment with a leaning to co-creation. God created man and then leaves man in charge of, and taking possession of creation. The results, with the environmental and ecological degradation we see around us, have obviously shown that God must originally have had a very high opinion of us had he trusted the created environment solely to man. We have fallen short in this respect and we have done so very badly.
Today there seems to be a theological shift away from this previous biblical interpretation of sole care by the human species for the environment. Man is indeed special and, in being tasked with naming the animals in Genesis, he is in fact given a pre-eminent role over other creatures in managing our environment. But does it stop there? Has God in fact handed over full environmental responsibility to man? Should all environmental resources be directed solely towards our needs as a species? Do the other non-living and living creatures have their own intrinsic value for God in the created order? Does God still have active plans for the created order which go beyond humanity? Has God got a final plan for creation?
When one looks closely at several readings in the Old Testament including Genesis, one notices that the emphasis is mainly not on man’s stewardship but on the existence of a community of creation. Human experience of pleasure or delight in the otherness of other creatures is a sign that these creatures have value in themselves and for God. God seems not to have created the living and non-living order to serve man alone, but ultimately as a vehicle for his own glory. God is rightly and jealously concerned about the glory due to him. Before one asks for anything in prayer, one first gives glory to God! This is true for all of creation. The cosmos is there for God’s ultimate glory and has a special significance, an existence, all intrinsically its own, apart from man. God does not really need us to care for the environment. He has been and will continue to do so under his own steam to reach his final plan.
When reading Job for example, whose ranting seems to assume that an all powerful God would order the world so that people will get what they anthropocentrically deserve by right. God’s answer is humbling and puts Job in his place. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the world... Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion... Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars and spreads its wings towards the South”? Again Psalm 104 talks about the inanimate and animate complexity that is creation, all singing God’s praises. “May the glory of the Lord endure forever, may the Lord rejoice in his works... When you send forth your spirit they are created and you renew the face of the earth.” Who does not remember reciting Daniel’s popular canticle of the three young men “Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord: Praise and exalt him above all forever... Everything growing from the earth, bless the Lord. You springs, bless the Lord: Seas and rivers, bless the Lord. You dolphins and all water creatures bless the Lord: All you birds of the air, bless the Lord. All you beasts, wild and tame, bless the Lord...”
When Gustav Holst composed the music for Psalm 148, he surely had in mind the psalm’s theme of all creation’s vibrant and constant worship of God. All creatures bring glory to God simply by being themselves and fulfilling their God-given roles in his creation. “Praise him all his angels... all his host... sun and moon... fruit trees and all cedars... wild animals and all cattle... creeping things and flying birds.” Furthermore, there are evident passages which underline that when man indulges in amoral behaviour, there is a consequent concomitant degradation of the environment as it mourns its ecological death.
Jeremiah laments: “How long will the land mourn and the grass of every field wither? For the wickedness of those who live in it, the animals and birds are swept away”. Hosea warns that because “there is no knowledge of God in the land... the wild animals, the birds of the air and even the fish of the sea are perishing”. The list of the thrust and direction of God’s intentions for all creation and the interconnectedness of nature in the Old Testament is never ending and singular in direction. God creates and nurtures his creation for the eventual renewal of this creation in a final act of salvation which is still be played out, a veritable work in progress.
In the New Testament there is a continuation of this general plan of God in fulfilling this creation through a final renewal when God re-establishes his kingdom forever, the New Jerusalem. The image of the river running out of the temple in the new Jerusalem, spoken of by the prophet Ezekiel, nourishing trees, animals and man as mentioned, is the precursor image of the fulfilment of God’s creation and fulfilment of nature in the end times so clearly foretold by St John in Revelations where the Lamb rules over all creation in peace and harmony. Christ does not change but augments the meta-narrative, the big picture, shown in the Old Testament. The created order is theocentric, particularly christocentric, not anthropocentric. Fulfilment of creation is only found in the resurrected Christ who exists before time, in time and in eternity (through him, with him, in him) when the final plan of God is established. St Paul states this clearly in Romans: “… for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay”. He repeats this in Colossians, “for in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to him all things, whether on earth and in heaven”, were it is obvious that the cosmic Christ is the first physical fruit of the created world and in whom all created order shall finally be fulfilled. This not a solely spiritual order but also a physical order in line with the model of the Aristotelian body/spirit existence for those of creation with a physical body and spirit. The old platonic explanations of the superiority of the spirit are no longer valid. The body has an active principle which we call the soul. It is a single substance. The whole of creation enters eschaton – body and soul, as one existence!
In his gospel, St John makes it clear that Christ’s creation of the world was to reach fulfilment in his first coming and then the complete fulfilment in his second coming. “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being, what has come into being in him was life... the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him”. As Easter approaches and the referendum on spring hunting the week after, it would be good to recall that eternal life is available to all creation because Christ attained it for the whole of creation, inanimate and animate, physical and spiritual, through his dying solidarity with all of creation. Thus the story of the whole creation reaches its eschatological goal as it irrevocably and forever, joins the historical narrative of its only saviour, the cosmic Christ.
Interested politicians and voters please take note. Reconciliation with God and reconciliation with the rest of God’s creation are inseparable natural partners. You cannot have one without the other. Not unless, that is, one considers one’s religion to be simply a sterile tradition, one of several others.
[email protected]