The Earth: A Gift to Man from God

In my post on the "Cult of Efficiency" I referred to an essay I wrote at university, refuting Lynn White's claim that the roots of the Ecological Crisis lie in Judeo-Christian thought. I showed instead that the truly guilty culprits were in fact Aristotle and the Greco-Roman tradition, together with the greed and egoism abundant in modern-day economics.

I have published the essay below, for those who are interested.


"It seems as though White is confusing the Christian tradition with the Aristotelian tradition. Considering the influence of Aristotle on Medieval Western science, and White’s position as a medieval historian this seems a foolish speculation. However, White’s reiteration of the Christian view almost perfectly matches Aristotle in his classic work The Politics (1988, p.11):

“In like manner we may infer that, after the birth of animals, plants exist for their sake, and that the other animals exist for the sake of man, the tame for use and food, the wild, if not all, at least the greater part of them for food, and for the provision of clothing and various instruments. Now if nature makes nothing incomplete, and nothing in vain, the inference must be that she has made all animals for the sake of man.”

Ironically White did mention Aristotle and the Greco-Roman tradition in a positive light, favourably contrasting their cyclical notion of time over the linear Judeo-Christian model (1967, p.1206). However, he paid no attention to the Greco-Roman view of the man-nature relationship. While White mourned the “psychic revolution” of Christianity over paganism as the root of our ecological crisis, it seems instead that the victory of the Greco-Roman mind over the Christian church is the culprit."



The Earth: A Gift to Man from God

An Essay in Environmental Ethics


Allan Chesswas


Anybody who has read books and articles in the field of environmental ethics will be familiar with the opening lines of such pieces, mourning the loss of treasured features of the Earth’s ecology. Whether it be Lynn White’s quaint English valley, Francis Schaeffer’s cahow bird, or Lewis Moncrief’s potable water, it cannot be argued that we are not currently witnessing something of an ecological crisis. Here in New Zealand the Ministry for the Environment has identified declining biodiversity as our “most extensive and multifaceted environmental issue” (Mfe, 1997; p10.5). Considering that in 700-800 years 32 % of our endemic land and freshwater birds have become extinct this is not surprising (MfE, 1997; p.9.6). In 1993 New Zealand ratified the International Convention on Biodiversity, and in March 2000 launched the New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy, supporting its implementation with a $187 million five-year funding commitment (Cullen, 2002; p14, B2 & B3).

Such an unambiguous acknowledgement of an ecological crisis is not unique to New Zealand. Conventions are held and treaties signed as leaders from around the world meet together to acknowledge the problem and develop responses, last month’s Earth Summit in Johannesburg a classic example. However, this response from our world leaders is marred by the cynicism of the masses, cynicism over whether our money-hungry world will ever be able to respond in a real and tangible way. Where does such cynicism come from? Have things really got this bad? Are we stuck with a world that doesn’t care about the environment? Has it always been this way? Does it have to be? Medieval historian Lynn White says no, things have not always been this way, and no, they don’t have to be.

White wrote an article which was published in the Science Magazine in March, 1967; The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis. He singled out the Judeo-Christian tradition as the cause of our problems, arguing that in uprooting the pantheistic worldview of paganism, Christianity demystified the non-human physical realm, reducing it to objects that exist solely to serve the purposes of man (White, 1967; pp.1203-1207). Scholars such as Lewis Moncrief, also in the Science Magazine (The Cultural Basis of Our Environmental Crisis, 1970, pp. 508-512), Patrick Dobel in The Christian Century (The Judeo-Christian Stewardship Attitude to Nature, 1977), and Francis Schaeffer with his book Pollution and the Death of Man (1970), have all provided defences of the Judeo-Christian position in response to White’s article, as the hotly controversial topic has escalated into prominence.

In the light of this debate two very important questions must be asked regarding the idea of the Earth as a gift to man: Does this view provide a source of commitment to the environment? Does this view give rights to anything besides men? These are our guiding questions as we engage in a critique of this particular worldview.


The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis: Judeo-Christian or
Greco-Roman?

Then God said, “Let us create him in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground – everything that has the breath of life in it – I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

God saw all that he made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning – the sixth day.


