Keeping the Garden

"And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it."—Genesis 2:15

Richard Doctor

A march of bloodshed, social chaos, and human misery inevitably followed the Reformation truths so boldly announced by Martin Luther. Fully two generations after that fateful All Saints Eve 1517, the terror of the age was brutally captured by a Flemish painter, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, in his "Triumph of Death."

Imagine lifting your eyes from prayer in church to gaze at this painting. A pastoral landscape upon which "all Hell has broken loose" stands transformed into scorched red and barren earth, as the artist’s imagination of Joel 2:3 is portrayed: "A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth, the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them."

The rich, the poor, the wise, the foolish, the powerful, the powerless and all that they cherish fall in utter ruin before the legions of animated corpses advancing in lock-step behind the shield of the cross. Disdainful of the approaching judgment, card players at the gaming table of Bruegel’s painting are interrupted only by the summons of death.

Those of us who enjoy the blessings of present truth may be satisfied merely with dismissing such horrifying images as relics from a less enlightened past. In doing so, however, we miss a subtle point in the make-up of "modern" society. This point is that the basic framework for the laws governing the sale of land and its use for commerce, industry, farming, and forest management is not in fact, modern inventions. These laws were formulated in the era of Bruegel.

How strongly would you feel about stewarding the earth, protecting its environment and the intricate web of life, and enhancing its beauty if you believed that the earth was destined to utterly perish in the Day of Judgment, leaving barren ground?

The Time of the End (1799)
Unprecedented Knowledge of the Bible and Ecology

Certainly, an unprecedented knowledge of scriptural truth has re-emerged in this "time of the end." At the same time, in lock-step, although seemingly unrelated, an enlarged appreciation and respect for the natural processes of the earth has emerged. This enlarged understanding simply did not have a name prior to 1799, although we now call it "ecology," Greek for "study of our home."

As in the Reformation, whenever there is a growth in consciousness, passionate extremes emerge. One extreme view is that almost any development of resources detracts from the natural order of the environment and is unwise, if not immoral. Yet, the more pragmatic also legitimately question whether living in a stone-age society—as did the native Americans—is what we should ask from the earth and its abundant resources.

The other extreme was expressed by former U.S. Secretary of the Interior James Watt. While in office, he was commissioned with the stewardship of the largest portion of the 700 million acres of public lands for future generations. When charged that he was fostering long-term and, perhaps, irreparable environmental damage to public lands for short-term profits, he quoted the words of Jesus in Luke 19:13, "Occupy, till I come."

Secretary Watt’s knowledge of the original Greek was sufficient for him to correctly point out that the word "occupy" would be more accurately rendered "do business," or, more literally, be "pragmatic." Indeed, this attitude towards the environment—that of consuming it until Christ returns—set up Secretary Watt as a caricature of what the emerging environmental consciousness finds wrong with Christianity.

The problem of course is not Christianity. The problem is that traditional Christian belief, rooted in the same soil from which Pieter Bruegel’s art emerged, takes no notice of the scriptural promises for the blessing of humanity right here on earth. If modern society does not tremble at a Hellish future so vivid to the Reformation era imagination, neither does it take notice of the unfulfilled promises that the Lord’s footstool will be made glorious (Isa. 60:13).

It is little wonder that non-Christian systems of belief, such as native American religion with its deep-rooted respect for the earth, are nominally embraced by some extremists and looked to as the basis for ethical conduct, rather than looking to the Bible. Such beliefs offer a sop to those who correctly recognize that something needs to be changed in how society "does business." But what does present truth have to say to environmentalists?

Our Privilege

There is a great and largely undeveloped privilege here to witness to the Kingdom from a novel standpoint and to seek out those wishing to see the deep things of the Lord. From the Bible, we can show that:

1) a heavenward focus for Christianity which anticipated the earth "going to Hell" represented a God-dishonoring set of beliefs now being dispelled by the dawning of the "Sun of Righteousness;" at the same time, wisdom is needed and for the most part, the terror embraced by Bruegel’s imagination is dead doctrine except among ultra-conservatives;

2) the great promise of scripture, focused on the work of our Lord Jesus Christ, will restore both the human race to at-one-ment with God and the earth to a perfection lost through sin (this is the promise of the scriptures for "a time of restitution of all things" [Acts 3:19-21]);

3) imperfect creatures on a perfect earth would lead to devilish depravity (Gen. 3:17-24);

4) the charge to mankind to have "dominion" over the earth (Gen. 1:26) was not an open statement of permission to clear-cut "old growth" stands of forest, but rather mankind’s purpose in the garden is to "dress it and keep it" (Gen. 2:15); this should be understood as a call to stewardship that would ever enrich and enhance the land (advances in the study of ecology now lead us to understand that maintaining fertility, that is sustainable dressing and keeping involves maintaining "biodiversity);"

