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So Creation Has a Future

Martin Enge | 06.04.2007 17:29 | Anti-racism | World

The emphasis was not on a rule of the man over the woman. Both should be "one flesh" cooperating in perfect harmony in the most affectionate love community as a single being.. The formation commission of the earth becomes a community project summoning all people.

SO CREATION HAS A FUTURE

By Rudolf Ammann, Martin Enge and Martin Rock

[Patris Verlag, Neuwind 1987]


This book highlights
worries about the future,
challenges to be overcome
and the Christian hope
that insists
young people
are not alone
in solving their problems.
This book gives courage
not to close one’s eyes
to reality/
As in the book
“So thorns bear roses,”
the theme
is a pilgrimage
of young people.

From the inauguration address of German president Richard von Weizacker

The most important task for us who bear responsibility today is a future worth living for coming generations. Our descendants will not ask what future visions we held for them. They will want to know what standards we set for our own world we left for them. What are the foundations of our life today in our time?

In Australia, doctors developed a child out of an embryo frozen for months. An American journal said embryos should be treated with as much respect as frozen peas. Anxious and passionate questions are understandably increasing. Will there be scientifically developed babies? A rigorous shared search for a proper ethic is necessary, not emotionalization. Human exploration is part of free science. Still freedom is not boundless. In many areas, we have exact regulations for dealing with this freedom, for example with property. Is the responsible self-control of science sufficient for human research and its application?

Joseph Kentenich, 1912

Great knowledge of the world and humanity is not needed to know our age with all its progress and discoveries cannot take away inner human emptiness.

Truly, we are not lined up to voice our admiration for the human genius. The human genius has overcome the powerful forces of nature and put them in our service. This genius spans every corner of the world, explores the depths of the ocean, drills the mountain ranges of the earth and soars the heights of the air. With new rays of light, we investigate our whole skeleton. Telescopes and microscopes reveal new worlds daily…

Some time ago, an Italian politician said the greatest danger of recent development was “lower” and “half-civilized” races could increasingly possess the technical means of modern civilization without the spiritual and moral culture enabling their right use. I would rather turn the tables and ask: Are our “higher” developed races making the right use of the modern age’s enormous progress in all areas? Or has our age become the slave to our accomplishments?

Our rule over the gifts and forces of outward nature has not occurred hand in hand with subjugating elementary animal drives in our human breast. This vast disunion, this immense tear, becomes ever greater. So we face the specter of the social question and social bankruptcy if a change is not carried out with all our strength. Instead of ruling our achievements, we become their slaves.

Either-or! Either forward or backward! Probably backward! Aren’t we going back to the Middle Ages, tearing up the rails, cutting the telegraph wires, leaving electricity to the clouds, returning the coal of the earth and closing the universities!

No, never. We don’t want this at all.

Forward! Forward in the exploration and conquest of our inner world through purposeful self-learning! The more outer progress, the greater our inner deepening.

In the future, we must rule our knowledge and not be ruled by our knowledge. We may not rule the different foreign languages corresponding to class goals but in the knowledge we are sheer buffoons in understanding the language of our heart. The deeper our insights in the ebb and flow of nature, the more appreciatively we can manage the elementary forces in our interior.

The degree of our progress in the sciences must be the degree of our inner deepening, our spiritual, mental, intellectual and emotional growth.


From the Declaration on Questions of the Environment and Energy published by the German Bishops conference in the fall of 1980

The person and the world are not in a heavenly or paradise state. Since the relation to God is disturbed by human sin, a tear goes through the relationship of people to creation. Nevertheless god maintains his twofold creation commission to humanity, to rule and protect the world. People have the painful experience: World formation only succeeds in provisionality, travail and under risks. Acceptance of this burden can preserve people from the wrong tracks of idealistic utopia, weary resignation and desperate violence. While our responsibility for creation is serious, the future of creation does not exceed our power to form or destroy it.

God did not create the world as an episode so it falls back again into nothingness… We expect the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. We do not only believe in the immortality of the human soul.


BELIEVING IN THE RESURRECTION

By Carlos Caretto


When you see how the storm mows down forests,
earthquakes wreck cities,
and fire devours your house,
then say to yourself: I believe
the forest will grow again,
the earth will be quiet again,
and I will rebuild my house.

When you hear the rumor of imminent war
and people around you
fall out of fear
because one nation and one kingdom
rises up against another (Mt 24,7),
say to yourself with resolute courage:
Look up and raise your hearts
for your redemption is drawing near (Lk 21,28).
When sin grabs you by the throat
and you think you will choke
and are at the end of your wits,
say to yourself:
Christ rose from the dead
and I will rise from my sin.

When old age or sickness would make your life bitter,
say to yourself:
Christ rose from the dead
and remade heaven and earth.
When the world appears to you like God’s defeat,
Disgusts you with the ruin,
the coarseness, terror and the war that never ends
and when the earth seems to you like chaos,
say to yourself:
Jesus died and rose from the dead
to bring deliverance
and his salvation is already among us.

