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THE STEWARDSHIP OF THE EARTH

Undoubtedly the Christian faith has made an important contribution to that ideology which has enabled people to subdue the earth and exploit its resources. Christianity is not only to blame, but it is nevertheless important that today’s Christians not reject their share of the responsibility for the ecological predicament in which we find ourselves. Only by accepting responsibility and exercising self-criticism can we hope to contribute to changing the future course of action and make a constructive contribution to a more safe and sound future development for the earth as a whole.

In our shaping of this future development, what kind of images and concepts we use to interpret reality is of decisive importance. Images, symbols, and metaphors are the tools we use to understand and explain the world, and our actions are therefore also to a large extent shaped according to the symbols we use to interpret reality. It is worth noticing that in the theological conceptions that have shaped Western thought on the relation of Christian faith and nature, political symbols have played a prominent part. In the stories of creation it is emphasized that humankind shall “subdue” the earth and exercise “dominion” over its life forms. Bacon’s theology—which has contributed significantly to our understanding of what science is about—is the logical outcome of such a political “lordship” model. It idealizes human control over nature and legitimizes manipulation of the natural world by explaining it as an actualization of divine salvation.

It is not surprising that political metaphors dominate in the classical theological tradition. Christianity in the Western world developed within the framework of the Greco-Roman culture which emphasized societal order and practical action. The ideals of this culture also influenced the Christian understanding of sin and salvation. Sin was largely understood as moral evil, salvation was to be sought in correct conduct. This focusing on the human being as a political individual promoted the conqueror-attitude in humanity’s relation to nature.

Interestingly, the Eastern (Orthodox) Churches were not influenced in the same way as the Western (Latin) Churches. Eastern Christianity has retained a greater sense of the meaning of the divine Incarnation in the world. In this context sin is understood more as intellectual blindness, salvation as a mystical encounter with the Divine. Furthermore, Eastern Churches emphasize that nature also can reveal the glory of the Divine. Nature can speak in an edifying way to humans, so nature is understood more along religious esthetical lines than technological-scientific. Nature as conceived in the Eastern traditions has intrinsic value.

It is my assertion that in the Eastern traditions we may find theological resources to overcome the dilemma presented us by the power ideology so characteristic of contemporary Western culture. This is not to say that this or that theology as such can save us from the troubles of our time. However, as the historian L. White has argued, science and technology are not sufficient to get us out of the crisis because these are themselves products of the crisis. Since the roots of our ecological problems are basically religious ones, the solution to our problems must be of a religious nature.

The theological contribution consists primarily in delivering images, symbols, and metaphors to be used in understanding reality in order to change it. The Eastern traditions offer us useful symbols for our understanding of reality, symbols which may stimulate the theological traditions of the Western Churches. They may even awaken us to find resources in our own traditions which we so far have not seen or maybe forgotten about.

Three central themes in the theology of the Eastern Churches are relevant to our discussion: (1) the significance of the Incarnation, (2) the doctrine of the Trinity, and (3) salvation understood as new creation. How might these themes function in connection with ecology as a concern for the Christian faith?

Incarnation
Incarnation is in a sense the consummation of creation. That God becomes human symbolizes the most intimate connection between creation and the Creator. God cannot come any closer to the world of creation than this! Incarnation also contains a radical self-limitation for God. God is no longer outside the world, giving commands from the divine high, as a Supreme Majestic Being. God has become a participant in the world and therefore shares in all the joys and sorrows of this world. God has become a “friend of the earth,” not just its ruler. The metaphor “friend of the earth” implies that whatever happens to the earth and the life forms that fill it actually matters to God. Such a perspective on the world’s relationship to God also gives Christians a new perspective on their relationship to the earth. The Christian becomes a “friend of the earth,” first by virtue of being a creature who is dependent on the earth for his or her own life, but also by virtue of being a Christian who knows that one’s life is hidden with God. Whoever lives his or her life in this way thus shares a common “fate” with God by being intimate with the earth. The Incarnation of God in the world implies that humans find their home in it also.

According to its etymology, the word “ecology” means “teaching about the house,” i.e. our home. An ecological mind understands that the world is not just our “surrounding.” The world is not just a place in which we happen to live; it is a home in which we shall live—and enjoy such living.

In the Christian tradition the world has not always been understood in this way. The “Pilgrim myth” as we encounter it, e.g., in Bunyan’s A Pilgrim’s Progress, describes the world as such a perverted place that the Christian must avoid it at all costs in order to escape its dangerous temptations. The Christian’s “home” is not in the world, but in heaven. Such an understanding of the Christian’s life in the world is contrary to faith in the incarnated God. If it really is God that we encounter in Jesus Christ, then the “home” of humanity is really on earth— not in the sense that we shall be content with our hfe here, but that it is precisely in this world that we encounter God.

Incarnation thus implies a radical appreciation of the earth’s significance for our own self understanding and our relationship to God. If God is incarnated in the world, then we encounter God not only in our human fellowship (cf. Matt 25), but also in the created world of nature. The Incarnation implies a very clear No! to all devaluation of the material world—and it is also a clear Yes! to see God in all things. The Incarnation is the divine Yes! to the intrinsic value and significance of the world.

Our relationship to God is therefore also expressed through respect and reverence for the environment, our home, and to whatever life forms that have their home there. All things thus have a sacramental value in addition to their intrinsic value, and it is this sacramental value that is the key to our encounter with God in the heart of all created things. This is best illustrated by the way the Orthodox Church tradition has appreciated art, primarily the painted picture, the icon, as a reflection of the divine reality. Whoever has God as his or her friend, can by virtue of the Incarnation not act otherwise than consider also the earth as one’s friend—and act accordingly.

