Note: Before reading the following arguments, please understand that they are not what I believe. On Wednesdays, I deliberately argue for wrong ideas, challenging my listeners to call and defend the obvious right answer, which is usually far harder than one would expect. This is a summary of what Wacky Andrew will be arguing, not a representation of what real Andrew believes.
~Our view is that humans are special and animals and plants are not. Therefore we exploit them and do not care about them except as means to our own selfish ends.
~Christians and Western Civilization are the reason for ecological damage because we have this attitude of superiority and contempt for the planet.
~We are commanded to subdue the earth, not be friends with it.
~Nature exists for us to use as we will.
~We are supposed to have dominion over the earth. Does that sound like something a granola would say?
~Every conflict between human interests and the interests of nature or of animals result in a win for the humans because only humans are created in the image of God.
~Environmentalists raise up both animals and sometimes even plants or rocks to a status morally equivalent to humans. They cry over trees and squirrels, but not people.
~When you start down the path of caring about the environment, how do you stop from becoming a Buddhist, who believes it is evil to kill a mosquito?
~We always find ways to solve these problems anyhow, so why worry about them?
~Eco-terrorism is the most common kind of terrorism in America.
~Environmentalists are atheistic or pantheistic and at the very least naturalistic, as opposed to being Christians.
Bible References: Genesis 1:1-31, Genesis 2:15, Genesis 3:17-19, Genesis 8:21-9:17, Deut 20:19-20, Deut 25:4, Prov 12:10, Psalm 19:1, Psalm 24:1-2, Psalm 65:8-13, Psalm 96:11-12, Matthew 10:29-31, John 3:16-17, Romans 1:18-20
Response:
Naturalism fails, too.
o From whence come our obligations to care for the planet on an evolutionary worldview?
o We got here by exploitation and dominance.
o There is no basis for ecology as a moral imperative.
o Perhaps as a practical one, but even so, that which is most fit is merely that which survives. Only time will tell whether the ecologists or the non-ecologists were right.
o If we die, well that’s what we deserve. Evolution does not care one way or another.
o Species being destroyed is how all species got here, right?
Conservatism and conservation
o Teddy Roosevelt
o Conserve is at the heart of our very philosophy, right?
Christianity
o It’s not that Christianity and environmental concern are at odds with each other, it’s that most Christians haven’t been doing good theology in their thinking about the world.
o One can make the argument that Christianity compels ecological awareness and also that naturalism is an inadequate source of that very thing as well.
Keller’s four features of Christianity
1. Creation is good
§ Everything is good in Genesis 1, even before there are humans.
§ The world is God’s handiwork
2. Stewardship of Creation
§ Gardeners, cultivate
§ Covenant is to save
· God enters into a covenant with animals and the earth
· They don’t sin
· But we do and have polluted it with our sin
· We have sinned and caused the earth to groan, God wants to save us and the world we contaminated
· Humans, indeed, are the problem. Unredeemed human beings.
§ We need to get on God’s side and work to save the Earth from human sin and destruction and exploitation.
§ We are powerful, the animals and the plants are weak. What is the attitude
3. Fallenness of Creation
§ What’s so bad about species extinction if you’re a secularist?
§ We want to fight the decay and destruction that is all too natural these days
§ We fight disease, for instance, because we view nature as corrupted and fallen.
4. The restoration of Creation
§ Secularism says this world is temporary and will end
§ Other religions say we will depart this world
§ We do not abandon this earth, which is permanent. God restores it to the condition it should always have been in.
§ Will there be trees in the New Jerusalem?
· The Tree of Life
§ Will there be rivers in the New Jerusalem
· The River of Life
What is the Earth
o God’s curio cabinet. He is a very eclectic collector.
o God’s art gallery
o God’s revelation in nature
Scripture comments
o Genesis 1
§ Everything is good BEFORE humans get here
§ He is enjoying it, not discovering it
§ It’s a reflection of His goodness.
o Genesis 8-9
§ Covenant with the whole world and with all flesh
§ The rainbow isn’t only for us.
o Deut 24
§ Treat the animal with respect by letting him eat of his own effort.
o Prov 12:10
§ Righteousness to treat animals well.
o Deut 20:19
§ God counsels ecological restraint to an army.
o Psalm 19
§ The heavens declare the glory of God.
o Psalm 65
§ God cares deeply for the earth and causes it to flourish
o Psalm 96
§ Trees sing the praises of God
§ All a tree has to do to glorify God is be a tree.
§ Trees don’t need humans to have value.
§ They are sacred and have intrinsic value.
§ They are not just potential wood. They have value in themselves.
o John 3:16-17
§ Cosmos is the Greek word for world.
o Romans 1
§ If we are to tell God’s glory from nature, then defiling nature is very much like defiling or altering the Bible.
§ Destroying the world is like burning Bibles.
TREES by Joyce Kilmer, c1917
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree
A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day
And lifts her leafy arms to pray,
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair
Upon whose blossom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems were made by fools like me
But only God can make a tree.
Links:
Can faith be green? Sermon (Tim Keller)
A conversation with a Christian ecologist (NYT)
A Christian farm (NYT Magazine)
Trees, Poem (Joyce Kilmer)
The [Christian] Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis (Lynn White)
Was Lynn White right? (John Richardson)
Comments on Lynn White (JASA)
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