to us by God is a tremendous failure on our part.
Criticism of Christianity’s views on nature, of which we
will take White to be representative, tend to focus on the socalled
Dominion Mandate (“and let
[mankind] have dominion over...all the
earth,” Genesis 1:26). and the perceived
anthropocentric reduction of nature to
mere tools for humanity.
Regarding the Dominion Mandate,
we will speak only briefly. While it is plainly true that God
has indeed granted us dominion over His creation, this
does not give us free rein to do whatever we please. Only
one chapter later, Scripture tells us that we were placed in
creation not simply to have dominion but also to work and
keep it (Genesis 2:15). And elsewhere in Scripture, our God
actually provides explicit instructions for the management of
land and prevention of its abuse (Leviticus 25:1-7). To say that
Christianity grants us measure to exploit natural resources
without concern for the consequences is simply an inaccurate
depiction of God’s intentions for humanity.
The claim that Christianity endorses a reductionist view of
nature in which objects are only considered based on their
practical utility to humankind is equally false. 6 We have
already seen that creation has intrinsic value to God and
worships Him independently of human perception. Further,
the Bible has an extensive record of imbuing nature with
divine narratives, especially by building natural metaphors for
various mysteries of God. We see this in examples ranging
all across Scripture, from the burning bush and holy ground
of Exodus to the mustard seed and fig tree parables told by
Christ in the Gospels. Thus, a tree is neither simply a source
of wood, nor a mere collection of atoms, nor a utilitarian
carbon-scrubbing machine; its branches depict the shelter
offered by the very Kingdom of God, its whole life helps us
to understand the progression of God’s work on earth, and its
very essence is one which gives glory to God. Nature should
be treated reverently, as a good and perfect gift from above,
from the Father of lights (James 1:17).
Conservation of the environment must, then, be a major
6 Fundamentally, White and others feel that Christianity’s
categorization of humanity with God, which lifts mankind above
the rest of nature, permits indifference during exploitation.
And so, by heeding the laws
of His creation, the nucleus
of an atom, held together by
the strong force, pleases God.
priority for the Christian community. God has quite literally
commanded us to do so, both for the sake of our personal
understanding of His nature and for the sake of the worship
it offers directly to Him. Hence, our warping of His created
order through pollution, exploitation,
and general destruction is a tremendous
failure.
But as we conclude, let us be careful
not to venture too far. We have taken
a brief but dense excursion away
from our core message that creation is good, so let us take
a moment to reflect once more on all that is beautiful and
enjoyable in the world. We should be able to convince
ourselves that these things imply the world is worthy of our
love (after all, it was worthy of God’s love), but we must
also impose some conditions. John warns against such love
because it may overtake our love of the One who created
it all, and we propose in this final paragraph a solution
to this problem. Recall that Christianity is not about this
world; rather, it cares primarily about the life, death, and
resurrection of one man, Jesus Christ, who was also fully
God, so that we might enter into a new world (Revelation
21:1). Even as we love this world, respecting and appreciating
its wonders, let us never forget that all its good is perceived
but as through a glass darkly. The day will come when the
new world arrives and His grace permits us to step into the
City of God, our true home. On that
day, sin and suffering will be no more,
and He will once again declare that
all is good.
Acknowledgement: this
was inspired by Justin
Hawkins’ lecture at
the Augustine Collective
Conference 2020.
Jeremy Wang is a sophomore at
Brown studying Math-CS.
Illustrated by Jocelyn Salim '23.
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