5) mankind has been given the intelligence and capacity to consider the creatures of earth, how they interrelate, and to classify or "name" them (Gen. 2:19-20); to have dominion certainly does not mean to drive to extinction, nor does dominion mean that the importance of the creatures is reckoned only by their direct value to us in how cute or tasty they are, nor for plants by whether they can serve our direct needs for food and medicine;

6) the Sabbath and Jubilee systems anticipated the need for man, beast, and earth to take periodic extended rests from development for their refreshment and blessing (Lev. 25:1-22);

7) the needs for "sustainable development" is consistent with scripture and was inherent in the Law of Moses (the law strongly reiterates that the land is not our possession to use merely as we please, but the Lord’s, with man as the most careful and conscientious of stewards [Lev. 25:23]).

At the same time, we need to be sensitive to emerging lessons from the study of ecology. Perhaps an example will illustrate this point.

The Gaia Hypothesis

James Lovelock, an extraordinary British genius in developing sensitive chemical analysis instruments, was contacted by NASA in the early 1960’s to develop a gas-chromatograph life-detection experiment for Mars. He began by pondering the fundamental question of what such an experiment should look for. The results from his work directed towards another planet lead to profound insights about life on the earth.

Looking at life with a fresh set of eyes, Lovelock realized that life weaves a rich tapestry of intricately connected biological-chemical-geological cycles and uses energy to push the chemistry of our planet to a "non-equilibrium" state. In the absence of life, the 98% of our atmosphere available as molecular nitrogen and oxygen would be gone, chemically bound in the rocks and the ocean!

Sadly for NASA, Lovelock’s interpretation of ground-based observations of the Martian atmosphere available in the early sixties gave no promise of a prospect for life. Years later, experiments on the surface of Mars—including his—did indeed fail to find life.

However, remarkable predictions based on this "Gaia" hypothesis have been experimentally validated over the last thirty years, prompting the American Association for the Advancement of Science—the most prestigious scientific association in the U.S.—to devote their 1995 plenary session to his work. Because of the distinct Christian perspective evidenced in his writings, I was prompted to write him several years ago. His response is worthy of quoting [letter from James Lovelock, October 13, 1993]:

"Thank you so much for your thoughtful letter. . . . Perhaps the ‘times of restitution’ are overdue. I often think that people will not respond until confronted by an awesome event, such as the next large environmental change. The record of the earth seems to show that change happens suddenly and not gradually and what we are doing may precipitate the change.

"I appreciate your invitation to explore Gaia’s relationship with Judeo-Christian dogma . . ."

He goes on to add that at least three theologians he was aware of already had written on the subject. It is clear that the writing has been even more active since then.

The New Creation and the Earth

Is there a fundamental and needed change taking place in how human beings view the earth and their relationship to it? I believe there is. At the same time, perhaps our thinking, like Bruegel’s, takes no thought for the physical earth as the joys of heaven are contemplated. Surely, as new creatures, we are seeking for better balance, for we who understand the Plan of God can reconcile both the environmentalists and the pragmatists.

Jehovah took time to both plant Eden (Gen. 2:8), and walk in it "in the cool of the day" (Gen. 3:8). He enjoyed its splendid beauty, enhanced by intelligent management. Jesus observed how the lilies of the field exceeded Solomon’s glory (Matt. 6:29). There was a joy in life and its beauty that excited our resurrected Lord to move about in the garden surrounding the cold tomb and see with new eyes the simple things we take for granted—so that he was mistaken for a gardener (John 20:15). In teaching by example, both our heavenly Father, and his Son have pointed us towards the joy there is in the natural creation. The beauty of the earth’s interrelated cycles of life and chemistry reflects back on the craftsmanship, wisdom, and love of the master designer, our heavenly Father.

Will Present Resources Last Forever?

"The earth is composed of different elements. These elements, while they may change their forms and disappear from mortal vision, always remain the same elements. No instance has ever been known of where one element changed into another. But there is constant change taking place throughout all of the realms of nature. Yet, nothing is gained, and nothing is lost. Water changes from a solid (ice) into vapor (steam) and then into its elementary gases—H²O. Then the operation is reversed. The gases change to vapor—the vapor to liquids, and the liquids to solids. We may reason from this that when the coal, minerals, timber, etc., have all been used in their present form, and having been transformed into some other state, they will be utilized in that state or condition. And this process could go on throughout eternity without exhausting in the slightest degree the original elements.

"The process of change is always in a circle, and all that mankind will need to do will be to follow the circle around to its initial starting point and then repeat the process throughout all the years of eternity." C. T. Russell (Q772)