This biblical passage, taken from Genesis 1: 26-31 (NIV Study Bible, 1995, p.7,8), is regarded by philosopher Joseph Jardins as a symbolic representation of the religious traditions of the West (Jardins, 2001, p.97). Symbolic as it may be, the idea that nature has “no reason for existence save to serve man” is not a necessary imperative of this text. Admittedly, there are fundamental grounds for man being of more value than the rest of the nature because he is created in God’s image, and it clearly stipulates that man is to rule over the Earth and is granted access to the use of its resources. However, nowhere does it say that nature’s only reason for existence is to serve man.

The works of medieval Christian theologian Thomas Aquinas are also used by Jardins (2001, p.95-96) to exemplify views exhibiting “little sympathy to the moral status of natural objects.” However, Aquinas does not claim utility to man as the sole source of value for natural objects. Rather, he simply refutes that the act of killing an animal is a sin, and that man has legitimate access to employing natural resources for his own means. Again it seems that White’s perception of the Judeo-Christian worldview lacks grounding.

White has committed the cardinal sin in theology of taking a biblical passage out of context. If only he had started at the beginning of the chapter and read through he would have discovered that after each day of creating land, vegetation, the lights of the sky, aquatic creatures and land creatures, “God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:9-25) (NIV Study Bible, 1995, p.6,7). This implies that nature has value beyond simply its utility to man (Dobel, 1977), (Laurent, 2000; p.17), (Doorey, 2000, p.29). Mark Laurent, in his article in the Bible College of New Zealand’s Reality magazine, Is God Green, draws the value of nature from the idea that it was made by and belongs to God. Sounding very Lockean, Laurent argues that nature exists only through God’s labour, and therefore holds value beyond its utility to humans – its value is in its reflection of God’s person, in the same way that our private property reflects and becomes part of our personal identity. This emphasises the grace of God, because he has allowed us to use and alter his own property, in a sense alienating God from his work, for no price.

It seems as though White is confusing the Christian tradition with the Aristotelian tradition. Considering the influence of Aristotle on Medieval Western science, and White’s position as a medieval historian this seems a foolish speculation. However, White’s reiteration of the Christian view almost perfectly matches Aristotle in his classic work The Politics (1988, p.11):

“In like manner we may infer that, after the birth of animals, plants exist for their sake, and that the other animals exist for the sake of man, the tame for use and food, the wild, if not all, at least the greater part of them for food, and for the provision of clothing and various instruments. Now if nature makes nothing incomplete, and nothing in vain, the inference must be that she has made all animals for the sake of man.”

Ironically White did mention Aristotle and the Greco-Roman tradition in a positive light, favourably contrasting their cyclical notion of time over the linear Judeo-Christian model (1967, p.1206). However, he paid no attention to the Greco-Roman view of the man-nature relationship. While White mourned the “psychic revolution” of Christianity over paganism as the root of our ecological crisis, it seems instead that the victory of the Greco-Roman mind over the Christian church is the culprit.

Philosopher John Passmore identifies the puritanical inheritance of the medieval church, with its rejection of sensuousness, as a principal cause of the crisis. The puritan assertion that “the enjoyment of sensual pleasures for their own sake can never be right and proper” has severe repercussions for the way human beings view nature. “Only if men can first learn to look sensuously at the world will they learn to care for it,” claims Passmore (Passimore, 1974, p.188-189). He traces Puritanism back to St Augustine of Hippo, the great Christian theologian of the fourth and fifth century, but rather than stopping there, points to the influence of Greek Philosopher Plato on Augustine’s theology. Of Roman descent, Augustine was a neo-Platonist, and as his theological works grew in popularity in the church, so did the already permeating Platonistic dualism of spirit and body, of the spiritual and the worldly.

