address, Woolwich Community Health Care Centre, St Jacobs, Ontario, F 7 1995

Bryant, M. Darrol

English

Wilfrid Laurier University

ConsensusVolume 21Issue 2 Aspects of Ecumenity Article 511-1-1995Creation Theology: A JourneyM. Darrol BryantFollow this and additional works at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensusThis Studies and Observations is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion inConsensus by an authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended CitationBryant, M. Darrol (1995) "Creation Theology: A Journey," Consensus: Vol. 21 : Iss. 2 , Article 5.Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol21/iss2/5Creation Theology: A JourneyiM. Darrol BryantProfessor of Religion & Culture,Rension College, University of WaterlooLike most of you, I grew up in a tradition that focused allof its attention on the twin themes of sin and redemption. Wewere, as we said in our liturgy every Sunday, created “sinful andunclean” . But all was not lost since “Christ had redeemed us”from “sin, death and the power of the devil” . It was this “GoodNews” which I was urged to receive in faith. This message hascharacterized my Christian experience through most of my life.But already as a summer supply preacher in Lutheranchurches in Minnesota and North Dakota in the early 1960s, Ibegan to express my dissent from certain aspects of that tradi-tion by adding the word “fallen” to the description of our na-ture. Then while studying theology at Harvard Divinity SchoolI began to realize that the Christian faith was, formally, morethan the theme of redemption—as vitally critical as it was andis. I think it was my encounter with the Orthodox criticismof Augustine that I first learned that the first thing to be saidof humanity is that we are created in God’s image. And thento realize that our humanity unfolds, even our fallen human-ity, within the context of a creation that God looked upon andsaid, “It was good.”When I was finishing my doctoral studies at St. Michael’s,the Gatholic school in the University of Toronto, I began tohear more fully the great Catholic tradition, as well as, throughmy good friend, Henry vanderGoot, the creation themes ofCalvinism. Now after more than 20 years of teaching courses inthe history of Christian thought, I have become fully persuadedthat the Christian faith is, as I like to put it, a three articledfaith in God the Creator, God the Redeemer, and God theSpirit.80 ConsensusThe first article of the Creed we tend to take for granted.It rolls off our tongue with nary a thought. “I believe in Godthe Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth.” Where isthe controversy here? Today, we might assume it is around theword “Father”. But in its origins in the 2nd century, this wasnot the issue. The first article was probably even more con-troversial than the second article in this context. The reasonwas the presence within the Christian community of gnosticChristians, many of whom believed that God was not the cre-ator of heaven and earth. Rather, they believed, the world inwhich we find ourselves was the creation of a lower god, and itwas intended to entrap our spirit in the realm of matter andthe flesh. But the view of the early father, Irenaeus, Bishop ofLyons, was to prevail. Here was his version of the 1st article:. . faith in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heavenand earth, the seas and all that in them is... ” As he explained,“... first, one must believe that there is one God, the Father,who made and fashioned everything and brought being out ofnothing, and, while holding all things, is alone beyond grasp.”But in “all things” is included this world of ours, with human-ity [man] in it....^ This is echoed in the words of Tertullianwhose Regula Fidei said, “. . . one God, who is none other thanthe Creator of the world. ...”^For Irenaeus, the consequence of this affirmation was cru-cial. As the Creation of God, this earth, this world, is ourhome. It is the fitting context for human life as that life of hu-manity unfolds from the Creation to Consummation. It is goodand it is a gift. We need, I believe, to reaffirm that truth in ourown time where a sense of this world as some perverse place istoo much with us. But we also have a new circumstance thatrequires our attention.Now, while Christianity has sought to avoid the belief thatwould identify the Creator with his Creation, it has also af-firmed with the Psalmist that “The earth is the Lord’s and thefullness thereof... ” (24:1). This creation reflects and embod-ies the Glory of God. Again, as the Psalmist declares, “Theheavens are telling the glory of God; and the Armament pro-claims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, andnight to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor aretheir words, their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes outthrough all the earth, and their words to the end of the world”81F1ICreationiI(19:1-2). It is this earth that we live in; it is a world that weishare, as St. Francis of Assisi said, with Brother Sun and SisterMoon, with Mother Earth and Sister Water. ^ It is a creationthat is, as the 12th century mystic Hildegaard of Bingen sawin her vision, enlivened by the Cosmic Christ. “I gleam in thewaters and I burn in the sun, moon, and stars. With everybreeze as with invisible life that contains everything, I awakeneverything to life....And thus I remain hidden in every kind ofreality as a fiery power ...For I am life.”