ИПИ Библиотека

In this thin volume, the Acton Institute has assembled a superb group of scholars from the Judeo-Christian tradition to speak their minds on what it means to be a steward of God's creation. The book consists of three position papers, one each by the Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant representatives, that explain their own viewpoints. It also includes the text of the Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship, which resulted from inter-faith dialogue between the three groups. The result is an imminently readable book that challenges us to be good stewards of what God has entrusted us with.

All three traditions emphasize the importance of the doctrine of creation. Regardless of the process itself, Genesis tells us that humans are the apex of God's created order and have been given the role of steward in it. Thus, we are to use, cultivate, and develop environmental resources as responsible individuals.

"The biblical starting point for any discussion of the nature of religious environmental stewardship must begin with the witness of the Book of Genesis: “So God 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 said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth’” (Gen. 1:27—28). In our modern times, however, this biblical vision of the relationship between God, man, and nature is muddled by two false views. The one sees the natural world as the source of all value, man as an intruder, and God, if he exists at all, as so immanent in the natural order that he ceases to be distinguishable from it. The other places man as the source of all values, the natural order as merely instrumental to his aims, and God as often irrelevant.
Genesis presents a radically different picture of how the world is put together. In this account, God is the source of all values–in truth, he is the source of everything, calling it into being out of nothing by his powerful word. Man is part of this order essentially and, what is more, by the virtue of his created nature is placed at the head of creation as its steward. Yet this stewardship can never be arbitrary or anthropocentric, as the old canard goes, for this notion implies that man rules creation in God’s stead and must do so according to his divine will.
The biblical starting point for any discussion of the nature of religious environmental stewardship must begin with the witness of the Book of Genesis: “So God 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 said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth’” (Gen. 1:27—28). In our modern times, however, this biblical vision of the relationship between God, man, and nature is muddled by two false views. The one sees the natural world as the source of all value, man as an intruder, and God, if he exists at all, as so immanent in the natural order that he ceases to be distinguishable from it. The other places man as the source of all values, the natural order as merely instrumental to his aims, and God as often irrelevant.
Genesis presents a radically different picture of how the world is put together. In this account, God is the source of all values–in truth, he is the source of everything, calling it into being out of nothing by his powerful word. Man is part of this order essentially and, what is more, by the virtue of his created nature is placed at the head of creation as its steward. Yet this stewardship can never be arbitrary or anthropocentric, as the old canard goes, for this notion implies that man rules creation in God’s stead and must do so according to his divine will."

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