Minister Jim Wallace, in his Reality magazine article Celebrating Creation and Life in all its Abundance, shows that in fact the Judeo-Christian tradition views the natural and spiritual realms as intimately intertwined, and blames the permeation of Platonic thought into Christian theology for the lack of sensuality in the contemporary Christian view of nature. Wallace claims that “from the fourth century on, the church became more Greek than Hebrew in its worldview”, and that by the sixth century “the average Christian believed in a spiritual reality that was very much separated from his/her everyday life” (Wallace, 2001, p.10-12). Wallace argues that in the Hebrew world the spiritual realm was closely tied to the natural, and uses extracts from Paulian letters and from the Psalms to reinforce the way that nature reveals the person of God and draws one into his presence. In this context sensuality cannot be perceived negatively as Plato and the puritans perceive it, but rather an experience of communion with God.

Worthy of a mention are two passages that which show the intrinsic value of nature in the Judeo-Christian tradition. The first example is Genesis 9:8-17, where God establishes the post-flood covenant not only with Noah but also with “all living creatures of every kind” (NIV Study Bible, 1995, p.18). The second example is Romans 8:18-25, where Paul talks of creation in a way that would certainly surprise White (NIV Study Bible, 1995, p.1719,1720):

“The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.”

It is very clear, then, the erroneous nature of White’s assertion that the Judeo-Christian tradition is not the root of our current ecological crisis. If fault belongs to any tradition it is the Greco-Roman. The Greco-Roman tradition does not teach that the earth was given to man by God, and so it is wrong to suggest that the ecological crisis provides empirical evidence that such a view rejects an ethic of commitment to the environment. The real question though is this; Does the idea that the earth was given by God to man encourage an ethic of commitment to the environment? A brief survey of Judeo-Christian texts will show us that it does.


Does the Judeo-Christian Tradition Provide a Source of Commitment to the Environment?

White implies in his article that we need a religion that attributes to natural objects souls to the same measure it does human beings (1967, p.1207). It seems that this is his only hope in reversing the ecological crisis. While the Judeo-Christian tradition does provide scope for nature to be valued beyond its utility to human beings, it could never offer a worldview that treated natural objects as of equal spiritual substance or value to human beings. Because man is created in God’s image, the implication is that he is more important, and more valuable. However, Wallace shows that the Hebrew worldview, the only pre-Greco-Roman Judeo-Christian worldview we have access to, sees nature having value in and of itself, and it is arguable that this is suffice for an environmental ethic that has the ability to counter our current ecological crisis.

An important thing to remember is that God has not conferred complete ownership of the Earth to man. Being the ultimate source of power, God still holds the ultimate sovereignty over his creation, and we will be judged for how we treat it. Jesus Christ himself upheld the principle of stewardship in the parable of the talents as recorded in the gospels of Matthew (25:14-30) and Luke (19:12-27) – that God, our master, will reward us according to how we have used and cared for what he’s left in our care (NIV Study Bible, 1995, p.1476,1477).

Things couldn’t be put much more bluntly than they are in Revelation, a record of the apocryphal visions of the apostle John. Describing Judgment Day, Revelation 11:16-18 talks of the twenty-four elders seated on their thrones before God, saying (NIV Study Bible, 1995, p.1937,1938):

“The time has come for judging the dead,
and for rewarding your servants the prophets
and your saints and those who reverence your name,
both small and great –
and for destroying those who destroy the earth.”

This passage in itself seems strong enough motivation for any Christian to develop an environmental ethic, and is evidence to suggest that a Judeo-Christian tradition can in fact provide a source of commitment to the environment.

Medieval and Aristotelian Westerners, and now modern Westerners may have interpreted Genesis 1 without considering this context that the rest of the bible brings to the text. We must recognise, though, that human action is not based entirely upon religious beliefs. It is very unlikely that those guilty of adverse environmental exploitation were acting as a result of an enlightened meditation upon Genesis, where they received a revelation that they should be limitlessly exploiting the Earth. What is more likely is that, motivated by a desire for land, wealth, and power, such people sought to use the bible to justify their actions. This would better explain that when put in context Genesis 1 does not justify such behaviour.

The desire for land, wealth and power is something that sociologist Lewis Moncrief is referring to in his article The Cultural Basis of Our Environmental Crisis, which appeared in the Science magazine as a response to White’s article. Here Moncrief claims that “no culture has been able to completely screen out the egocentric tendencies of human beings” (1970, p.509). Julian Doorey recognises egoism too, in his Reality magazine article Churching the Greens… or Greening the Church? Doorey claims that “The environmental crisis has more to do with greed, individualism, selfishness, ‘laissez-faire’ economic growth and profit than with Christianity” (2000, p.30). Rather than identify Christianity as the cause of the ecological crisis, he sees Christianity as the very worldview we need to reverse it, emphasising the transformation of character as “humanity is restored and reconciled to relationship with Creator God.”