^ But what has hap-pened to this theology of creation, to this recognition of thecosmos as sacrament?In the modern world, it has been overwhelmed by a view ofthe created world which does not regard the world in terms ofits intrinsic dignity as creation but instead regards it as “merestuff”. Christian thinking about creation has thus faded intothe background as Christian thinkers failed to meet the chal-lenge of “modernity” which believes that the notion of God is“unnecessary”, the idea of a Creator a leftover from a moresuperstitious time. We have become enthralled by the new sci-ences and technologies of mastery. We too have come to believethat the world can be understood wholly within itself, as thedominant voices of modernity proclaim. And that means, inthe modern view, that the Earth is “mere matter” rather thana living cosmos straight from the hand of the Creator.And even within the Christian world we get confused aboutcreation. We think of it as an event back there, at the begin-ning. But as Karl Barth proclaimed in our century, it is anever-present, on-going event within God. Creation is not over,as we should glimpse when we are present to the birth of an-other child or any life, in the cycle of the seasons, in the wonderof seed that falls into the ground and dies while giving life toabundant foods and fruits, in the wonder of a winter morninglike this morning, in the processes of the universe itself givingrise to novas and supernovas all the time.The reasons why we lost creation in modern Christianity aretoo many to review here. Partly, there was the dreadful battlewith evolutionary theory which rejected purpose in the name ofrandom selection and a competitive struggle of the fittest/thestrongest; partly it was being confused about a science thatdiscloses the web of life with a mentality that seeks to dominate82 Consensusand master life. It is partly our failure to honour our Creatorin the manifold things of creation.Rather, I want just to make a two-sided general point. Onthe one hand, since the Reformation, we have been overly pre-occupied with Redemption. And, on the other, since the riseof modernity we have been on the defensive in relation to Cre-ation. How do we learn anew to speak of God as Creator, tosee anew the glory of God in this remarkable Earth?This is the task ahead. We are confronted with a profoundecological crisis. We are faced with a terrible crisis becauseof the denial of the created dignity of the human and naturalworld. These are not separate issues. They are deeply inter-twined with one another. But I can only indicate that and notdevelop it here.^The first note of a theology of creation is that we begin tospeak of the Glory of the Lord of Greation by speaking of thebeauty and wonder of Greation itself. In recent decades wehave begun to see a reawakening to the beauty and wonder ofCreation. We are beginning to see that God is present to usin the wonder and miracle of the Greation, from the marvel ofour bodies and minds to the flow of the waters and the dancingof the clouds. Just as we wonder at the birth of a child, weshould wonder at the myriad gifts of life and being in all itsdiversity.One of the most articulate voices pointing to the need fora renewed theology of creation is Thomas Berry. We need, hesays, to foster the deep awareness of the sacred presencewithin each reality of the universe. There is awe and reverencedue to the stars in the heavens, the sun, and all heavenly bod-ies; in the seas and the continents, to all living forms of treesand flowers; to the myriad expressions of life in the sea; to theanimals of the forests and birds of the air.”'