Benedict on responsibility

"Human beings let themselves be mastered by selfishness; they misunderstood the meaning of God’s command and exploited creation out of a desire to exercise absolute domination over it. But the true meaning of God’s original command, as the Book of Genesis clearly shows, was not a simple conferral of authority, but rather a summons to responsibility."

- Benedict XVI, Message for the celebration of the World Day of Peace 2010.

Since he is sure to be much in the news today (becoming the first Bishop of Rome to abdicate his See in almost 600 years), I thought a quote might be apposite.
H/T Liz Jakimow.

Bauckham on Bible and Biodiversity

In 2010 theologian and biblical scholar Richard Bauckham published a book called Bible and Ecology: Rediscovering the community of creation. It is short (178 pages) and covers the surprisingly (to some) strong scriptural bases for taking our responsibility and privilege to care for creation seriously. I highly recommend it. Around the same time, he gave this talk on biodiversity, which summarises some of the main themes of his book. The book covers more ground than this, but the talk might give you a taste.
H/T Mike.

Below are my notes on the talk, which are generally the parts of it that struck me as interesting, new and/or put well, without trying to be comprehensive:

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Introduction: We are confronted by mass extinction of species today, likely to keep getting worse. What do the scriptures have to say to this situation?

1. OT recognises biodiversity
The poetic account in Genesis 1 repeats the formulaic phrase "of every kind" or "according to their kind".

2. God delights in biodiversity
God saw that it was good. The sheer abundant diversity is one of the major focuses of the passages and God delights in that. Also in Job. Final chapters of Job are a panoramic tour of the creation in the imagination.

3. All creatures live to glorify God
Whole of creation worships God. This is the corollary of God's delight in his whole creation. Animals don't have words, or even consciousness in many cases. Simply by being themselves, they bring glory to God. Other creatures are fellow-worshippers.

In the ancient world, many people worshipped creatures. Creatures are creatures, not gods who should be worshipped. On the contrary, the creatures themselves worship God and our proper response is to join in their praise of God.

This is thus a de-divinised creation, but not a de-sacralised creation. Non-human creatures are not divine, but they are sacred to God. Creatures are our fellow-worshippers (Psalm 148), therefore don't instrumentalise them, reducing them to merely a tool to use in the satisfaction of our desires.

4. Various creatures have specific habitats
Psalm 104 is a picture of interdependence. Some creatures depend on others for their life. A first step in the direction of recognising ecosystems. Can't consider each species independently of others.

5. Human kinship with other creatures
Humans have sometimes been elevated above the natural world as though we didn't belong to it. We've tried to relate as demi-gods, rather than fellow creatures. Catastrophic results. Humans are distinctive among the creatures, but the creation narratives make our kinship with other creatures quite clear. Genesis 1 places creation of humans on the same day as creation of all other land animals. We don't get a day of our own. Genesis 2 offers a more vivid and emphatic depiction. Ontological relation signified by a play on words: 'Adam (man) from 'Adamah (ground/dirt/soil). We are earthy creatures. We belong with the earth and with the other creatures of the earth. Other creatures are not dispensable.

6. Humans and other creatures are fellow creatures in the community of the earth
A community of creatures is worth highlighting as a useful model for thinking about our place in creation. Term is not from scripture, but like many of the terms we use to talk about what the Bible teaches, I think it encapsulates a way of thinking which we do find in scripture. Most potent expression of this concept is in Genesis 9, which records a covenant between God and the earth's creatures. All the creatures of earth are interested parties. With them, we form the community sharing a common home. We have no right to evict others from the home that God has given us. Let us have no illusions about this community, which contains much conflict and violence. These are not eradicated in the Noahic covenant, but they are restrained; a price is put on life. God doesn't surrender his intention that his creatures should share the earth that he has given. This covenant is the first step towards renewing and perfecting.

7. Adam as the first taxonomist
Genesis 2: unlike Genesis 1, animals come after Adam. Naming them is not an act of authority but of understanding.

8. King Solomon as naturalist
The embodiment of wisdom. And he spoke of trees.

9. Subdue the earth
The double blessing/command at the end of Genesis 1 implies two distinct relationships: relationship to the earth vs relation to other living creatures. Humans are to subdue the earth, exercise dominion over other creatures.

In understanding these words, first note that it is not only humans which are told to multiply and be fruitful and fill, birds and fish are too. We can assume that creatures of the land are also to be fruitful and multiply.

However, only humans are told to fill the earth and to subdue the earth. Only by means of agriculture were humans able to fill the earth (to live in large portions of available land). To subdue is to take possession and till the soil to make it produce more food than it would otherwise do.

