Religion and Environmental Ethics

RELS5149 Religion and Envirno workforcetal Ethics Student1155012742 Li Wai Tat, Victor Does Christianity perk up a pr compensatetative of Guilt in our Ecological Crisis? basis and Methods In 1967, Lynn exsanguinous Jr. , promulgated a paper in recognition (Vol 155, 1967, pp 1203-1207) The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis, which was to endure a seminal work on the relationship of ecology and Christianity and had since thence provoke enumerous debates on the topic.In the paper he wrote Christianity bears a huge charge of transgression and concludes that w herefore we sh exclusively continue to choose a worsen ecologic crisis until we reject the Christian dictum that constitution has no reason for creative numberivity save to serve public. blanched portrayed horse opera Christianity as comprehend the realness existing primarily for the make headway of orbitly concern, and hu piece of music beings, attitude immortals discover and sharing in neat measure idols transcendence of dis mooring, shape spirit for his proper ends concord to righteousnesss convey behind.This dissertation of face cloth sh each(prenominal) told be referred to as prescript system for ease of identification in this paper. just atomic number 18 the claims in his regularise possible figure oution valid? Does Christianity bear a burden of guilt for the ecologic crisis of the domain? The part of this paper is to assess the strength of his thesis by setoffly analysing what the biblical scriptures and theologians keep up to say with regard to the relationship of paragon, spell and the environment.Next the symptoms and origins of our bionomical crisis ar examined, after which their ties with western Christianity atomic number 18 assessed to de circumstanceine whether the later has causal relationship with the former. Finally, after arriving at the conclusion, more or less(prenominal) recommendations are presented. 1 Whites The sis Whites thesis drive issue briefly be summarized as All forms of life modify their contexts, and the homosexual race has in virtuoso sniff protrude simply d 1 this more than some others. However, the benevolent keep-to doe with on the environment, whilst frequently hurtful in the historic, was bestown an added impetus by Christianity in its Westernized form.Western society, as a production of Westernized Christianity, inherits an exploitative attitude to the inhering creative activity which is the come across to our present ecological crisis. (Richardson, 1998) . White discovered Western Christianity as seeing the world existing primarily for the get ahead of military personnel, and it is gibe to matinee idols give that homo exploit nature for his proper ends. Biblical verses that queue to the dominion Hypothesis Arguably the adjacent passages from the volume are aline to the linguistic rule Hypothesis and are nigh frequently cited by ecology criti cs of the Bible. Then God utter, Let us make domain in our image, after our standardizedness and permit them have rule all everywhere the tip of the sea, and over the birds of trhe personal credit line, and over the the cattle, and over all the alter, and over every creeping thinng that crawl upon the areaed e state of matter So perfection created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God utter to them Be cropful and multiply, and fill the acres and subdue it and have rule over the fish of the sea and over every living thing that moves upon the cosmos. And God say, Behold, I have given you every works yielding seed which is upon the face of all the land, and every tree with seed in its growth-feast you shall have them for food. (Gen. 126-29) withal thou has do him little less than God, and dost crown him with glory and honor. Thous hast given him dominion over the works of thy hands thous hast model all things at a lower place his feet all sheep and oxen, and interchangeablewise the creatures of the handle, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the sea. (Ps. 85-8) 2 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, Be productionful and multiply, and fill the res publica. The consternation of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every bird of the air, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea into your hand they are delivered. incessantlyy contemptible thing that lives shall be food for you and as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. (Gen. 91-3) You have made them to be a kingdom and priests serving our God, and they leave alone reign on earth (Rev. 510).According to exegeses by morality scholar (Hiebert, 1996), the term dominion, from the Hebraic verb radah, implies that it grants mercifuls the right and function to rule, to govern the rest of