^The second note is a recognition of what we have lost andthe need to overcome what Berry calls “our technological con-finement”. We must see what we have lost—and continue tolose as more than 1000 species disappear each year due to ourindustrialized way of relating to the earth. As we become dom-inated by “Voltaire’s Bastards”, we forget that “even the mostprimitive tribes have a larger vision of the universe, of our placeand functioning within it, a vision that extends to celestial re-gions of space and to interior depths of the human in a mannerCreation 83far exceeding the parameters of our own world of technologicalconfinement.” SAnd the third note is to begin to act to protect our gloriousearth from those mentalities of mastery that would turn thismarvelous Creation into “mere stuff” to be manipulated forprofit and power.There is so much to be said here, but I will short circuitthat in order to bring it back to our local context and the situa-tion of Elmira, where the water was contaminated by UniroyalChemical Co. The local situation is part of the global crisiswe face that has been generated by the modern technologiesof mastery that are disfiguring and destroying the ecologicalfabric of our planet at an alarming rate. The water crisis inElmira, generated, in this local instance, by the more thanhalf a century of appalling procedures for dealing with wasteby Uniroyal Chemical, has been my awakening to the necessityto recover a vital doctrine of Creation. The point is not tobash Uniroyal but to speak for the Creation that we have beengiven to steward and against a way of relating to the earth thatis destructive. 9 The Canagagigue Creek and the Grand Rivershould not be treated as sewers, nor the soil as a dump groundto absorb toxic waste.We need an awakening to God’s glory in Creation, one thatresults in (1) wonder, the astonishment of being itself in allits ever-unfolding diversity, from the unfolding of the universein an endless space and over times we cannot reckon, to theblossoming of the cherry trees and the flowing of the water, tothe winds that blow and the worms present in the soil, fromthe glory of the universe to the wonder of new life again andagain. Here, Christians can not only recover their own pro-found heritage of Creation as the glory of God, but also learnfrom other traditions which speak, as does this native prayer:“Grandfather, Great Spirit, Today I sat for a short while in thethundering silence of your solitude. And as I sat there I sawwith my limited vision. The power and the sacredness and thebeauty of your Creation, I give thanks for this new day. .. ”10(2) An awakening that leads to respect for the intrinsic dignityof what is given to us in creation—our own bodies and ourwhole earth; and (3) the ability to live with creation even as itlives with us. We are daily sustained by a creation that pre-cedes us and sustains us, and it is that creation that is not ours84 Consensusto squander, but is the heritage unto the seventh generation,for ever and ever.Notes^ This was first presented at a breakfast meeting of the Woolwich Com-munity Health Centre, St. Jacobs, Ontario, February 7, 1995. It in-volved staff of the Centre and members of the clergy from the area. Mypoint in these reflections is to explore the theology of creation in orderto underscore that our proper relationship to creation is not dominationbut partnership; not mastery but mutuality; not “stuff” but mystery.Fm grateful to Rev. Clint Rohr and the Centre for the invitation.2 See St. Irenaeus, Proof of the Apostolic Preaching^ trans. by J.P. Smith,S.J., No. 16 in Ancient Christian Writers (New York: Newman Press,1952) 50ff. Here Irenaeus remarks that “this is the first and foremostarticle of our faith” (p. 51). See also the selections from Irenaeus inHugh Kerr (ed.). Readings in Christian Thought (Nashville: Abing-don, 1966) 27-36. “The rule of truth we hold is, that there is oneGod Almighty, who made all things by His Word, and fashioned andformed that which has existence out of that which has none AboveHim there is no other God, neither initial principle, nor power, norpleroma (fullness)” (30-31).^ See the selections from Tertullian in Kerr, Reading in ChristianThought^ 36-42, especially his “Rule of Faith”, 39-40. Origen beginshis account of the apostolic teaching with these words, “First, that Godis one, who created and set in order all things, and who, when nothingexisted, caused the universe to be. . . ” (Kerr, 43).See St. Francis, “Canticle to Brother Sun,” in Francis & Clare, TheComplete Works, trans. by R.J. Armstrong & I.C. Brady, The Classicsof Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1982) 37-39.^ See Hildegaard of Bingen, Book of Divine Works, M. Fox (ed.) (SantaFe: Bear k Co., 1987) 8-10.^ This is, however, an essential point. Many fail to see the link betweenthe desecration of the earth and the human. The modern sciencesof mastery are equally devastating on the human as humanity itselfbecomes another “stuff” to be mastered. See the splendid article bySeyyed Hossein Nasr, “Sacred Science and the Environmental Crisis—An Islamic Perspective,” in S.H, Nasr, The Need for a Sacred Science(Albany: SUNY Press, 1993) 129-147. Nasr remarks that “the personwho speaks for the life of the Spirit today cannot remain indifferentto the destruction of that primordial cathedral which is virgin naturenor maintain silence concerning the harm that man does to himself [sic]as an immortal being by absolutizing the ‘kingdom of man’ and as aconsequence brutalizing and destroying everything else in the name ofthe earthly welfare of members of that kingdom” (144).