CHURCH AND ECOLOGY

Church and Ecology IV

Bible Studies: From the Old Testament Perspectives

1.       We Christians believe that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth ( Genesis 1/1). God is our Creator and the Source of our being, the source of all that exist. That is also the manner that the Holy Scriptures begins with these solemn words. Along the history of the church, the profession of faith of all Christians takes them up when they profess that God the Father Almighty is creator of heaven and earth (Apostle Creed), of all that is, seen and unseen.(Nicene Creed). CCC 275

2.       Among all the Scripture texts about creation, the first three chapters of Genesis occupy a unique place. From a literary stand point  those texts may have had diverse sources. The inspired authors have placed them at the beginning of Scripture to express in their language the truth of creation- its origin and its end in God, its order and goodness, the vocation of man, and finally the drama of sin and the hope of salvation. Read in the light of Christ, within the unity of Sacred Scripture and in the living tradition of the Church, these texts remain the principle sources for catechesis on the mysteries of the beginning , creation, fall, and promise of salvation. CCC 289

3.       For Genesis, creation is “ the expression of God’s goodness in action” said Desmond Wilson. All that God has created are good. The dark side of life, the cruel edges of thing is not due to God’s positive will. God made all things good. The harmony to which we aspire and which we experience as a grievous absence, was part of God’s creative gifts. The distortion we experience is not a necessity but a perversion ( John Shea). The Genesis account presents the flowed human response to temptation. Question still remain. Is evil only moral evil? The Yahwist text examines the origins of evil. Does it come from a principle independent of God? Could it come from God himself?

4.       God is really God. He does care for his people. He is all powerful. He made all things good. Evil and suffering are not to be blamed on him. The world exists for man and woman. The priestly account reaches a climax in the creation of man and woman. Man and woman are the image of God. They are to increase, multiply and care for the earth. Humankind is a unique living spirit with a special mission of stewardship of the creation. Psalm and Wisdom literature witnessed to a belief that we are God’s creature living in God’s world, lead us to God by contemplation of nature as a witness to the divine.( cf: Ps 8,19,104 and Wis 13)

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Fr.Henry Eikhlein, 2011 : Bible Reflection for Seminar on Church and Ecology, held in Pathein

Church and Ecology IV

Bible Studies: From the New Testament Perspectives

1.       The Gospels show that God as Father is present to the world he called forth. He is the creator of heaven and earth and all that exist. The parables in the Gospels are redolent of God’s creative presence of his support of and concern for the least of things. ( Parables of the sower, of the weat..)

2.       In Acts 17 Paul proclaim a God;Who has created the world and everything that is in it, who is Lord of heaven and earth.Who has appointed a day on which he will judge the world according to righteousness.Through a man whom he has appointed for that purpose. That man is the only son of the Father, the most beloved son, Jesus Christ sent by the Father as savior of the world.The pattern of creation, conversion and consummation is discernible in the missionary proclamation of Paul at Lystra and Athens ( Acts 14). Creation occupies a large part of this schema. Belief in God the creator was the ground from which grew belief in God of Jesus Christ.

3.       For NT Christology, Jesus is the link between protology and eschatology: creation and salvation.

The awareness of Jesus’ significance for the world gives impetus to the belief in Jesus’ mediation of creation.One Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things and through whom we exist. ( I Cor 8/6)In the prologue of John’s Gospel there is a parallel between the Genesis creation account and the new creation in Christ.

4.       The unity of creation and redemption is clear in Eph and Col. Christ is the reconciliation of a multiple disorder. He is our peace who made us both one and reconciles us in one body through the cross. ( Eph 2/15)Through him are reconciled all things whether on earth or in heaven making peace by the blood of his cross. ( Col 1/20)

5.       Eph 1/9-10 insists that creation is planned with Christ in mind. God’s plan is to bring everything to unity in him. Creation in the NT is closely related to the project of reconciliation  of people among themselves, as  well as with the nature and God. Creation is the foundation of all God’s saving plan; “ the beginning of the history of salvation that culminates in Christ.” CCC 280.The world was made for the glory of God ( Dei Filius # 5) CCC 293. The glory of God consists in the realization of this manifestation and communication of his goodness for which the world was created. “ The glory of God is man fully alive, man’s life is the vision of God” ( Iraeneus)

CCC 294

6.       Because God creates through wisdom, his creation is ordered “ you have arranged all things by measures and number and weight. ( Wis 11/20) CCC299 .With creation God did not abandon his creatures to themselves. He not only gives them being and existence, but also, at every moment, upholds and sustain them in beings, enable them to act and brings to their final end. CCC 301. If God the Father Almighty , the creator of the ordered and good world, cares for all his creatures, why does evil exist?. To this question, as pressing as it is unavoidable and as painful as it is mysterious, no quick answer will suffice. Only Christian faith as a whole constitutes the answer to this question. CCC 309

7.       But why did God not created a world so perfect that no evil could exist in it? With infinite power God could always create something better. But with infinite wisdom and goodness God freely willed to create a world “ in a state of journeying” towards its ultimate perfection. In God’s plan this process of becoming involves the appearances of certain beings and the disappearance of others, the existence of the more perfect alongside the less perfect, both constructive and destructive forces of nature. With physical good there exists also physical evil as long as creation has not reached perfection. ( St.Thomas Aquinas SCG iii, 71) CCC 310

8.       We firmly believe that God is master of the world and of its history. But the way of his providence are often unknown to us. Only at the end, when our partial knowledge ceases, when we see God “face to face” ( I Cor 13/12)will we fully know the way by which –even though the dramas of evil and sin- God has guided his creation to that definitive Sabbath rest (cf Gen 2/2) for which he created heaven and earth. CCC 314

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      Fr.Henry Eikhlein, 2011 : Bible Reflection for Seminar on Church and Ecology, held in Pathein