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The Christian Environmentalist's Creed

First Thoughts

Posted Tuesday, April 03, 2007 by eric.mattison
Categories: Popular Culture; Culture and Theology
The world at large is asking difficult questions regarding the environment and our relationship to it. The challenge is finding ministers and teachers that are willing to even discuss it in Biblical terms. To often our teaching on it is reduced to platitudes heard on talk radio and some occassional proof texting via "Scientific" studies. Perhaps a significant source of frustration is the lack of real doctrine related to this issue. The lofty goal before us is to rectify some the inequities here.

Any good theology begins with a creed. A creed being, for purposes of this discussion, a position statement of basic fundementals which establish a doctrinal bedrock. This bedrock in turn, becomes the foundation of our intellectual structure. So, what would a good creed regarding creation and man's place in it look like? Here are some initial thoughts for you all to dissect, aka Part A.

1. I believe God created all things (Genesis 1:1, John 1:3).

For whatever reason, God decided to create, and what He created, has inherent value.

2. I believe God called it good.

This does not mean or imply that natural creation is inherently good. It was declared good as created.

3. I believe that natural creation has been corrupted by the actions of humanity (Genesis 3:17, Romans 8:22).

4. I believe makind's role is unique in nature as Imago Dei (Genesis 1:26).

5. I believe man has certain rights and responsibilities with regards to natural creation (Genesis 1:28).

So this is really a draft to throw against the wall and get opinions on it. I intend to publish a second part with several more points to add to these five. Perhaps point one above should be separated from the comment below it, but I wanted to get some reaction to this. Don't be gentle just because I'm an amateur. No thin skins as the saying goes!

Series: Christian Thought on Environmentalism
The Christian Environmentalist's Creed

Tuesday, April 03, 2007 1:04 PM

Brian wrote:

Eric,

Thanks for this, your first post. Way to take a conversation in a totally new direction for Theoblogian.

I am confused by your apparently contradictory statements, "what He created has inherent value" following point one and "This does not mean or imply that natural creation is inherently good." which follows point two. What do you mean by these two statements?

Is the point of point one that anything God did was worth doing while the point of point two is that it does not have goodness simply because it exists, but because God said it was good?

Tuesday, April 03, 2007 3:26 PM

Eric wrote:

Well, in my mind that is a complicated question.

God created it, so it has worth because of this. But value and moral status are two different things. An object and/or being may be good, bad or neither. The moral status of creation is based on the decree of God. I want to make this point early on because that status changes along with ours.

The reason that I think that this is valuable is because if nature is morally "good" today, than it is categorically better than humanity. If nature is morally "corrupted" today, than the needs of the environment cannot outweigh the needs of humanity based on the concept of innocence and "goodness".

Another take on it might be to say that this is a value statement and not a moral statement. It is probably worth doing a closer word study to make that judgement.

Tuesday, April 03, 2007 9:27 PM

Brian wrote:

So you are saying that God did not call the world “moral.” This simply affirms that the world could not disobey God. It was not a moral agent, therefore it could be neither moral or immoral. Adam was the moral agent put in charge of creation. I suggest that Adam’s moral agency is in view in Romans 8.

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God 20 (For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him [Adam] who subjected it) in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.
Romans 8:19-22

So creation is morally neutral (excepting manknnd and angels), but it has been subjected to futility. And this leads us back to what God may have meant in calling it “good.” When he created Creation, he liked it. It was good to him. It was a place he would like to vacation. It could even be useful - and this would be in contrast to the futility we endure now.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007 9:47 AM

Charlie wrote: The word "good" in hebrew does seem to support Brian's point. It can be used to simply mean "beautiful" (such as Genesis 6:2), so perhaps that is what God is intending here, not a moral statement about his creation.

Friday, April 06, 2007 7:14 AM

Eric wrote:

Thanks for looking into that Charlie. I suspected that this was the case. So, point 2 probably needs to be eliminated unless someone knows of support for it in other places?

Has anyone got any issues on any of the other elements before we move on to the last few?