Two sides of the same battle

Even believers end up defending a theistic universe rather than the biblical cosmos. Eliminating mystery as a consequence of Protestant critiques of allegorization (p. 330),“ even believers end up reading the Bible as if it were a treatise on such a universe; in short, you get the emergence of young earth creationism (p. 330). Indeed, we only get the so-called war between science and religion once the modern cosmic imaginary has seeped into both believers and unbelievers; at that point, “these defenders of the faith share a temper with its most implacable enemies” (p. 331). In other words, no one is more modern than a fundamentalist. This is why the “face-off between ‘religion’ and ‘science’ ” has a “strangely intra-mural quality” (p. 331). But this supposed “pure face-off between ‘religion’ and ‘science’ is a chimaera, or rather, an ideological construct. In reality, there is a struggle between thinkers with complex, many-levelled agendas” (p. 332).—James K. A. Smith, How (Not) to Be Secular, 72

It's not divine!

Perhaps one of the most significant affirmations which the Old Testament concept of creation makes is that nature is not divine. The Genesis creation account stresses that God created the moon, sun, and stars. The significance of this point is too easily overlooked. Each of these celestial entities was worshipped as divine in the ancient world. Many of these were worshipped as gods by Israel’s neighbors. By asserting that they were created by God, the Old Testament is insisting that they are subordinate to God, and have no intrinsic divine nature.—Alister McGrath, Theology: The Basics (2nd ed.), 41

Augustine on creation, part 3 (final)

Although Augustine clearly believes that creation involves the universe having a beginning, he does not limit God’s creative activity to that beginning. God’s creation activity continues, both in the sense that he maintains and conserves the world in existence, and in the sense that God’s creative activity includes bringing into existence processes that continue over time.—Evans, A History of Western Philosophy, 142

More Augustine and creation

Creation for Augustine is also ad extra; that is, God creates the world not from his own nature but as something distinct from himself. (This is a view that is increasingly challenged by some contemporary theologians who have adopted “panentheism.”) God is immanent in creation in the sense that it reflects his nature. He is present in all of the world in the sense that he is aware of it all and can act at any time and any place, but the creation must be clearly distinguished from the Creator.—Evans, A History of Western Philosophy, 142

Augustine and Creation

In Augustine’s thought creation takes the place of Plotinian emanation. God’s creation is not a necessary effusion of his being, but a free and sovereign act. Besides being free, God's creation is ex nihilo, out of nothing, rather than, as in Plato’s Timaeus, a reworking of a preexistent material reality. Since matter is itself God’s creation, Augustine maintains that matter itself is not bad or evil. It is true that it is bad to place more value on the material and visible than on the nonphysical and invisible. God is more important than God’s creation. However, that creation is material is not in itself a bad thing. Thus Augustine moves away from the Platonic view that evil is the result of the immaterial soul’s being embodied.—Evans, A History of Western Philosophy, 142

There's an order here, and it matters

This can be seen from the order of the statements about the Imago Dei and the mastery of Nature. The former must come first; the latter follows naturally from it. Man does not become human through culture and civilization. But civilization and culture become human when the man who creates them is truly human. The true human quality of man, however, is rooted in his relation to God, in the acceptance and realization of his destiny for love and for eternal life. When, instead of this, man seeks his supreme end in culture and civilization, and puts this in the place of God, and turns it into an absolute, the germ of inhumanity has been introduced into his life. A civilization and culture which has severed its connexion with God, and thinks more of achievement than of persons, necessarily becomes inhuman. It loses its true centre, and thus disintegrates into sectional spheres and sectional interests, each of which comes into conflict with the others, and tries to develop itself at the cost of the rest. True civilization and true culture can only develop where the cultural creation and activity is directed and ordered from a centre which transcends culture. A culture or civilization which is indifferent to morals and religion is bound to degenerate. Religion and morality, however, are identical, where the God of Holy Love is known as the foundation of all being, and His will as the norm of all morality; that is, where man knows himself to have been created by God for love, and for communion with the God of love, in faith in Jesus Christ.—Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption, 68

<idle musing>
Boy. He's certainly describing out culture right now, isn't he? But the antidote is right there: We were created in the image of God in order to love God, who created us for that purpose. And out of that love, all the rest flows.