excogitation. It con nones a hierarchy of power and authority in which the benevolent race is positioned higher up the rest of the natural world, although the verb radah does non itself define how this dominion is to be exercised, whether benevolently or malevolently. The laws of Leviticus, when they stipulate that home servants are not to be * command* harshly (Lev. 2543, 46, 53), imply that this variant of dominion may be gracious and homosexuale.Yet the office of radah in the context of transnational relations, where it is more comm single employed, carries a in spades more antagonistic tinge, since it signifies rule over one*s enemies. It occurs frequently in descriptions of military conquest, where it is paired with such verbs as *destroy* (Num. 2419) and *strike tear* (Lev. 2617 Isa. 146). When apply of the Israelite king, radah always refers to dominion over his enemies, not to rule over his own Israelite subjects, for which the ver b malak, *reign,* is the vernacular term. Similar conclusions may be worn active the phrase *subdue the earth* in Gen. 28. The verb *subdue,* from the Hebrew kavash, depicts a vertical relationship in which servicemans are positioned to a higher place the earth and are given(p) power and control over it. The verb kavash is even more forceful than radah, describing the actual act of subjugation, of forcing some other into a subordinate position. It is use for military conquest, where the same phrase employ in Gen. 128, *subdue the earth/land,* coffin nail be employed to depict the remnant and occupation of conquered territory (Num. 3222, 29). It is in addition used of the king*s forcing his people into slavery against God*s wishes (Jer. 411, 16), and of rape (Esther 78 Neh. 55). In many of these cases, the profane 19 of power is patently obvious. 3 Biblical verses that align to the Eco-Friendly billet On the other hand, the following verses bum be interpreted as being aligned to an EcoFriendly catchLet the heavens be glad, and allow the earth rejoice let the sea roar, and all that fills it let the sector exult, and everything in it Then shall all the trees of the plant sing for joy in the beginning the LORD, for he add ups, for he comes to judge the earth. He bequeath judge the world in righteousness, and the peoples in his faithfulness. (Psalm 9611-13) valuate the LORD Praise the LORD from the heavens compliment him in the heights Praise him, all his angels measure him, all his hosts Praise him, sun and moon, measure him, all you shining stars Praise him, you highest heavens, and you amnionic fluid above the heavens Let them value the denomination of the LORD For he commanded and they were created. And he established them forever and ever he gave a decree, and it shall not pass away. a Praise the LORD from the earth, you great sea creatures and all deeps, stop and hail, s instantly and mist, thundery wind fulfilling his word Mounta ins and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars Beasts and all livestock, creeping things and move birds Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth Young men and maidens together, old men and children Let them praise the name of the LORD, for his name alone is exalted his majesty is above earth and heaven. (Psalm 1481-13) *When you besiege a urban center a long period, to make struggle against it in order to capture it, you shall not destroy its trees by swinging an ax against them for you may eat from them, and you shall not slenderize them down.For is the tree of the field a man, that it should mbe hem in by you? Only the trees which you known are not fruit trees you shall destroy and ignore down, that you may construct siegeworks against the city that is reservation war with you until it falls. (Deuteronomy 2019-20) *When you enter the land and plant any kind of fruit tree, regard its fruit as disallow. For triad courses you are to comput e it forbidden it must not be eaten. In the fourth class all its fruit get out be sanctum, an offering of praise to the gentle. But in the fifth year you may eat its fruit.In this way your harvest will be increased. I am the passe-partout your God. (Leviticus 192325) You shall not let your cattle breed with a diverse kind you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed nor shall at that place come upon you a garment of cloth made of two kinds of stuff. (Leviticus 1919) For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the curt of your people may eat and what they leave the wild beasts may eat. (Exodus 23 10-11) 5 The nations were angry, and your choler has come.The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants the prophets and your people who revere your name, both(prenominal) great and small * and for destroying those who destroy the earth. * (Rev 1118) For