^ See Thomas Berry, Dream of the Earth (San Francisco: Sierra ClubBooks, 1990) 46. Berry rightly notes that “to restore a sense of the85fl CreationI;earth as the matrix of the human, as primary norm of all human valuesand activities, is a difficult change” (120).!^ The phrase “Voltaire’s Bastards” is from John Ralston Saul, Voltaire’sBastards, The Dictatorship of Reason in the West (Toronto: Penguin;Books, 1992) which chronicles his account of reason gone wrong in theI“Enlightenment West” . There is much right here, but it is imperativeIto distinguish the technical reason that Saul rightly excoriates from the“intellectus” or the power of the mind to know God and contemplatethe truth of things. See also Berry, Dream of the Earth, 37.^ In 1989, the past practices of Uniroyal Chemical Company led to theclosing of the municipal water supply due to its contamination withNDMA. This then led many of us to the discovery that this was justpart of the problem since we learned that the Uniroyal Property is a’ virtual chemical nightmare. The Minister of the Environment and En-ergy, Mr. Bud Wildman, has called this “the most polluted site in theprovince of Ontario”. Ever since that time a local environmental group,APT Environment has been insisting on a full containment of the siteand an effective remediation process. (Why do women play such a lead-ing role in the recovery of creation and in ecological movements? TheAPT Environment group was started by four local women and continuesto be spearheaded by women. This is not, I believe, either accidentalor incidental.) It was this situation and what it has engendered inour community that led Rev. Clint Rohr of the Woolwich CommunityHealth Centre to sponsor the series of meetings entitled “Caring WithCreation”. I was the first to speak in that series. The efforts to getUniroyal Chemical to acknowledge their responsibility and to undertakea significant containment and clean-up program have been difficult, tosay the least. My efforts to raise these issues with Uniroyal have metwith either no response or private annoyance when I speak of “SisterWater” or “Mother Earth”.See Arthur Solomon, Songs for the People: Teachings on the NaturalWay (Toronto: NC Press Ltd., 1990) 21.

Creation Theology: A Journey

Scholars Commons

Consensus
Volume 21
Issue 2 Aspects of Ecumenity Article 5
11-1-1995
Creation Theology: A Journey
M. Darrol Bryant
Follow this and additional works at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus
This Studies and Observations is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in
Consensus by an authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.
Recommended Citation
Bryant, M. Darrol (1995) "Creation Theology: A Journey," Consensus: Vol. 21 : Iss. 2 , Article 5.
Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol21/iss2/5
Creation Theology: A Journeyi
M. Darrol Bryant
Professor of Religion & Culture,
Rension College, University of Waterloo
Like most of you, I grew up in a tradition that focused all
of its attention on the twin themes of sin and redemption. We
were, as we said in our liturgy every Sunday, created “sinful and
unclean” . But all was not lost since “Christ had redeemed us”
from “sin, death and the power of the devil” . It was this “Good
News” which I was urged to receive in faith. This message has
characterized my Christian experience through most of my life.
But already as a summer supply preacher in Lutheran
churches in Minnesota and North Dakota in the early 1960s, I
began to express my dissent from certain aspects of that tradi-
tion by adding the word “fallen” to the description of our na-
ture. Then while studying theology at Harvard Divinity School
I began to realize that the Christian faith was, formally, more
than the theme of redemption—as vitally critical as it was and
is. I think it was my encounter with the Orthodox criticism
of Augustine that I first learned that the first thing to be said
of humanity is that we are created in God’s image. And then
to realize that our humanity unfolds, even our fallen human-
ity, within the context of a creation that God looked upon and
said, “It was good.”
When I was finishing my doctoral studies at St. Michael’s,
the Gatholic school in the University of Toronto, I began to
hear more fully the great Catholic tradition, as well as, through
my good friend, Henry vanderGoot, the creation themes of
Calvinism. Now after more than 20 years of teaching courses in
the history of Christian thought, I have become fully persuaded
that the Christian faith is, as I like to put it, a three articled
faith in God the Creator, God the Redeemer, and God the
Spirit.
80 Consensus
The first article of the Creed we tend to take for granted.