And that doesn't mean culture wars! That means self-emptying sacrificial love, just as he's been saying throughout the book so far. Creation began by God's self-limiting of Godself; how can we do any less? "Unto the least of these…"
</idle musing>

On being truly human

Man's decisive position above Nature, however, is attained in the fact that he does not worship it as divine. Man's distance from Nature presupposes that he knows God as the Creator of the World, as the One who stands above the whole creation. So long as man regards Nature as divine—(as is the case throughout the pagan world)—he is not really its master, he has not really risen above it, and he is also not really capable of being truly human. When, as is the case to-day, he falls back into the habit of treating Nature as divine, inevitably he will once more lose his humanity. On the other hand, however, man also loses his true human quality when he believes that this consists in his mastery of Nature, in his civilization, or even in his technics. Civilization—in the broadest sense—is no guarantee of “humanity” (Menschlichkeit). On the contrary, where it is not subject to a Higher Power, it becomes perverted into something inhuman.—Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption, 67–68

<idle musing>
Wow! There's a lot going in in that passage, isn't there? We are between two gulf: Worshiping nature and losing our true humanity; or, just as dangerous, and the one we are probably most guilty of in the West, thinking we can control nature and therefore seeing ourselves as gods.

A good dose of healthy humility would be help! And a recognition of who we are: We are created in the image of God. We are created to love God, just as he loves us. And that also means loving our fellow humans and all that that entails, and loving creation, which means being good stewards of it.

Quite a charge, that. May we prove willing, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to take it on and fulfill it!
</idle musing>

Made in the image of God

It is a very significant feature of the Old Testament Creation narrative that all other creatures are called into existence by the commanding word of the Lord, but man, as it were, by a divine decree: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” This clearly differentiates the creation of man from that of all the other creatures. It is not human arrogance to believe that he is the crown, the goal of creation. He is so—not only because he is the last in an ascending series, but because, by his very nature, he has been appointed for this. For in man alone can God truly glorify and communicate Himself, because here alone can His love be received by an answering love, because here alone can His Word be answered with a free response. It is foolish to imagine that the greatness of the universe is a counter-argument to this “childishly anthropocentric” way of thinking. What has a quantum to do with a quale! Man, who through his mind can think the universe, discover its laws, and estimate its extent, is greater than the universe. This Idealistic statement is not contradicted by the Bible; it only needs to be modified. The true greatness of man is not his reason, by which he learns to know, but it consists in the fact that he has been made for communion with God and his fellows. This includes the superiority of the Subject over the Object, but not the opposite.—Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption, 66–67

More from Brunner on Creation

So this world, whose different successive states are described by the various natural sciences (astrophysics, geology, etc.) and are causally connected, is for faith a work of the Divine Creator, Creation. Just as the judgment of the art critic does not question the analysis of the chemist, but on the contrary, presupposes it, without bothering about details (“with certain chemical ingredients called ‘colours’, the artist has been able to say this or that”), so the conviction of the Christian believer is not shaken by the scientific description of the scientist; without troubling himself about details he takes it for granted. God has created the world in such a way that to scientific knowledge His Creation represents a series of definite stages in a definite causal connexion. The Creation is the invisible background of Evolution; Evolution is the visible foreground of Creation. Faith alone grasps that invisible aspect; science grasps this visible aspect. Evolution is the mechanism of creation; creation is the spiritual source and the Final Cause of Evolution.—Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption, 40

Brunner on Creation

The so-called “Mosaic” story of Creation is not only a wonderful testimony to the divine revelation, but it is also the product of a very primitive view of the world. Hence it tells the story of Creation with the aid of conceptions which, without ceasing to be vessels of divine revelation, are such that their intellectual outlook is in conflict with modern knowledge. The Biblical story of Creation is bound up with the picture of the world current in antiquity, which no longer exists for us. The failure to distinguish between a particular world-view and religious truth has made ecclesiastical theology first the enemy, and then the laughing-stock of science. At the present time theology as a whole usually fails to recognize the significance of these facts for modern man. This whole conflict might have been avoided if the Church had known how to make a distinction between the vessel and its content, between the view of the world and the statement of faith. Since even down to the present time the Church is still out-of-date on this point, we must try to give at least in outline some indications for the solution of this problem; the fact that it has been neglected for far too long, has been, and still is, a serious hindrance to the faith of countless men and women.—Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption, 28–29

All that is not God

For the Christians, as for the Jews, the story did not begin with all that is but with God’s creation of all that is not God. The world had a beginning. It had not always been here but was instead created by the one and only God and was distinct from him. The story that unfolds in Scripture is thus the story of God’s dealings with all that is not God.—One True Life: The Stoics and Early Christians as Rival Traditions, 216

Demiurge? or Creator?