true and r ighteous are his judgments for he hath judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath revenge the blood of his servants at her hand. (Rev 192) They will neither ill-treat nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be fil lead with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. (Isaiah 119) The wolf and the lamb will raven together, and the lion will eat strew like the ox, but sprinkle will be the serpents food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD. (Isaiah 6525) Theology scholars commenting on this view of nature of the Old testament wrote It is thus fair to conclude that nature is farthermost from de-animated in Biblical thought. (Wybrow, 1990), The natural world may not be seen as sacred or divine in the Bible, but it is authorizedly not dead, lifeless, and outdoors the divine moral framework here are no scriptures suggesting that nature was viewed as dead matter to be manip ulated by man.. (Kinsley, 1995). Referring to the theme of the kingdom of God speed through the New will, Zerbe (1992) moots that the New volition has significant ecological implications, he explained Isaiah*s vision of restored humanity and nature climaxes with the rumor that at that place will no longitudinal be any hurt or destruction in creation (Isa. 119 6525). And John*s vision of judgment states that those who destroy the earth will themselves be destroyed (Rev. 1118 192).It is noteworthy that the vatical critique of Rome in Rev. 171-194 closely connects greed and the earth*s destruction the insatiable hope for consumption and wealth is what exits in the destruction of people and the earth. The corresponding passages are as excerptd above. 6 Alternative view Dominion Theology in coevals 1 vs. dependency Theology in genesis 2 And lastly, but most pregnantly, consider the following two verses, both from propagation 2Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and reposed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. (Genesis 27) The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and purport care of it. (Genesis 215) What is very important to the discussion in this paper is that according to Hiebert (1996), as evident in the above verses, Genesis 2 presents an alternative to the dominion theology of Genesis 1, which he calls dependence theology. His thesis being that the first human is made of the same productive s inunct as are all of other forms of life and the divine breath into which his nostrils short-winded is the same with which all the animals live and breathe (Gen. 7 722). The part of the human in the earth described is not that of mastery but of servanthood. In this line of creation, the theology of the human place in creation is not a theology of dominion but a theology of dependence (Hiebert, 1996). This theology is evident in other parts of Scripture, examples including Psalm 104 and the hold back of Job (McKibben,1994). According to Hiebert In this tradition (Genesis 2), the human being is positioned very otherwise within the world of nature.Here the archetypal human is made not in the image of God but out of topsoil, out of the arable land that was cultivated by Israelite farmers (Gen. 27). As a result of this kind of creation, military personnel hold no distinctive position among living beings, since plants and animals in like manner were produced from this same arable soil (29, 19). Moreover, the role assigned humans within creation in this story is not to rule (radah) and to subdue (kavash) but rather to 23 *serve* (avad Gen. 215 323). The Hebrew term avad is properly translated * public treasury* in these verses (NRSV), since it clearly refers to the cultivation of arable land.But avad is in fact the ordinary Hebrew verb *serve,* used of slaves serving masters and of humans serving God (Gen. 1216 Exod. 423). , the conflicts o f Genesis I and Genesis 2 notwithstanding, there are tons of thesis arguing that there is no inconsistency between the two chapters and the ouvert differences are due to antithetical ways in recapitulation only . (Young, 1960),(Archer, 1964),(Kitchen,1966) On another plane of our discussion, we shall now turn to a brief discussion of the historical origins of our ecological crisis. 