It rolls off our tongue with nary a thought. “I believe in God
the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth.” Where is
the controversy here? Today, we might assume it is around the
word “Father”. But in its origins in the 2nd century, this was
not the issue. The first article was probably even more con-
troversial than the second article in this context. The reason
was the presence within the Christian community of gnostic
Christians, many of whom believed that God was not the cre-
ator of heaven and earth. Rather, they believed, the world in
which we find ourselves was the creation of a lower god, and it
was intended to entrap our spirit in the realm of matter and
the flesh. But the view of the early father, Irenaeus, Bishop of
Lyons, was to prevail. Here was his version of the 1st article:
. . faith in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven
and earth, the seas and all that in them is... ” As he explained,
“.
.. first, one must believe that there is one God, the Father,
who made and fashioned everything and brought being out of
nothing, and, while holding all things, is alone beyond grasp.”
But in “all things” is included this world of ours, with human-
ity [man] in it....^ This is echoed in the words of Tertullian
whose Regula Fidei said, “. . . one God, who is none other than
the Creator of the world. ...”^
For Irenaeus, the consequence of this affirmation was cru-
cial. As the Creation of God, this earth, this world, is our
home. It is the fitting context for human life as that life of hu-
manity unfolds from the Creation to Consummation. It is good
and it is a gift. We need, I believe, to reaffirm that truth in our
own time where a sense of this world as some perverse place is
too much with us. But we also have a new circumstance that
requires our attention.
Now, while Christianity has sought to avoid the belief that
would identify the Creator with his Creation, it has also af-
firmed with the Psalmist that “The earth is the Lord’s and the
fullness thereof... ” (24:1). This creation reflects and embod-
ies the Glory of God. Again, as the Psalmist declares, “The
heavens are telling the glory of God; and the Armament pro-
claims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and
night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are
their words, their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out
through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world”
81
F
1
I
Creation
i
I
(19:1-2). It is this earth that we live in; it is a world that we
i
share, as St. Francis of Assisi said, with Brother Sun and Sister
Moon, with Mother Earth and Sister Water. ^ It is a creation
that is, as the 12th century mystic Hildegaard of Bingen saw
in her vision, enlivened by the Cosmic Christ. “I gleam in the
waters and I burn in the sun, moon, and stars. With every
breeze as with invisible life that contains everything, I awaken
everything to life....And thus I remain hidden in every kind of
reality as a fiery power ...For I am life.”^ But what has hap-
pened to this theology of creation, to this recognition of the
cosmos as sacrament?
In the modern world, it has been overwhelmed by a view of
the created world which does not regard the world in terms of
its intrinsic dignity as creation but instead regards it as “mere
stuff”. Christian thinking about creation has thus faded into
the background as Christian thinkers failed to meet the chal-
lenge of “modernity” which believes that the notion of God is
“unnecessary”, the idea of a Creator a leftover from a more
superstitious time. We have become enthralled by the new sci-
ences and technologies of mastery. We too have come to believe
that the world can be understood wholly within itself, as the
dominant voices of modernity proclaim. And that means, in
the modern view, that the Earth is “mere matter” rather than
a living cosmos straight from the hand of the Creator.
And even within the Christian world we get confused about
creation. We think of it as an event back there, at the begin-
ning. But as Karl Barth proclaimed in our century, it is an
ever-present, on-going event within God. Creation is not over,
as we should glimpse when we are present to the birth of an-
other child or any life, in the cycle of the seasons, in the wonder
of seed that falls into the ground and dies while giving life to
abundant foods and fruits, in the wonder of a winter morning
like this morning, in the processes of the universe itself giving
rise to novas and supernovas all the time.
The reasons why we lost creation in modern Christianity are
too many to review here. Partly, there was the dreadful battle
with evolutionary theory which rejected purpose in the name of
random selection and a competitive struggle of the fittest/the
strongest; partly it was being confused about a science that
discloses the web of life with a mentality that seeks to dominate
82 Consensus
and master life. It is partly our failure to honour our Creator
in the manifold things of creation.
Rather, I want just to make a two-sided general point. On
the one hand, since the Reformation, we have been overly pre-
occupied with Redemption. And, on the other, since the rise
of modernity we have been on the defensive in relation to Cre-
ation. How do we learn anew to speak of God as Creator, to
see anew the glory of God in this remarkable Earth?