Believing in the resurrected Christ means something else.

For Mother Teresa of Calcutta, it meant
picking up the dying from the road
and for you to do this also.

For Martin Luther King, it meant
defying death
and risking your life for your brethren.

For Friar Roger Schutz, it meant
opening a monastery as hope for the world
and so you open your house.

Every missionary who sets out
Brings faith in the resurrection.

Every sanitarium for lepers
is a credo in the resurrection.

Every service that you undertake
is an act of faith in the resurrection.

When you forgive your enemy,
when you give food to a starving one,
when you defend the weak,
you believe in the resurrection.
When you have courage to marry,
when you accept the child coming into the world,
when you build your house,
you believe in the resurrection.
When you rise cheerful in the morning,
when you say to the setting sun,
when you go to work with joy,
you believe in the resurrection.

Believing in the resurrection means
embracing life with confidence.
Believing in the resurrection means
trusting God’s brother
and fearing no one.
Believing in the resurrection means
Believing God is your father, Jesus is your brother,
and Mary is your sister and if you will your mother.


HOLISTIC INTEGRATION – PERSPECTIVES OF THEOLOGY

By Martin Enge, b.1961, deacon in Bamberg, Germany


Perspectives of theology on the theme “creation” lack credibility as soon as the biblical foundations are missing. Therefore the biblical creation narratives should be closely analyzed as a central document of the Bible. In a second step, theology can ask about the challenge of the Bible to a rational design of the earth. The third step, the concrete application, should be clarified in the conversation of theology with other disciplines.

THE BIBLICAL CREATION ANRRATIVES

Biblical scholarship distinguishes several tradition layers to today’s text that were edited relatively late around 400 B.C. Two narratives describe the origin of the world in the Book of Genesis (Greek for development and origin of the world). Both texts must be read as testimonies of faith, not as reports of historical facts, scholars are convinced today. They reflect God’s accompaniment with his people Israel and confess God as the God and Lord of the whole world.

THE SEVEN-DAY NARRATIVE (GEN 1,1-2, 4a)

Together with other texts of the Old Testament, the first biblical creation narrative belongs to the so-called “priestly tradition.” This narrative was written down in Babylonian exile around 550 B.C. by priests and showed a special interest in the worship service order.

The seven-day narrative relates how God first created the world and then humans. However the Sabbath, not the person, is the goal of creation as the day when the priests representatively celebrated the rite for the people. The authors of the first creation narrative directed the whole world order and the creation event to the Sabbath and thus to God.

In the heading of the creation narrative “In the beginning,” Elohim (Hebr. For God) created heaven and earth (Gen 1,1). The word “create” reserved to God alone is used very consciously. Elohim alone can “create” in a sovereignty specific to God. In contrast, the person can only “make” something as an artisan or workman. The repetition “and God saw that it was good” proclaims that the whole order of creation succeeded. At the beginning of the creating, the earth was “without form and void” (Hebr. “tohuwabohu,” complete chaos, Gen 1,2). A precisely arranged and well-ordered cosmos arose out of the chaos through the divine word. The creation narrative of the priestly tradition has a striking similarity to Oriental and Egyptian myths of world creation. “God’s spirit” that “moves” over the waters has a parallel in Egypt. In Egypt there is the notion of a primeval bird that “flutters” over the water and holds back the water with its wings.

The person is created as the culmination and crown of creation. A special responsibility and a special dignity come to him or her through the likeness to god (Gen 1,26f). The person is called to be “steward” of the earth by the rule commission over animals and plants. Nevertheless he depends on community with God and sanctification of the Sabbath.

Thus the first creation narrative may not be understood as a natural science account of the earth’s origin. Rather the number seven, the choice of words and the whole composition reveal an elaborate prose with poetic language.

THE PARADISE- AND FALL OF SIN NARRATIVE (GEN 2,4b-3,24)

The second creation narrative of the Bible is older than the first and goes back to 950 B.C. The unknown author is described as a “Yahwist” because he uses God’s name “Yahweh.”

The human situation is interpreted in two opposite pictures. The fall of sin is related alongside the creation of the person. The earliest narrative of the fall of sin speaks of the sin of the man (Hebr: Adam). Later the sin of the woman is addressed. The sin of the man is that he eats a fruit of the tree of knowledge. That the person becomes arrogant and God superfluous through a sheer power orientation underlies this understanding of sin. Haughty Israel was banished from Paradise because Paradise only exists when Yahweh tarries among people.

The Yahwist as a scholar at King Solomon’s court takes up this idea of Israel’s high-handedness. The Yahwist sees Solomon’s foreign policy connections with Egypt as estrangement of faith in Yahweh. Solomon is on the lookout for other people and risks the Yahweh-faith by toying with their treasures and religions. For the Yahwist, the person who reaches for the apple symbolizes Solomon. The Yahwist describes the foreign Egyptian woman whom Solomon takes as a wife for foreign policy reasons (trade relations to Egypt) in the woman who accepts the apple from the serpent and passes it on. The serpent here is a symbol for the foreign cult (not for Satan!) brought to Israel by the Egyptian woman.