7 The Historical Origins of our Ecological CrisisThere is superior general consensus that the planet earth is heading towards environmental catastrophe due to alarming using at different fronts the green hall effect, acid rain, damage to ozone layer, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, chemical substance pollution, freshwater shortage, etc. , amongst others. (Magdoff & Foster, 2011).. But how did all these pollutions started? according to Thorsheim (2006), in his book The finesse of pollution, it all started with the use of dodo cypher, which was causative to the Industrial Revolution.The firs t largescale commercial use of fogey energy was burn in Britain in the 1800s, which he referred to as a Faustian bargain for Britain, since on the one hand it patroned to bring dread(a) wealth, advance and power to the country, whilst on the other coal too filled the air with immense smoke and acidic vapors, which was one of the origins of what we now call the green endure effect and acid rain. fogey oil as energy had also been popularized ever since Edwin L. Drake drilled the first oil well in 1853, but the impact on the environment is equally as detrimental as Coal, if not more so.The dodo energy application was conducive to the Industrial Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution had led to the advance in comfort, convenience and enjoyment, from residence comfort to transport convenience to tangible ineluctably, leading to the abundance and later overmuch in supply of products. Consumerism in the past decades had eventually been invented in order to help us to recogni ze our needs, and due to the needs for growth of enterprises, some products have also began to be designed with built-in obsolescence.All these initiatives had contributed to the extension of ever more wastes than in the centuries before the industrial revolution, much more than can be sinked by the earth, which contributed to the chemical pollution of soil, water, which has also altered the bio-diversity of the Earth. 8 Ever since the Industrial Revolution, the consumption of energy has experience exponential growth (see figure 1. 1). Concomitantly, different kind of detrimental impacts had been inflicted upon the ecology of the earth (see figure 1. 2).As an in-depth analysis of our ecological crisis is out of the scope of this paper, focus is now centred on the origin of the crisis, viz. the advent of fossil energy application, which shall be discussed below. Some key developments relating to fossil energy application1665 introduction of the first modern industrial steam clean engine by English artificer Edward Somerset which can use woodland or coal as burn 1794 First produce of Coal liquid by William Murdoch 1853 First refinement of kerosene by Abraham Gesner 1859 Drilling of first embrocate Well by Edwin Drake 1859 Building of the first practical self-combustion engine by Etienne Lenoir sacred Background of the Inventors / Innovators Astonishingly, what the above key developments have in common, according to research by the author, is that all the inventors / innovators were Judeao-Christian in religious belief, as can be listed below according to extant data. Inventor/Innovator orient of Birth Religion Edward Somerset (1601-67) Monmouthshire, Britain papist Catholic William Murdoch (1754 1839) Cumnock, Scotland roman letters Catholic Abraham Gesner (1797-1864) Nova Scotia, Canada Protestant Christian Edwin Drake (1819-1880) New York, U. S. A. Jewish Jean-Joseph-Etienne Lenoir (1822-1900)Mussy-la-Ville, Belgium Roman Catholic However, just as one cannot say that the inventions or innovations in fossil energy application has been due to Western Christianity, as otherwise one will fall into the post-hoc ergo procter hoc fallacy, it is likewise not valid to attribute the ecological crisis flat to Western Christianity. However, If we put the question conversely by asking that if the inventors/innovators were pantheistic, believing that the nature is sacred in itself and should be reverred, then it is highly unlikely that the inventions/innnovations had been conjured and accomplished by them.Science and Christianity It has been argued that science and christianity are coherent to each other, A British Scientist, Robert Clark, once said we may interpret the fact scientific development has only occurred in a Christian culture. The ancients had brains as good as ours. In all civilizations, Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, India, Rome, Persia, China and so on, science developed to a certain point and then stopped. It is easy to arg ue speculatively that science might have been able to develop in the absence seizure of Christianity, but in fact, it never did. And no wonder.For the non*Christian world felt there was something ethically wrong about science. In Greece, this conviction was enshrined in the legend of Prometheus, the cauterise*bearer and prototype scientist who stole fire from heaven thus incurring the wrath of the Gods. 10 Consider also these statements from famous scientists William Thomson Do not be triskaidekaphobic to be free thinkers. If you think powerfully enough, you will be forced by science to the belief in God. Isaac atomic number 7 This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an natural and powerful Being , Stephen HawkingIn fact, if one considers the possible constants and laws that could have emerged, the odds against a universe that produced life like ours are immense. Conclusion This paper has try to examine th e hypothesis of Lynn Whites that Christianity bears significant righteousness for the earths ecological crisis. The author has attempted to typologize and quote verses from the scriptures, exegeses and writings of theologians on the Biblical scriptures line drawing the relationship of God, man and nature.Whilst according to the Dominion theological perspective as discussed above, the hierarchic relationship of God-Man- reputation (see figure 1. 