God is the One who absolutely determines all things, and is determined by none. He is conditioned by nothing, therefore, not even by a “Nothing”. Were He to be thus conditioned He would not be Creator, but simply a demiurge. All that existed “before” all creation was God and His Word. The Creation has its foundation and its origin in God alone. “For He spake and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast”. “In the beginning was the Word … all things were made by Him”. This too is the meaning of the sublime story of Creation in the first chapter in the Bible! “God spake … and it was done.”—Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption, 10

Unfortunate reversal

Behind the line of argument here [Rom 1:23] would seem to be the biblical tradition, stemming from Gen 1:26–28, where human beings, created in the image and likeness of God, are given dominion over the rest of creation (fish, birds, animals, reptiles), a motif given more poetic expression in Psalm 8 (esp. vv 5–8). Idolatry represents the summit of “futility” (v 21) in that it has human beings submitting themselves in worship to the creatures over which they were meant to rule. This perverts the whole raison-d'étre of the non—human created world, subjecting it to “futility” (8:30).—Brendan Byrne, Romans, Sacra Pagina (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2007), 38; quoted in Conformed to the Image of His Son, 93

Stop it!

And God intends to liberate the world from this “bondage to decay,” which is evidence of God’s continuing care for creation. In the meantime, humans live out their likeness to God by having dominion over the world, which means nurturing it, not dominating and exploiting it. The ecological crisis, insofar as it is humankind’s doing, which science indicates it is, is a violation of the ethical implications of the biblical narrative even if caused partly by Christians. Christianity itself, understood as what the Bible reveals about God and the world, forbids rape of the environment.—The Essentials of Christian Thought, 189

But don't worship it!

Ethically, then, the point of the creation story of Genesis and the entire Bible’s witness is the call to care for God is good creation while avoiding worshiping it. Idolatry is a major theme of the biblical narrative; it is the very root of sin and evil—setting creation or some part of creation up as God and worshiping it is wrong because God alone is Lord and creation belongs to him. At the same time, denigrating nature or any part of it as evil and/or exploiting it is wrong because it belongs to God and caring for it is part of what it means to be human.—The Essentials of Christian Thought 188 (emphasis original)

<idle musing>
And this is the flipside of Friday's post. We don't exploit, but we don't worship creation either. We are stewards, called to care for it.
</idle musing>

Stop the exploitation!

God’s assignment of the human to have dominion never hints at permission to exploit, let alone ruin, nature; it remains part of the “image and likeness of God” and there is a call to care for creation and be God’s created cocreator in restoring it to its original intention.—The Essentials of Christian Thought, 188

<idle musing>
Indeed. I have never understood the mindset that thinks that because it is all going to go up in smoke anyway, let's assist in the destruction. From the time I was young, I was taught to conserve nature, to treat it with respect, to leave things better than I found them.
</idle musing>

Hymn for today

1 *All creatures worship God most high,
lift up your voice in earth and sky,
alleluia, alleluia!
Thou burning sun with golden beam,
thou silver moon with softer gleam,
O sing ye, O sing ye, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

2 Thou rushing wind that art so strong,
ye clouds that sail in heav’n along,
alleluia, alleluia!
Thou rising morn in praise rejoice,
ye lights of evening, find a voice,
O sing ye, O sing ye, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

3 Thou flowing water, pure and clear,
make music for thy God to hear,
alleluia, alleluia!
Thou fire so masterful and bright,
that givest all both warmth and light,
O sing ye, O sing ye, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

4 Dear mother earth, who day by day,
unfoldest blessings on our way,
alleluia, alleluia!
The flow’rs and fruits that in thee grow,
let them God’s glory also show,
O sing ye, O sing ye, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