The Yahwist does not represent the woman generally as a seducer. Rather he wants to illustrate typical human lapses through this actual example of Solomon and his wife. By risking his relation to Yahweh and worshipping other “gods” or material goods, he becomes a slave to sin and receives his just punishment.

Paradise stands for an original harmony of people with God and nature. The person obtains his breath of life from God (cf. Gen 2,7) and takes possession of his environment according to ancient Oriental ways of thinking. Only the tree of knowledge was withheld from people as a sign of the supremacy of the Creator. “Wanting to-be-like-God” led to the human downfall and the shattering of Paradise harmony. The person sees his own guilt and limitation with his nakedness (Gen 2,25a). The man was to toil in drudgery (Gen 3,17) and the woman bear children in pains (Gen 3,16).

CHALLENGE TO RATIONAL FORMATION OF THE EARTH

The whole history of civilization is subject to the tension between conquest of nature and preservation of nature. Therefore God’s commission to humans “Fill the earth and subdue it!” (Gen 1,28) cannot be understood as a boundless right to exploit nature but demands a moderate rational association with nature. An ecological balance on earth corresponding to the “natural order of creation” can only be attained this way. Perspectives result from the biblical creation narratives that reveal the relation of people to the earth for the ecological discussion. Three central aspects could be brought by theology as key perspectives clarifying the desired conditions.

THE CREATURELINESS OF THE PERSON

“The Lord God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Gen 2,7). In this clear statement of the Book of Genesis, God is proclaimed as the one who takes the initiative and “makes man” (Gen 1,26). In both creation narratives, the person is “only” a creature, a created being, a living organism created by God with the breath of life. On one hand, the priority and absoluteness of the Creator God is emphasized in the testimony of the Bible. God created the world with an order. According to God’s directive, the person should subdue the earth and “rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air and all animals” (Gen 1,28). The plants should “serve as food” (Gen 1,29f) for humans and animals. The Creator gives order to every created thing.

On the other hand, the limitation of humans and the whole creation are also underlined with God’s priority. The reason for the impossibility of a boundless rule of nature in the form of a destructive exploitation lies in God’s priority. The person cannot interfere arbitrarily in the formation of the earth because he is only a creature and must accept the pre-given limits and natural laws of the cosmic order subject to the supremacy of the Creator. Therefore the hallowed seventh day (Gen 2,3) should be consciously preserved for the one who only entrusts the earth to people for stewardship. God is still the owner of the earth! Tilling and preserving (Gen 2,15) allows the person to creatively share in God’s creation while simultaneously always being referred to the mandator.

THE PERSON’S LIKENESS TO GOD

Although the person is clearly subordinated to God according to Israeli-Christian faith, he is still in an exclusive position to the Creator among all other creatures. Of no other creature does God say he is “our image, after our likeness” (Gen 1,26). In this declaration, a unique dignity bestowed to the person entitling him to name all the animals (Gen 2,20) and thus take possession of them. In the seven-day narrative, the human is created on the sixth day as an expression of the perfection and climax (Gen 1,24-31). In the new “Catholic Adult Catechism,” the person is rightly described as the “center and crown of creation.” This special position of the person enables him to be similar to the “perfection of the Creator” like no other creature but still humanly limited.

The primal longing of the person for God is grounded in this similarity-relation. Therefore the person by nature is a religious, God-seeking being. This deep relation to god gives the person his inviolable dignity and authorizes him to healthy self-respect and self-love. At the same time, this position of preeminence also requires an intensive cultivation of the God-relation as an answer to the gift of this dignity and as a constant reorientation to this God of love to form personal life and the earth in this sense. Therefore the reason and wisdom given to this likeness by God obliges a rational and moderate association with the earth.

THE SEXUALITY OF PEOPLE

A sexual differentiation of people is known in both Genesis narratives. We read in the second account: “Male and female he created them” (Gen 1,27).

The garden narrative focuses in detail on the creation of people (Gen 2,7ff). First of all, Adam was created. Because he was alone and had no helper (18), God “made a woman out of the rib taken from the man and brought her to him. Adam said: This is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh” (22-24). Although a position of preeminence came to the man as the first created, the emphasis was not on a rule of the man over the woman. Both should be “one flesh”, cooperating in perfect harmony in the most affectionate love community as a single being. The procreation of descendants was a task beside the likeness and rule commission of man and woman. “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen 1,28).

The formation commission of the earth becomes a community project summoning all people, not only the solidarity of the genders. Creation can only be rationally formed together since everyone is joined together in the organism of the earth. Therefore this sociological dimension of creation also requires an association of individuals with nature that is just to society.


Martin Enge
- e-mail: mbatko@lycos.com
- Homepage: http://www.mbtranslations.com

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