by E. Calvin Beisner
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. All creation belongs to Him (Genesis 1:1; Psalm 24:1).
Though God reveals Himself in creation, the Bible, and His one and only Son, Jesus Christ, He is distinct from and transcendent over creation (Romans 1:25). Those who deny the Creator/creature distinction become futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts are darkened (Romans 1:21).
God made man, male and female, in His own image (Genesis 1:26–27). No other terrestrial life form bears the image of God or is of equal value or priority with human beings (Matthew 10:29–31). Though the earth is the LORD’s, He has also given it to men (Psalm 115:16) and mandated that they be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, and have dominion over everything that lives in it (Genesis 1:28). Therefore human dominion over the earth is, in principle, not sinful, and the possibility of its abuse does not negate the righteousness of its proper use.
Earth and its physical and biological systems are the “very good” effects of God’s omniscient design, omnipotent creation, and faithful sustaining (Genesis 1:31). God would not have made earth susceptible to catastrophic degradation from proportionally small causes. Consequently, wise environmental stewardship will not readily embrace claims of catastrophe stemming from such causes.
Godly human dominion over the earth means men and women, created in the image of God, laboring together to enhance earth’s safety, fruitfulness, and beauty, to the glory of God and the benefit of our neighbors. It does not mean humans are servants rather than masters of the earth. When God had created Adam, He placed him in the Garden of Eden, which is distinct from the rest of the earth, to cultivate and guard it (Genesis 2:15). The instruction to “cultivate and guard” the Garden does not mean, as some modern environmentalists allege, either that man is to “serve and protect” or “worship and protect” the Garden or the earth, or that man is to “worship and hear” God either directly or through the earth or its parts.
A comprehensive understanding of the relationship between God’s placing Adam in the Garden to cultivate and guard it (Genesis 2:15) and His commanding Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue and rule everything in it (Genesis 1:28) entails a growing population that spreads out from the Garden to transform wilderness into garden and ultimately garden city (Revelation 21:2; 22:1–3). Biblical earth stewardship, or godly dominion, is not limited to keeping earth in the condition in which we find it. It follows that the common environmentalist belief that “Nature knows best,” that its transformation by humans is in principle wrong or harmful, is false.
God placed minerals, plants, and animals in and on the earth for His pleasure, to reveal His glory and elicit man’s praise, and to serve human needs through godly use (Genesis 2:5–16; 4:22; Numbers 31:21–23; Job 38–41; Psalm 19:1–6; Psalm 104). One way of exercising godly dominion is by transforming raw materials into resources and using them to meet human needs.
Because of man’s fall into sin, we often fall into materialism, covetousness, and selfish accumulation of possessions (Luke 12:16–21; 1 Timothy 6:10; Colossians 3:5). This does not, however, entail that the production of wealth is sinful. While man is accountable to God’s judgment in all he does with the earth, this does not justify abolishing private property (Exodus 20:15, 17), adopting collectivist economic institutions, or delegating to civil governments—whether local, national, or global—ownership or control of land, natural resources, or private property.
The fall into sin (Genesis 3) led to human abuse of the earth and of fellow humans. In response to man’s sin God cursed the ground so that it would not yield easily even to godly dominion, let alone to ungodly, abusive domination (Genesis 3:17–19). He subjected the whole cosmos to decay and corruption. But He is restoring it, partly in history by obedience to the dominion mandate (Genesis 1:28; Romans 8:18–24), and fully in the New Heavens and New earth of the eschaton (Revelation 21:1–3, 22–27; 22:1–5). All of this is secured by the redeeming death and resurrection of Christ (Colossians 1:14–20). God’s curse on the earth negates neither the dominion mandate (Genesis 1:28) nor the robustness and self-correcting resilience of the God-sustained earth.Due to God’s faithfulness to His covenant, in which He proclaimed, after the Flood, that He would sustain the cycles on which terrestrial life depends (Genesis 8:22), godly dominion remains possible.
Human multiplication and filling of the earth are intrinsically good (Genesis 1:28). In principle, children, lots of them, are a blessing from God (Psalm 127; 128).Earth is not overpopulated; indeed, “overpopulation” is a meaningless term, since it cannot be defined by demographic quantities like population density, growth rate, or age distribution. Hence, godly dominion does not require population control or “family planning.” People are not primarily consumers and polluters but, as the image of God implies, producers and stewards.
When the Bible speaks of God’s judgment on human societies because they have “polluted the land,” the “pollution” in mind is consistently not chemical or biological but moral—the pollution of idolatry, adultery, murder, oppression of the weak, and other violations of the moral law of God expressed in the Ten Commandments (Psalm 106:38; Jeremiah 3:1–10; 16:18). This does not, however, mean that we are free to harm our neighbors and the earth by careless disposal of what we more typically think of as pollution. The commandments against murder and theft, which by implication also prohibit our intentionally or negligently injuring our neighbors or harming their property, prohibit that.
Because of sin and the curse, risk is inherent in every human activity (Hebrews 9:27), so it is proper to balance risk against risk.Cost/benefit analysis (Luke 14:28) is an important aspect of godly dominion (Proverbs 14:4). The mere existence of risk does not make an activity immoral. Proper environmental prioritization will address greater risks before lesser risks. Since resources spent to reduce one risk cannot be used to reduce another, it is wise to allocate resources where they will achieve the greatest risk reduction. Environmental policies that address relatively minor risks while harming the poor—such as opposition to the use of abundant, affordable, reliable energy sources like fossil fuels in the name of fighting global warming; the suppression of the use of safe, affordable, and effective insecticides like DDT to reduce malaria in the name of protecting biodiversity; and the conversion of vast amounts of corn and other agricultural products into engine fuel in the name of ecological protection—oppress the poor and are unjust.
Because a clean, safe, healthful, beautiful environment is a costly good, wealthy societies can better afford environmental protection and restoration than poor societies. Economic development is, therefore, not a threat to environmental quality but an indispensable precondition of it. Private ownership of land and other resources, because it harnesses God-given human incentives to overcome the “tragedy of the commons,” is the best institutional economic system for environmental protection.Collective economic systems are comparatively poor at protecting and improving natural environments.
Intentional exaggeration, as practiced by many environmental advocacy organizations, or minimization, as practiced by many industries, of environmental risks or the effectiveness of various means of addressing them is sinful.
Godly dominion is a responsibility for everyone at all times, regardless of eschatological perspective. Our obligation to love our neighbors requires godly dominion, whether the earth is to remain and be transformed, or be annihilated and replaced, and whether Christ’s second coming and the final judgment are moments away or thousands of years ahead.
Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash.