So, then, in answering the question “Does the view of earth as a gift of God to man provide a source of commitment to the environment?” the following conclusions can be drawn. The ecological crisis cannot be attributed to the Judeo-Christian tradition, but rather the ideas of the Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle. There is therefore no empirical evidence that such a view does not provide a source of commitment to the environment. A quick survey of the bible and Hebrew culture shows that an environmental ethic is a key aspect of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Nature and the spiritual realm are not separate but are intimately intertwined. As the creation of God nature reflects his person, it has value in and of itself. The Judeo-Christian tradition sits comfortably with the idea of environmental ethics.


Does the Judeo-Christian Tradition Give Rights to Anything Besides Men?

This brings us to the question of rights. Does the view of the earth as a gift of God to man give rights to anything besides men? The discussion and deliberation over whom or what is worthy of rights and whom or what isn’t is a tricky business.

Firstly, the idea of rights must be defined. For this we go to The Concise Oxford Dictionary (1964, p.1075), which defines rights as:

“Justification, fair claim, being entitled to privilege or immunity, thing one is entitled to…”

Secondly, the criteria upon which one obtains rights must be set. One cannot read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN, 1948) without recognising that the contemporary understanding of rights assumes dignity as the criteria for rights. Rights are created as a measure that ensures the maintenance of one’s dignity. Article One of the declaration reads:

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”

Without the acceptance of the idea that human beings are equal in dignity, the widespread acceptance of human rights would be impossible.

This brings us to the question; What is dignity, and how does one get it? The Concise Oxford Dictionary (1964, p.341) defines dignity as:

“True worth, excellence; high estate or estimation, honourable office, rank, or title; elevation of manner, proper stateliness”

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights claims that all human beings are born with this dignity, with an inherent worth, and that this worth is equal across the human species. Fleshed out this means that when one makes a decision that affects people, no-one should be prioritised ahead of anybody else on the grounds that they are more inherently valuable. For example, the justification of slavery on the grounds that the slave is someone born with less inherent worth than the master is no longer valid.

The declaration goes on to specify the privileges all human beings have a right to, and prohibit acts that demean human rights and dignities.

Before we answer the question “Does the view of the earth as a gift of God to man give rights to anything besides men,” we must first ask if it necessarily gives rights to men. The idea that man has more inherent worth than the rest of creation is certainly central to Judeo-Christian ethics, due to his being made “in the image of God.” However, the idea that this invokes certain human rights does not necessarily follow. While the idea of human rights seems to have become the basis of ethics on contemporary Western society, this is not necessarily the case in the Judeo-Christian tradition. In contemporary Western society morality is motivated by a desire to uphold the dignity of the human race, while in the Judeo-Christian tradition morality is motivated by the desire to please God.

King Solomon illustrates this well in the book of Ecclesiastes in which he ponders the meaning of life. At the end of the book he says (NIV Study Bible, 1995; p.996):

“Now all has been heard;
here is the conclusion of the matter:
Fear God and keep his commandments,
for this is the whole duty of man.”

It is, though, safe to assume that an ethical action in the Judeo-Christian tradition is one that ensures that the common dignity of man is upheld. Jesus himself said that the commandment “love your neighbour as yourself” was second only to the commandment “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” saying that “all the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37-40) (NIV Study Bible, 1995; p.1472). In terms of whether or not all human beings are equal in dignity in the Judeo-Christian tradition, a passage in Galatians 3:26-29 could be used to answer yes (NIV Study Bible, 1995; p.1785):

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”

In the Judeo-Christian tradition the human race is considered of more inherent worth than the rest of creation. However, this does not necessarily mean that human beings are the only species with rights. There is plenty of scope for the idea of rights for non-human beings, but only in subordination to particular human rights. Because loving one’s neighbour is the second-greatest commandment, and loving the rest of creation is not touched on by Jesus, it would seem that ethical decision-making considers the effects upon fellow human beings before it considers the effects on the environment. However, this does not mean environmental effects should be discarded altogether. We have already seen evidence of this in that daunting passage in Revelation, and a motivation for it in the way pre-Greco-Roman Judeo-Christian writers talked about nature.


