Steve
I remember that time I responded to your article. It was on the grounds of
the Fall as I felt you were arguing that there was no animal death before
the Fall. As there was death some 4 billion years before Adam took a bite
out of whatever fruit it was this is important, as to argue otherwise will
slew our understanding of our natural world.
Surely Iwas TOTALLY right as usual!!!!
Regards
Michael.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Bishop" <stevebishop_uk@hotmail.com>
To: <kbmill@ksu.edu>
Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Friday, May 10, 2002 7:32 AM
Subject: Re: Theological basis for stewardship and creation care
>
> Keith,
>
> Thanks for the post outlining the biblical approach to stewardship. I
> particularly liked the worldview approach. I wondered if you (or anyone
> else) had come across and responded to objections to stewardship.
>
> The Australian philospher John Passmore and the Eastern Orthodox Paulos
Mar
> Gregorios provide three examples:
> (1) Passmore maintains that stewardship 'relates to the Church, not to
> nature'(_Man's (sic) Responsibility for Nature_, Duckworth, 1974, p. 29).
> (2) Passmore also contends that if humanity is to image God, then humanity
> is to nature as God is to humanity. This suggest that nature is
humanityÌs
> servant as humanity is GodÌs servant, thus leaving Christianity open to
Lyn
> White JrÌs accusation that nature is at humnaityÌs disposal.
> (3) Gregorios contends that stewardship reduces nature to Înothing but an
> object given into our hands for safe keeping and good managementÌ (_The
> Human Presence_ , Amity House, 1987, p.88).
> (4) Another, perhaps more recent objection, is that it suggests that
nature
> is Îout thereÌ and human beings are in some sense separate from the object
> of their care.
>
> My own take is (and I dealt with these, in part, in my 'Green theology and
> deep ecology: New Age or new creation' _Themelios_ 16 (3)
> (1991)(incidentally, I was taken to task for some aspects of this article
in
> a subsequent edition of Themelios by Michael Roberts! As ever he was
partly
> right 8-))!!):
>
> (1) Pasmore is guilty of spiritialising Ò or even ecclesiastising - the
> scriptures.
>
> (2) This argument is wrongheaded; even if
> God : humanity : nature
> it does not impy
> nature : humanity : God
> There is no evidence to suggest that the argument is commutative.
>
> (3) Stewardship rather than reducing nature opens it up to new
> possibilities. It brings liberation for creation because it fulfils
their
> God-given roles. Secondly, there is no evidence that nature should be
> treated as an object; the whole premise of stewardship is that the earth
has
> been given to humanity because of GodÌs love and concern for creation: it
is
> his and he made it.
>
> (4) There is some force in this argument.
>
> I'd be interested in what others think.
>
> Steve
>
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