Are humans to supplant other animals? Humans are told that the produce of the earth is not intended to feed them alone, but also the living species of the earth. We are not to fill the earth and subdue it to the extent of leaving no room for the other creatures. Other creatures have a right to use of the soil. Human right is not unlimited but must respect the rights of other creatures. We are one creature among others.

10. Dominion
This second command in relation to other creatures tempts us to forget our own creatureliness and to set ourselves over against the other creatures. This is only possible if we take it out of context. Dominion is a role within creation, not over it. Other creatures are first and foremost our fellow creatures. Our distinctive role can only take place once we appreciate that. Dominion is not the only way we relate to other creatures. Dominion means a caring responsibility, not exploitation. This is widely agreed. We have a responsibility for our fellow creatures. This is a royal function and so it is worth recalling the only passage in the Law of Moses that refers to the role of a king within the people of Israel and there it is emphasised that the king is one amongst his brothers and sisters, one amongst his fellow Israelites (Deuteronomy 17.14-20). The king is not to be exalted above his subjects, and in the same way humanity is to wield authority for the benefit of other creatures.

11. Dominion begins from appreciating God's valuation of his creation.
This is an implication of the Genesis 1 six day creation account. Before we humans read of our responsibility for other living creatures, we are taken through a narrative of creation that stresses God's delight in each stage of his work. We are invited to share God's appreciation of his creation before we learn of our distinctive role within it. Our approach to exercising dominion should be rooted in that fundamental appreciation of the created world as God has made it.

12. Dominion is to be exercised in letting be just as much as in intervention
We are used to thinking of dominion as activity. In modern period, human task conceived as constant ongoing activity to transform the world into one that would suit us much better. Dominion seemed to require from us constant interfering with creation and constant attempts to change and transform it. Now, there is little left that hasn't been affected by human activity. There is a lot we would really like to preserve as it is. It is vital that we re-conceive Genesis dominion as letting be. This is clear later in the Mosaic Law in discussions of how to relate to the land and its creatures. Notice the Sabbatical institutions. First a weekly Sabbath: no work even by domestic animals. Also a Sabbatical year: fields, vineyards and orchards left to rest. So that the poor of your people may eat and wild animals. Even within the cultivated part of the land of Israel wild animals are expected to live. This is a symbol of respect for nature.

UPDATE: I took these notes some months ago while listening to the talk online at the link above. Some proportion of the above text is verbatim quotes from Prof Bauckham, though I now don't remember which parts are summaries of his message and which are his exact words. I think that all the titles at least were his own, and many of the phrases are likely to be either precisely or somewhat close to his words. If anyone has a problem with these notes as they stand, then please let me know so that I can adjust them.

Ecological responsibility and Christian discipleship II: The Community of Creation

Part two of a three part series blogging a sermon preached at St Paul's and St George's 9 am service on 30th January 2011.

I. Human planet: Welcome to the Anthropocene.
II. The Community of Creation: Genesis 1.
III. Recycle or repent? Our response.

The Community of Creation: Genesis 1
The opening chapters of Genesis are a rich poetic myth, not a literal quasi-scientific chronology. I’m simply going to assume this today,* since our focus is on the theological meaning of this passage for our discipleship. Let us notice the highly structured symbolic nature of the text and explore what it means for us in a world that is changing so rapidly and profoundly under human influence.

First, the earth and all its life find their origin in God. We are talking not simply of "nature" but of creation, a much stronger and richer term implying the personal handiwork of the Creator. God is the main actor in this narrative. He speaks and things happen. "Let there be light. And it was so." The image of majestic ordering through the divine word stands in contrast to almost all other ancient creation myths, which are usually dominated by violence and conflict. There is no competitor to God, no original hostility or tension. Creation is not fundamentally opposed to or insignificant for God's interests and purposes. It is fundamental to them.

Second, there is both great diversity and internal order to the creation. Notice that on the first three days God separates out various domains and then on the subsequent three days God fills each of these domains with their appropriate residents. Living things are ordered into their various kinds in all their stunning variety. And these elements of creation are related to one another. God doesn't simply plonk things down, but by the fifth and sixth days, he is calling upon the waters and the land to bring forth life appropriate to those locations. Although Genesis does not offer a full-blown theory of ecology and biodiversity, it gently encourages us to notice diversity and interdependence in the created order. The natural sciences are not doing something odd or artificial, but have a noble task in paying attention to the details and structure of this ordered diversity.

