To begin with, the idea that the earth was given to humans by God can be a basis for valuing it and offers a vitally important obstacle to unrestrained ecological exploitation. “Viewed in terms of the popular scientific understanding,” Norman Wirzba tells us, “nature is simply matter in motion guided by impersonal laws. Viewed economically, nature is a resource ready for us to be appropriated at will. Viewed religiously nature is an expression of God’s joy and love.” This idea of the divine origins of the physical world is central to Western religion. Taken seriously, it could be a guide to a much more sustainable form of life. For in the biblical view, nature is creation, a sublime gift made for us to use but that ultimately still belongs to God.
Jewish ecotheologians have in fact made much of this last point, placing great emphasis on the biblical injunction “Do not destroy” (Deut. 20:19–20), which, as Daniel Swartz summarizes, was initially meant to restrict ecological destruction as a tactic of war: “Do not cut down trees even to prevent ambush or to build siege engines; do not foul waters or burn crops even to cause an enemy’s submission.” And if one is not to cause unnecessary harm to the environment in war, Swartz points out, how much the more so “during the ordinary course of life.” Indeed, this scriptural passage gave rise to Talmudic laws governing personal and economic life. Although these laws (forbidding, for instance, wanton razing of buildings or tearing of clothes) would hardly match the scope of our current problems, adherence to the notion of not destroying (and thus not wasting) would require profound changes in our current mode of life. Those who waste, warned the Talmud, are on their way to idol worship, because wasting indicates a profound loss of self-control. If we examine contemporary consumer society, or the devastated landscapes that surround open-pit mines, we immediately see the wisdom of this point.
I do not believe there is a single “correct” resolution to this disagreement between those who do and those who do not find environmentalism in the Bible. That is because there is always a tension between what the Bible says, its literal words, and what the Bible has meant. Like virtually all other traditional scriptures, the Bible consists of a confusing and often contradictory array of narratives, values, and commands, allowing different generations to define its meaning in ways shaped by their own creativity. In the face of the environmental crisis, ecotheologians of all types are showing that whatever meaning their texts had in the past, for religious environmentalism they must have a different meaning now. These thinkers are finding environmentalism in the Bible because they have been pressured to do so by the environmental crisis. Yet the need to innovate is not an invitation to violate. The sense of the earth as creation, the warning not to waste—these are in the scriptures. In the past, however, such key passages were not used for environmental purposes. Hence the old words must be read anew.
Religious Traditions and Human Mobilization for Saving the Earth
