Fr Arnold Francis

Gen 1:26-31 and Gen 2:4b-25 draw attention to an important fact  – that God continues to be the master of the universe.

God has seen fit to raise humanity (a creature) above all other creatures by making humanity in his own image and likeness, so that human beings can share in God’s creative activity and bring the earth to its fullest potential. 

God invests his power and authority in human beings and puts confidence in human ability to encounter life and address its challenges. Despite human innate ability to find its place in God’s world and master life, human beings are still under divine directive as implied in both passages.

Human beings have always to give an account to God. The command in both passages shows that the earth is God’s good world and human beings are God’s stewards. This idea is especially highlighted in the metaphor of garden in the second passage.

Here we see that it is God’s garden and that humanity is the gardener. It is unheard of that gardeners do whatever they want with other people’s gardens. After creating, God saw that what was created “was very good”; at the eschaton (the second coming of Christ) God must be able to take note of his investment (humanity as co-creator/surrogate) and say of creation: “It is very very good.”

A sapiential motif in Wisdom creation theology underlines the point that wisdom, an attribute of God, is built into the very structure of reality (Wis 1:7; Sir 1:8; see Sirach 24).

This same idea is expressed by the psalmist: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament made known his handiwork.” The apostle Paul articulated a similar sentiment: “Ever since the creation of the world, his (God’s) invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made” (Rom 1:20).

All of this indicates the sacredness of the environment and everything in it. The acknowledgement of the sacred character of creation should lead to reverence and love for the natural world. The significance of this is that the destruction of the environment is not simply a pollution of, but a desecration of God’s sacred earth. 

Taking care of the environment and nurturing it is part and parcel of human purpose. As we function as stewards and co-creators with God in our relationship with the earth let us keep in mind Is 45:18-19:
“For thus says the Lord,
The creator of the heavens, who is God,
The designer and maker of the earth, who established it,
Not creating it to be a waste, but designing it to be lived in.
I am the Lord, and there is no other.
I have not spoken from hiding or from some dark place of the earth,
And I have not said to the descendants of Jacob,
‘Look for me in an empty waste’.”

Scholars would like to apply Martin Buber’s “I –Thou” (subject to subject) relationship among human beings to the relationship between human beings and their environment, cf Robert Ellsberg, All Saints: Daily Reflections on Saints—Prophets and Witnesses for Our Time

This idea, no doubt, would help us realise:

1. that we share the planet with the other creatures, plants, rivers, seas and oceans, and
2. that nature-things (creatures other than human beings) are not created as objects, simply for human use and consumption, as Gen 1:26-31 was interpreted to say.

The thought here is to guard against human beings relating to their environment as to an object, in which case human beings feel that they can do as they please with the environment. A subject (human beings) to subject (the environment) relationship would afford the environment the necessary respect it deserves.

There is, no doubt, a definite relationship between the human person and his/her environment but I find it difficult to understand it from the standpoint of an “I –Thou” model of relationship.

It would seem to me that this model of relationship exists only between persons. Human relationship with his environment is on a different level altogether. It is a relationship between two un-equals.

It does not follow logically that the relationship between humanity (as subject) and the environment (as object) needs lead to disrespect and destruction of the natural environment.   

Gen 1:26-31 is correct in its assessment that human beings have power and authority. Further, we are subjects operating in our world. It would be fundamentally dishonest to deny these two realities.

The environment does not operate as subject in the world and cannot dialogue and make known its desires.What happens to our environment depends largely on the seriousness with which we accept the responsibility that comes with the power and authority with which we are endowed/invested.

We can use it to destroy our environment and consequently ourselves. Or we can use our power and authority responsibly, as intended by the creator, to nurture and care for the earth and to “bring it along to its fullest possible creational potential.”