Third, God takes pleasure in this order and diversity. Another refrain throughout the text is that God saw that it was good. We are not simply to notice the diversity and interdependence in which we find ourselves, the passage invites us to join in God's appreciation for it. This is particularly important for us urbanites, I suspect. So much of how we structure our lives separates us from the rhythms, the mysteries and the delights of the non-human world. How do you ensure that your life remains connected to the fundamental goodness of life and the richness of our situation? How do we keep wonder, awe and a sense of enchantment alive?

Notice God calls the world good even before there are humans in the narrative. Creation is not dependent upon us for its goodness, but God cherishes it for itself. It is precious prior to and outside of any consideration of human benefit or usage. Something I have been re-learning from my daughter is that a pig is not simply so much as-yet-unbutchered ham, pork and bacon; a pig is a joy and can inspire laughter and squeals of glee simply for its piggyness.

Despite what is coming in Genesis 3 and all that follows, the foundational goodness of God's creation is never erased or entirely suppressed. Sin doesn't obliterate creation; it disorders things that remains themselves good.

We've noted three basic points: That God is the origin of all that is, hence we speak of creation, not merely nature. That creation is both structured and varied, so we speak of a created order. And that the created order is fundamentally and irrepressibly good.

So what then of us humans?

Three more basic points:** we are not the climax of this story; we belong first and foremost with the other creatures as members of the community of creation; and we are called to a special and often misunderstood role.

First, despite what is often claimed, we are not the climax of the creation narrative, that honour belongs to the Sabbath, the seventh day on which God rested from all his work, the day in which things are simply to be themselves before God (Genesis 2.1-3). Much more can be said about this image, but for the moment, let's just notice that we're not the centre of the universe, we're not the final point of the show.

Second, we are members of the community of creation. In the parallel creation account in Genesis 2, this is vividly depicted through the man (ha'adam) being fashioned out of the ground (ha'adamah). Adam is not so much a name as a pun, a play on words to remind us that humanity comes from humus, from the soil. We are made from dirt and we belong to the earth. In Genesis 1, we see that humanity doesn't get a day to ourselves, but we share the stage with the other land creatures. We are blessed by God and told to be fruitful and multiply. But then so are all the other creatures. The blessing of fruitfulness is not something we are to pursue at the expense of other creatures; we flourish or wither together. If our filling the earth pushes out other species, leaves no room for the fish and the birds and the plants and the other animals to also flourish, then we're doing it wrong. God directs the humans to their sources of food in verse 29, but then in verse 30 he reminds the humans that other creatures also need food. We are not fundamentally to be in competition with other species. We stand or fall together as a community.

And third, as a member of the community of creation, humanity is given a special task: to be the image of God, to be a visual representation, a constant reminder of the divine presence and pleasure in creation. This task is not a privilege we are to exploit, as though we were the only species that matters, but it is a weighty responsibly we are to shoulder. We are to treat the created order as God treats it, to care for it, to nurture it, to bless it and guard it, to coax it into greater fruitfulness so that the earth continues to bring forth living creatures of every kind. The uncaring exploitation of "natural resources" to feed the mouth of industrial economies to ensure ever upward and onward growth of national or global GDP is a cruel perversion of this task. May we seek God's forgiveness for ever assuming that the pursuit of economic growth is what is meant by being made in the image of God.

Instead, we see what it means to be made in the image of God by observing Jesus, whom the New Testament says isn't just in the image of God but is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1.15). This is what human dominion is meant to look like, not lording it over the rest of creation, but being the servant of all (Philippians 2.5-11).
*Ironically, my previous sermon to this congregation was also on Genesis 1 and was titled "Genesis or Evolution?" . This was not a title I chose and my point was to question the implied exclusivity of the "or" in it.

**Do you like how I sneakily took the usual three point sermon and doubled it? Once we get to part three, you'll see that I actually tripled it. Of course.

To a Mouse

Tonight is Burns Night, a national evening (week, really) of celebration here in Scotland (and around the globe) in honour of Robert Burns. Below is one of his best known poems and for good reason. It was penned by Burns after his plough had turned over the nest of a small field mouse. Enjoy! (Or repent, as appropriate.)
Translation help for those struggling with Burns' Scots can be gained here.

Wee, sleekit, cowran, tim'rous beastie,
O, what panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle!

I'm truly sorry Man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An' fellow-mortal!

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen-icker in a thrave 'S a sma' request:
I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,
An' never miss't!

Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
It's silly wa's the win's are strewin!
An' naething, now, to big a new ane,
O' foggage green!
An' bleak December's winds ensuin,
Baith snell an' keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' wast,
An' weary Winter comin fast,
An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro' thy cell.