5 And ev’ryone, with tender heart,
forgiving others, take your part,
alleluia, alleluia!
Ye who long pain and sorrow bear,
sing praise and cast on God your care,
O sing ye, O sing ye, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

6 And thou, most kind and gentle death,
waiting to hush our final breath,
alleluia, alleluia!
Thou leadest home the child of God,
as Christ before that way hath trod,
O sing ye, O sing ye, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

7 Let all things their Creator bless,
and worship God in humbleness,
alleluia, alleluia!
To God all thanks and praise belong!
Join in the everlasting song:
O sing ye, O sing ye, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

*Or, “All creatures of our God and King, / lift up your voice and with us sing” (this is the version I grew up with, from the Methodist Hymnal of 1964 [published in 1966])

Lyrics from Hymnary.org, a wonderful resource for hymn lyrics and background information on the composers, authors, and translators of hymns.

Silent scream

At the behest of an unrestrained market, we have in just over two centuries depleted goods it took millions of years for nature to accrue. Future generations may look back on us and, mashing up the verb squander and the noun scoundrel, call us something like “squandrels.” In any event, the damage already done by climate change is considerable. Beyond the overwhelming science, we can see with our own eyes the melting ice caps or the ice fishers unable to venture onto Lake Michigan in the winters of 2019 and 2020. Creation is speaking, even shouting now. How much more blessed we will be—cocreatures and coworshippers all, men and women, rocks and trees, dogs and bees—if humans relearn how to hear creation’s voice, not just at a scream, but at a whisper.— Naming Neoliberalism: Exposing the Spirit of Our Age,169–70

In cooperation with, not in competition with

Accordingly, in the face of neoliberal capitalism, which envisions creation only as exploitable nature, an apocalyptic perspective calls the church and the world to exercise not merely or primarily power over creation but power with creation. We may—we must—long and work for an economics that responds to creation gently and attentively. And as the climate crisis demonstrates, we must work for a sustainable economics, not one that assumes and promotes infinite growth in a finite world. Such an economics “does not idolize or fetishize nature, but it affirms that salvation is cosmic in scope, and it enacts a participation in Christ in which the sacramentality of all nature is affirmed in proclaiming God’s glory. The question is not so much whether we are to evangelize nature as whether we will allow ourselves to evangelize with nature and to be evangelized by nature”—which already, by biblical testimony, is constantly and copiously praising God.

All told, though we need not deny the place of the market, we must recognize that it does have a place—not as the all-encompassing and all-defining framework of being but as within, limited, and constrained by a surrounding and suffusing social and ecological matrix. Within that matrix, it should serve the rightful and prospering ends of society and all of creation. Its own survival depends on this.— Naming Neoliberalism: Exposing the Spirit of Our Age, 168-69 (embedded quotation from Stone, Evangelism after Christendom, 220)

<idle musing>
I would add, our survival depends on it as well! Relatedly, see this video of Sandra Richter on what the Old Testament says about creation care (compliments of Jim Eisenbraun).
</idle musing>

Exploitation vs. worship

Human solidarity with all of creation is twofold. First, humans are created by God with all other creatures. Second, humans, like the entirety of creation, are created toward the end of worshipping and praising God. We are creatures alongside other creatures. And those creatures, like us, find their fulfillment in the worship of the God of Israel and Jesus Christ. When we exploit creation, we abuse fellow creatures and coworshippers.

An apocalyptic frame disallows seeing the earth as a wreck from which some human individuals are rescued. Instead, Christ’s apocalyptic work is about the re-creation of the cosmos, human and nonhuman, toward the end that it be in proper relationship with God and its myriad cocreatures and coworshippers. Nor do we correctly understand apocalypse if we imagine creation—except for some lucky humans—being destroyed, consumed in fire. The apocalyptic fire is a purifying and transforming fire, not one of simple destruction. As J. Christiaan Beker puts it, “The apostle [Paul] is not charged with simply pronouncing the end of the world to the world. Rather that charge must be executed in the context of enlarging in this world the domain of God’s coming world because God’s coming world envisages the transformation of the world’s present structures and not simply their dissolution.”— Naming Neoliberalism: Exposing the Spirit of Our Age, 167–68 (embedded quotation is from Long, Augustinian and Ecclesial, 155, 249–50, emphasis original)