This is the task ahead. We are confronted with a profound
ecological crisis. We are faced with a terrible crisis because
of the denial of the created dignity of the human and natural
world. These are not separate issues. They are deeply inter-
twined with one another. But I can only indicate that and not
develop it here.^
The first note of a theology of creation is that we begin to
speak of the Glory of the Lord of Greation by speaking of the
beauty and wonder of Greation itself. In recent decades we
have begun to see a reawakening to the beauty and wonder of
Creation. We are beginning to see that God is present to us
in the wonder and miracle of the Greation, from the marvel of
our bodies and minds to the flow of the waters and the dancing
of the clouds. Just as we wonder at the birth of a child, we
should wonder at the myriad gifts of life and being in all its
diversity.
One of the most articulate voices pointing to the need for
a renewed theology of creation is Thomas Berry. We need, he
says, to foster the deep awareness of the sacred presence
within each reality of the universe. There is awe and reverence
due to the stars in the heavens, the sun, and all heavenly bod-
ies; in the seas and the continents, to all living forms of trees
and flowers; to the myriad expressions of life in the sea; to the
animals of the forests and birds of the air.”'^
The second note is a recognition of what we have lost and
the need to overcome what Berry calls “our technological con-
finement”. We must see what we have lost—and continue to
lose as more than 1000 species disappear each year due to our
industrialized way of relating to the earth. As we become dom-
inated by “Voltaire’s Bastards”, we forget that “even the most
primitive tribes have a larger vision of the universe, of our place
and functioning within it, a vision that extends to celestial re-
gions of space and to interior depths of the human in a manner
Creation 83
far exceeding the parameters of our own world of technological
confinement.” S
And the third note is to begin to act to protect our glorious
earth from those mentalities of mastery that would turn this
marvelous Creation into “mere stuff” to be manipulated for
profit and power.
There is so much to be said here, but I will short circuit
that in order to bring it back to our local context and the situa-
tion of Elmira, where the water was contaminated by Uniroyal
Chemical Co. The local situation is part of the global crisis
we face that has been generated by the modern technologies
of mastery that are disfiguring and destroying the ecological
fabric of our planet at an alarming rate. The water crisis in
Elmira, generated, in this local instance, by the more than
half a century of appalling procedures for dealing with waste
by Uniroyal Chemical, has been my awakening to the necessity
to recover a vital doctrine of Creation. The point is not to
bash Uniroyal but to speak for the Creation that we have been
given to steward and against a way of relating to the earth that
is destructive. 9 The Canagagigue Creek and the Grand River
should not be treated as sewers, nor the soil as a dump ground
to absorb toxic waste.
We need an awakening to God’s glory in Creation, one that
results in (1) wonder, the astonishment of being itself in all
its ever-unfolding diversity, from the unfolding of the universe
in an endless space and over times we cannot reckon, to the
blossoming of the cherry trees and the flowing of the water, to
the winds that blow and the worms present in the soil, from
the glory of the universe to the wonder of new life again and
again. Here, Christians can not only recover their own pro-
found heritage of Creation as the glory of God, but also learn
from other traditions which speak, as does this native prayer:
“Grandfather, Great Spirit, Today I sat for a short while in the
thundering silence of your solitude. And as I sat there I saw
with my limited vision. The power and the sacredness and the
beauty of your Creation, I give thanks for this new day. .. ”10
(2) An awakening that leads to respect for the intrinsic dignity
of what is given to us in creation—our own bodies and our
whole earth; and (3) the ability to live with creation even as it
lives with us. We are daily sustained by a creation that pre-
cedes us and sustains us, and it is that creation that is not ours
84 Consensus
to squander, but is the heritage unto the seventh generation,
for ever and ever.
Notes
^ This was first presented at a breakfast meeting of the Woolwich Com-
munity Health Centre, St. Jacobs, Ontario, February 7, 1995. It in-
volved staff of the Centre and members of the clergy from the area. My
point in these reflections is to explore the theology of creation in order
to underscore that our proper relationship to creation is not domination
but partnership; not mastery but mutuality; not “stuff” but mystery.
Fm grateful to Rev. Clint Rohr and the Centre for the invitation.