That wee-bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,
But house or hald.
To thole the Winter's sleety dribble,
An' cranreuch cauld!

But Mousie, thou are no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

Still, thou art blest, compar'd wi' me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But Och! I backward cast my e'e,
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I canna see,
I guess an' fear!

- Robert Burns, To a Mouse, 1785.

Hart on costly comfort

Some discussions of the problem of evil distinguish between a pastoral response to those who might be hurting and an intellectual and/or theological and/or philosophical response to satisfy the inquirer. Hart argues that this is a false dichotomy. In particular, whatever we say about God's sovereignty we ought to be able to say to someone in grief. Can we really tell a father who has just lost four of his five children in the tsunami that 'his children had died as a result of God's eternal, inscrutiable and righteous counsels, and that in fact their deaths had mysteriously served God's purposes in history, and that all of this was completely necessary for God to accomplish his ultimate design in having created this world'?

Words we would not utter to ease another's grief we ought not to speak to satisfy our own sense of piety. ... For if we would think it shamefully foolish and cruel to say such things in the moment when another's sorrow is most real and irresistibly painful, then we ought never to say them. ... [S]uch sentiments would amount not only to an indiscretion or words spoken out of season, but to a vile stupidity and a lie told principally for our own comfort, by which we would try to excuse ourselves for believing in an omnipotent and benevolent God. In the process, moreover, we would be attempting to deny that man a knowledge central to the gospel: the knowledge of the evil of death, its intrinsic falsity, its unjust dominion over the world, its ultimate nullity; the knowledge that God is not pleased or nourished by our deaths, that he is not the secret architect of evil, that he is the conqueror of hell, that he has condemned all these things by the power of the cross; the knowledge that God is life and light and infinite love, and that the path that leads through nature and history to his Kingdom does not simply follow the contours of either nature or history, or obey the logic immanent to them, but is opened to us by way of the natural and historical absurdity - or outrage - of the empty tomb.

- David Bentley Hart, The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami?
(Eerdmans: 2005), 99-101.

Twelve points for the location of the photo. Maybe more if you're specific.

De-deathification

We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.         - Romans 6.9

Conservative views of the resurrection are often dismissed as 'mere resusitation', as though Jesus were simply restored to the same life he left off a few days earlier. However, Paul's comment here reveals that there is a 'something more'. Death no longer has dominion over him - implying that it once did. Jesus was not merely returned to life again; he was (to use a technical term) de-deathified. There is now a death-free zone in creation, a piece that has experienced liberation from the otherwise universal bondage to decay* (Romans 8.21). In this way, Jesus is the firstfruits of a universal restoration, the first taste of a world freed from death, the spearhead of a future ubiquitous de-deathification.
*Also known as the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Eight points for each link to other pictures of graveyards on this blog.

Heaven: not the end of the world III

God is in his heaven...
Starting here, here (and here), this little series still has some distance to go.

I began with the idea that the basic meaning of heaven is what you see when you get knocked out. Or rather, what you first see when you wake up lying flat on your back.

A second common biblical use of 'heaven' is to refer to the dwelling place of God. He is called 'the God of heaven', though also the God of heaven and earth, apparently referring not to his location, but to the extent of his dominion (i.e. over everything). Yet sometimes the more specific God in heaven (or in the heavens) is used, and this seems to be associated fairly directly in some cases with vertical elevation, though Solomon does acknowledge that the heavens can't contain him, and the psalmist speaks of him being exalted above the heavens. What effect might it have on our thinking if we translate 'heaven(s)' (shamayim) with 'sky' (or 'skies')?

This elevated location is taken to imply (or is itself a symbol of) God's ultimate superiority, with consequences for human actions.

When we turn to the New Testament, heaven is associated with God's rule (symbolised by his throne), is also the location of angels (this point was not directly made in the OT, although the voice of the angel of YHWH came from heaven). Heaven is the origin of God's audible voice. Most famously, however, heaven as the location of the Father is woven into the opening line of the Lord's prayer.

Yuri Gagarin, the first human to orbit the earth said upon his return, ""I looked and looked but I didn't see God" (or maybe Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev put these words in his mouth). I wonder whether the writers of the Bible might have laughed at him. Not, however, for thinking that he might be travelling to the dwelling place of God. Simply for thinking that God might be visible when he got there.
Series: I; II; IIa; III; IV; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX; X; XI; XII; XIII; XIV; XV; XVI. Ten points for getting even the country for this pic. Photo by CAC.
UPDATE: important discussion in comments.