AVS 49th International Symposium
    Advancing Toward Sustainability Topical Conference Tuesday Sessions
       Session AT-TuA

Paper AT-TuA7
The Garden, the Wilderness, and Covenant: Formulating a Theological Mandate for Sustainable Development

Tuesday, November 5, 2002, 4:00 pm, Room C-210

Session: Benign Manufacturing, Climate Change, International Trade and World Economy, and Theological Considerations of Sustainable Development
Presenter: S. Meyers, Harvard Divinity School
Correspondent: Click to Email
The 20th Century witnessed a debate between paradigms of economic development, namely the State-led and Neo-liberal models. Each have gained ascendancy and "orthodoxy" at different points in time but neither have brought forth their promised fruits to many of the peoples who continue to dwell in abject poverty and both have contributed to worldwide environmental degradation. Yet these economic debates contain theological notions of humanity's relationship to creation which predate them be several millennia. The Hebrew Bible provides three symbols through which humans understand the earth. The first two symbols are found in the beginning of the book of Genesis and are those of the Garden of Eden and the chaos of the wilderness. The third is found later in Genesis as the covenant made between God and all of creation following Noah's flood and in the covenant that formed the People of Israel in the book of Exodus. The Garden of Eden symbol underpins neo-liberal theory which sees the earth as a gift from God to be exploited and, through human ingenuity and God's divine will, never to prove human consumption unsustainable. The wilderness imagery corresponds to state-led development which advocates authoritarian rule, central planning, and an underlying Malthusian belief that the earth can not sustain humanity unless nature can be carefully controlled and subjugated. Both symbols are anthropocentric and can never produce environmental ethics that are not fundamentally related to an understanding of the earth as the object of human dominion. Covenant, however, is a theocentric perspective that recognizes God as the Creator of both humans and all of nature, and denies a natural order that puts humans as the "lords of the earth." Building on Moltmann's Trinitarian process, basic moral axioms can be created that form the basis for reinterpreting humanity's relationship to nature and God and to create a theological underpinning for new paradigms of sustainable development.