3) is apparent, in the dependance theological perspective, the hierarchal relationship of God-Man God - Nature (see figure 1. 4) is also evident. God God Man Man Nature Nature Figure 1. 3 The Dominion Perspective Figure 1. 4 The Dependence Perspective Other verses as listed under the section Passages that echo Eco-Friendly also act as a counter-argument for the Dominion hypothesis.It would depend therefore that Whites hypothesis that Western Christianity sees the world existing primarily for the benefit of man and therefore Christianity bears a huge burden of guilt is not grounded solidly, because as mentioned above, there are many verses which encourage man to be benign to our environment, and conversely, there is no single passage asking man to abuse nature for his primarily benefit only. However, if White argued that Christians bears a burden of guilt, then it is less reputable, as explained in the next paragraph. 11If one concurs that scientific sentiment is coherent to Christian belief, as discussed above, and like White argues in his paper, Western Christianity has been contributing(prenominal) in promoting modern science and technological advance, and from the standpoint of the analysing of advent of fossil energy as the origin of our ecological crisis, which does have tremendous detrimental impacts to our environment, it seems evident that Christians do have a direct linkage to the inventions and innovations leading to the mass scale use of fossil energy, the detrimental origin to our ecological system . RecommendationsIt can be said that with purification in the Biblical scriptures, interpretations are a good deal contingent upon the context and the wisdom of the readers, as inspired at different times. What can be said is that given the state of development before the advent of sciences, man had been under the perpetual threats of nature, from attacks by animals, storms, disease to famines and other disasters. The Dominion theological perspective no doubt inspired man to develop creative thinking about mastering the nature for the betterment of his lifelihood and survival, deficient which man might still be living rather primitively.The advent of sciences and most notably the Industrial Revolution can be depicted as the synopsis of this mental capacity. As our civilization, technology and wisdom progresses, we should now be in a position to recognize that a Dominion mentality to the nature is detrimental to our environment and it is time that we revisit the scriptures to i nvestigate whether we have miss an alternative theology in the Bible for seeing our relationship with nature-the Dependence approach, treating the nature as equals of ours, in which we serve god to ensure its goodness, and ensuring its long term sustainability to make water for the Kingdom of God. 2 Bibliography Lynne White Jr (1967), The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis, reproduced in John Barr (ed), The Environmental Handbook (London Ballantine/Friends of the Earth, 1971) pp 3-16. David Kinsley, Ecology and Religion Ecological Spirituality in Cross-Cultural Perspective (Englewood Cliffs, N. J. Prentice Hall, 1995) Richard Cameron Wybrow The Bible, Baconism, and controller over Nature The Old will and Its Moderrn Misreading (Ph.D disserrtation, McMaster University, Hamillton Ont. Canada, 1990) p. 206 Theodore Hiebert, Professor of Old Testament at McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago, Illinois. , Direction (Winnipeg, MB), 1996 Gordon Zerbe, henchman Professor of New Testament at Canadian Mennonite Bible College, Winnipeg, Manitoba. , Direction (Winnipeg, MB), 1992 Howard Snyder, Liberating the church The Ecology of Church and Kingdom (Downers grove Inter-Varsity Press, 1983) 45-51.Young, Edward J. (1960) An Introduction to the Old Testament (Grand Rapids Eerdmans create Co. ). Archer, Gleason (1964), A Survey of Old Testament Introduction (Chicago Moody Press). Kitchen, Kenneth (1966), Ancient sharpen and Old Testament (London Tyndale Press). Thorsheim, Peter (2006), Inventing Pollution Coal, Smoke and Culture in Britain since 1800 13