The Trinity
The doctrine of the Trinity further underscores the notion of friendship and community by anchoring them in the heart of the divinity. When it is said in Christian theology that God created the world, this means that creation is not a matter of chance. Its deepest ground is to be found in God. Creation is the outer manifestation of the inner relationship between God as Father/Creator, Son/ Savior and Holy Spirit/Giver of Life. Through creation the world is being drawn into the divine community at the same time as this community is being manifested in the basic harmony in creation itself.

The notion of the Trinitarian God who is in a dynamic, but harmonious interaction with Godself thus becomes an important symbol and metaphor for understanding the created reality. As it is the same divine essence expressing itself in three different persons with different functions, so it is one and the same reality that penetrates all things and ‘binds them together in spite of different functions, whether we are dealing with plants, animals, or humans. There is a basic unity in whatever exists, a unity which is at the basis of all things and which can be expressed in all the relations which make up the realm of creation. Without the vision about this unity, our knowledge about the world will become fragmentary and divisive. Our actions will tend to focus on the singular aspects of the realm of creation, isolating them from other parts, and the result will be compartmental thinking and struggle for individualistic interests.

The vision of the Trinitarian God may help Christians to understand the basic unity which is to be found in the midst of the pluralistic world, motivating one for actions which promote mutual solidarity between the various areas of the created world. Likewise one will more appreciate and preserve the plurality of the world because God is not just one, but Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The plurality of the world is an analogy to God’s own being and is in itself an expression of the fact that God relates to the world in a multitude of ways. Humans must therefore relate to God in various ways, not just in specifically religious contexts like worship, prayer, and sacraments, but in all aspects of life-and that precisely as Christians, not merely as ordinary members of society.

Salvation as New Creation
Salvation understood as new creation enables one to construct a meaningful theology of creation, and not see the doctrine of creation as a mere prelude or appendix to salvation. The basis for relating creation to the message about salvation is that sin is not only understood as morally corrupted acts contrary to God’s will. Such an understanding of sin is based on a conceptual framework taken from the judicial language inspired by the courtroom. Through the Judaic religion of Holy Law, Roman judicial thinking, and Pauline theology, classical theological language has focused its interest on salvation related to the concept of Law. This focus has dominated most of Western Christianity, making us forget that there are other perspectives which can give us an alternative understanding of sin and salvation.

In a judicial conceptual apparatus it is natural to conceive of sin as breaking the Law. If we draw on theological symbols and metaphors from another area of life, e.g., from the natural life, then it would be more appropriate to conceive of sin as analogous to a sickness or illness which can be healed. In the Orthodox Church, theosis is an important concept for a theology of salvation. In the Western Church, we can find a comparable concept in the Methodist notion of sanctification. “Theosis” has to do with a process in which the human is being transformed into the “likeness” of God. This process implies a restoration of the image of God which has been damaged or corrupted through the influence of sin. Sin is like a sickness corrupting the growth of creation, including human beings. Thus salvation has to do with the healing of sin, so that creation may find its fulfillment when all things in heaven and on earth are being consummated in Christ (cf. Eph 1:10; 1 Cor 15:28).

In this perspective, salvation is primarily understood as a growth process analogous with the growth mechanisms we can find in nature. Salvation is thus not the “great exception” to what happens in the world, but rather “the chief exemplification” of the natural order of the world appear. It is normal that the grain of wheat must be put into the earth to die if new grains are to grow up. It is normal that the lump of yeast will penetrate the bread so that it will itself cease to exist as a piece of yeast. It is normal that one must lose one’s life in order to find it. The message of Christianity is not absurd except for those who deliberately choose to turn away from the natural order of life, the Law of Life itself. The gospel is only foolishness for the wise who follow their own wisdom and who believe that life can be gained by grasping and clinging to it as strongly as possible.

When salvation is understood as new creation, the human being is not alone and is no longer at the center of attention. New creation concerns the whole world of creation: all living beings are affected by the message of salvation. It has been a tragedy for Christianity that its religious attention has been so one-sidedly focused on the human individual and the inner life of the soul. What does Paul mean in Rom 8:19-22? Salvation has to do with the liberation of the whole realm of creation that is “groaning in travail together until now” (Rom 8:22).

Salvation is thus conceived as a process analogous to the organic growth in nature as a whole. The mechanisms for this growth are theologically grounded in the idea of Incarnation and the dynamics of growth itself are inspired by faith in the Trinitarian God. With such a theological starting point, it is possible to overcome the emphasis of traditional theology on political ideologies centering around the idea of divine lordship, as well as the exclusive focus on the inner life of human individuals. Humans are more adequately understood as organisms that are linked with all other forms of life by virtue of their biology and history of origin, a connection which both supplies the pattern for understanding the meaning of the concept of salvation (a theology of the wheat grain), and the direction of our ethical responsibility as “earth-beings” (our relationship with the rest of the created world). Both salvation and ethics are thus grounded in an understanding of reality which receives its images, symbols, and metaphors primarily from the natural world itself. Through such a nature theology (not natural theology), it will be possible to work out a theologically well-founded understanding of reality which can overcome the theological misconceptions of the past about humanity’s unique position as standing at the apex of creation.

Christian theology needs to find a way to function as a means of understanding the created world from within, providing us with a framework for interpreting history in such a way that we will become apprentices and maybe one day even co-workers in God’s created world. God help that we learn this task before it is too late.

By Roald E. Kristiansen, Ph.D., former John Wesley Fellow, now Professor of Systematic Theology, Methodist Theological Seminary, Bergen, Norway.