2 See St. Irenaeus, Proof of the Apostolic Preaching^ trans. by J.P. Smith,
S.J., No. 16 in Ancient Christian Writers (New York: Newman Press,
1952) 50ff. Here Irenaeus remarks that “this is the first and foremost
article of our faith” (p. 51). See also the selections from Irenaeus in
Hugh Kerr (ed.). Readings in Christian Thought (Nashville: Abing-
don, 1966) 27-36. “The rule of truth we hold is, that there is one
God Almighty, who made all things by His Word, and fashioned and
formed that which has existence out of that which has none Above
Him there is no other God, neither initial principle, nor power, nor
pleroma (fullness)” (30-31).
^ See the selections from Tertullian in Kerr, Reading in Christian
Thought^ 36-42, especially his “Rule of Faith”, 39-40. Origen begins
his account of the apostolic teaching with these words, “First, that God
is one, who created and set in order all things, and who, when nothing
existed, caused the universe to be. . . ” (Kerr, 43).
See St. Francis, “Canticle to Brother Sun,” in Francis & Clare, The
Complete Works, trans. by R.J. Armstrong & I.C. Brady, The Classics
of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1982) 37-39.
^ See Hildegaard of Bingen, Book of Divine Works, M. Fox (ed.) (Santa
Fe: Bear k Co., 1987) 8-10.
^ This is, however, an essential point. Many fail to see the link between
the desecration of the earth and the human. The modern sciences
of mastery are equally devastating on the human as humanity itself
becomes another “stuff” to be mastered. See the splendid article by
Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “Sacred Science and the Environmental Crisis
—
An Islamic Perspective,” in S.H, Nasr, The Need for a Sacred Science
(Albany: SUNY Press, 1993) 129-147. Nasr remarks that “the person
who speaks for the life of the Spirit today cannot remain indifferent
to the destruction of that primordial cathedral which is virgin nature
nor maintain silence concerning the harm that man does to himself [sic]
as an immortal being by absolutizing the ‘kingdom of man’ and as a
consequence brutalizing and destroying everything else in the name of
the earthly welfare of members of that kingdom” (144).
^ See Thomas Berry, Dream of the Earth (San Francisco: Sierra Club
Books, 1990) 46. Berry rightly notes that “to restore a sense of the
85fl Creation
I
;
earth as the matrix of the human, as primary norm of all human values
and activities, is a difficult change” (120).
!
^ The phrase “Voltaire’s Bastards” is from John Ralston Saul, Voltaire’s
Bastards, The Dictatorship of Reason in the West (Toronto: Penguin
;
Books, 1992) which chronicles his account of reason gone wrong in the
I
“Enlightenment West” . There is much right here, but it is imperative
I
to distinguish the technical reason that Saul rightly excoriates from the
“intellectus” or the power of the mind to know God and contemplate
the truth of things. See also Berry, Dream of the Earth, 37.
^ In 1989, the past practices of Uniroyal Chemical Company led to the
closing of the municipal water supply due to its contamination with
NDMA. This then led many of us to the discovery that this was just
part of the problem since we learned that the Uniroyal Property is a
’ virtual chemical nightmare. The Minister of the Environment and En-
ergy, Mr. Bud Wildman, has called this “the most polluted site in the
province of Ontario”. Ever since that time a local environmental group,
APT Environment has been insisting on a full containment of the site
and an effective remediation process. (Why do women play such a lead-
ing role in the recovery of creation and in ecological movements? The
APT Environment group was started by four local women and continues
to be spearheaded by women. This is not, I believe, either accidental
or incidental.) It was this situation and what it has engendered in
our community that led Rev. Clint Rohr of the Woolwich Community
Health Centre to sponsor the series of meetings entitled “Caring With
Creation”. I was the first to speak in that series. The efforts to get
Uniroyal Chemical to acknowledge their responsibility and to undertake
a significant containment and clean-up program have been difficult, to
say the least. My efforts to raise these issues with Uniroyal have met
with either no response or private annoyance when I speak of “Sister
Water” or “Mother Earth”.
See Arthur Solomon, Songs for the People: Teachings on the Natural
Way (Toronto: NC Press Ltd., 1990) 21.


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Creation Theology: A Journey

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