A Biblical Ecology
In my last post "From the Creed," Creation: A Philosophy You Can Live With, I made the point that only the Christian confession of God as Creator provided a philosophy of the natural world that one could live with. It provided escape from the Gnostic dilemma of physical self-destruction on the one hand or the gnawing guilt of hypocrisy on the other. A similar tension regarding the natural world exists today; and only the fact that God is Creator provides a view of the natural world that works on the pragmatic level.
The tension arises when it is understood that in the west there are two dominant views of nature today. First is the utilitarian view - that the natural world is not good in and of itself but is only as good as what can be made from it (trees are only potential baseball bats and furniture). Second, is - for lack of a better name - the new age view. This is an essentially pantheistic view that sees all of nature as holy and untouchable; and any human impact is at best a necessary evil.
If we follow these to their logical end it is evident they are not livable. The utilitarian view, unrestrained by any other consideration, leads ultimately to the barrenness of unbridled exploitation - all forests clear cut; all waters polluted and fished out; all the land either mined, plowed, or paved; all open spaces landfills. On the other hand, the logical outcome of the new age view leads ultimately to a stone age hunter-gatherer existence with all the suffering entailed by it. Neither presents an inviting picture.
In contrast to this is the Biblical view of the world expressed in part in Genesis 2:8-9, "in Eden... the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground -- trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food." We should make at least two observations here:
The first being that what God made was pleasing to the eye. In other words, there was an aesthetic value to creation. It had beauty to behold and so had inherent value apart from what man could make from them. What might this value be?
Part of their value is as a witness to God, as the psalmist tells us, "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands" (Psalm 19:1). The Apostle Paul concurs saying, "...since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities -- His eternal power and divine nature -- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made" (Romans 1:20).
But note secondly, the trees God planted were good for food - they did have a utilitarian purpose: to provide food. Psalm 104:10-28 is an extended praise of God who, having created the world, continues to tend it - for the utilitarian good of His creatures.
Man, created in God's image, longs for the unspoiled beauty of the natural world and its witness to his Creator. But at the same time our physical existence necessitates our dependence on the Earth and its resources in order to live. Only the Biblical view of creation provides for this balanced and livable approach to creation.