Conclusion

The idea that God gave the earth to man does indeed provide a source of commitment to the environment. It assumes that God made the Earth, and this very fact means that creation has a value beyond its utility to man, in the same way that a picture I paint has value to me beyond its utility to anybody else. Parts of the bible suggest that creation has some degree of persona itself - God’s post-flood covenant with all living beings and Paul’s description of the way creation looks forward to the day of redemption are examples of this. If rights are based on dignity or inherent worth then it is reasonable to assume that the Judeo-Christian tradition provides scope for rights being attributed to non-human beings. However, the creed that man is created in the image of God implies that man is of more worth to God, and so his survival and well-being should be made a priority above that of non-human beings. This is neither taking an anthropocentric nor an ecocentric stance, but rather a theo-centric one.


It seems a given that religions such as Christianity and Islam will continue to expand and maintain their stronghold on the ideologies of the modern world, but we need not be concerned with this. Rather than blaming such religions and completely discarding them, we must instead help weed out the Platonian loss of a sensual value of nature and revive the idea that the natural and spiritual worlds are not distinct but intertwined. Here lies the key to mitigating the ideological weaknesses that have created our crisis. Here lies the key to a better future for all.


References

Aristotle (Reprinted 1921), The Politics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

Cullen, Michael (2002), Budget 2002. Treasury, Wellington, New Zealand.

Dobel, Patrick (1977), The Judeo-Christian Stewardship Attitude to Nature. The Christian Century, 1977(October 12), p.906.

Doorey, Julian (2000), Churching the Greens… or Greening the Church? Reality, 2000(39), pp27-31.

Fowler, H.W. & Fowler, G.H. (1964), The Concise Oxford Dictionary. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.

Jardins, Joseph (2001), Environmental Ethics. Wadsworth Group, Belmont, USA.

Laurent, Mark (2000), Is God Green? Reality, 2000(39), pp15-18.

MfE (1997), The State of New Zealand’s Environment. MfE, Wellington, New Zealand.

Moncrief, Lewis (1970), The Cultural Basis of Our Environmental Crisis. Science Magazine, 1970(170), pp.508-512.

New International Version Study Bible, 1995. Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, USA.

Passmore, John (1974), Man’s Responsibility for Nature. Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd., London, UK.

United Nations (1948), Universal Declaration of Human Rights. United Nations, New York, USA.

Schaeffer, Francis (1970), Pollution and the Death of Man. Hotter & Stoughton Ltd., Suffolk, USA.

Wallace, Jim (2001), Celebrating Creation and Life in All its Abundance. Reality, 2001(44), pp8-12.

White, Lynn (1967), The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis. Science Magazine, 1967(155), pp.1203-1207.


Further Reading

Aquinas, St Thomas (reprinted 1944), Basic Writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Random House, New York, USA.

Barnes, Jonathan (1995), The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

Callicott, J. Baird (1980), Animal Liberation: A Triangular Affair. Environmental Ethics, 1980(2), pp311-328

Chesswas, Allan (2001), Dominion vs Stewardship: A Biblical Dualism.

Chesswas, Allan (2001), Environmental Management: A World Religions Perspective.

Frankfort, Henri; Frankfort, H.A.; Wilson, John A.; Jacobsen, Thorkild; & Irwin, William A.; (1946) The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, USA.

Morris, Stephen (2001), Aristotle’s Justification of Slavery.

Ross, W.D. (1921), The Works of Aristotle. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. Volume X.

Sabatier, Paul (1894), Life of St Francis of Assisi. Hodder and Stoughton, London, UK.

Singer, Peter (1986), Applied Ethics. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.

Taylor, Paul W. (1981), The Ethics of Respect for Nature. Environmental Ethics, 1981(3), pp.197-218)

Van der Meer, (1961), Augustine the Bishop. Sheed & Ward Ltd., London, UK.