Respect for the natural world in the Bible
Reflections & Discussion Starters
‘Who let the wild donkey go free?
Who untied his ropes?
I gave him the wasteland as his home,
the salt flats as his habitat.
He laughs at the commotion in the town;
he does not hear a drivers shout.
He ranges the hills for his pasture
and searches for any green thing.’
(Job 39:5-8).
In this passage from the final section of the book of Job, God – the ‘I’ in
this passage - is shown as supremely powerful and majestic; a being beyond the
grasp of human thought and imagination. His works of creation, like this donkey,
can be carefully observed and described, but they are also astounding and
unfathomable.
Unlike other ancient Near Eastern religions, the religion of Israel adamantly
refused to countenance representations of God. There was not even a statue of
God for the Hebrews to worship in The Holy of Holies, at the centre of the
Temple in Jerusalem. This was unheard of at the time. The God of Israel was
clearly not, either, a fertility god or a representation of any facet of nature
or natural processes.
In recent years, as concern grows over the degradation of the natural world,
there has been a boom in the creation of neo-pagan religions. Neo-pagans hold no
agreed theology – some are polytheists, some monotheists – but they all venerate
the processes of nature. There is also a tendency to view the God of the
Judeo-Christian tradition as an enemy of respectful, nurturing attitudes towards
the natural world. (Isn’t he the God who, in Genesis 1.28 sanctioned the
dominion of humankind over nature?)
But what does this ‘dominion’ mean? It is complex. Jesus, of course, used a
model of lordship expressed through service. The Old Testament makes it quite
clear from the beginning that the works of God in creation are good – ‘God saw
all that he had made, and it was very good’ (Genesis 1.31). This positive
attitude to the material world is reinforced by the way not just animate
creatures, but also inanimate elements, are repeatedly envisaged alongside
angels and humankind as participating in the praise of God:
‘Praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord from the heavens,
praise him in the heights above.
Praise him, all his angels,
praise him all his heavenly hosts.
Praise him sun and moon …
you mountains and all hills,
fruit trees and cedars,
wild animals and all cattle,
small creatures and flying birds,
kings of the earth and all nations ...’
(Psalm 148)
The passage at the beginning from Job also shows a remarkable awareness and
respect for the wild donkey as an autonomous being. It is precisely its freedom,
rather than its utility for humankind, which the writer focuses on. All of the
creatures and elements which feature at the end of Job are depicted in the same
way. They exist in relation to God – they were created for reasons which God
alone knows - but to which man has no (or only limited) access. This vision,
which recognises the otherness, beauty and autonomous value of all creatures, is
one to which we need to be attentive.
The problem for all traditional world religions – from Christianity to
Buddhism, Islam to Hinduism – is that their foundation texts were written
hundreds, often thousands, of years ago. The dilemmas raised by interpersonal
relationships are addressed from the perspective of each tradition or founding
figure, but the environmental problems which the modern world faces could not be
directly addressed because they did not exist. All traditional world religions
face the difficulty of remaining true to their inheritance while at the same
time responding creatively to such new challenges. Wild donkeys no longer exist
in Israel, neither do the lions, which also feature in Job. They have been
driven to extinction by human encroachment. The thought that they would no
longer live in Israel probably never entered the author of Job’s mind, but
surely the sense of awe with which he views the works of God is one on which a
positive response to the current environmental crisis could be built?
Discussion
