Winner of the 2022 Gospel and Academia Project essay prize for postgraduate students and post-doctoral researchers

Growing up in Zambia, nature was never far away during my childhood. One of my favourite places was the Chishimba Falls, a series of three waterfalls in the rural Northern Province of Zambia. I remember the dense trees lining the paths between them, kept green and moist by the perennial spray. I remember playing in the shallows and climbing the riverbed rocks right up to the edge of the falls. And I remember the sight of miles and miles of African bush savannah, dotted with acacias and palm trees, the river winding away into the distance. We watched the fish in the water, sometimes we saw monkeys on the other shore, once we found a sloughed-off snake skin. Perhaps it is no wonder I became a biologist. 

And yet, despite all the beautiful landscapes and the gaudy birds, I learnt early on that humans and nature can have an uneasy relationship. Sometimes there was direct conflict, like with the venomous snakes that we always had to look out for, or the crocodiles that lived in many of the local rivers. But often it was a case of humans needing or wanting more than nature could provide. We heard of fishermen resorting to mosquito nets to catch the last few tiny fish out of empty streams. Every year we smelled the smoke as more bushland was cleared for farming. We learnt in school that this chitimene, the traditional slash-and-burn agriculture, was unsustainable with a growing population, but still it annually destroys around 5% of Zambia’s forests.¹ And we drove past the wreckage of the economically all-important mining industry: the giant slag heaps and vast craters that mark where iron machines had gouged their way through the bones of the earth. 

As a conservation biologist, the interrelationship between people and nature is the everpresent theme underlying every topic of my field. Are humans a part of nature, or distinct from it? What is nature worth, and why? How do we reconcile the interests of humans with the integrity of nature? My colleagues and I frequently find ourselves grappling with these deeply philosophical questions, both to find satisfactory answers to undergird our own research, but also to reckon with a long legacy of answers that have become firmly entrenched in our culture and our society. 

In this essay, I want to talk about why these questions are so important, and how my own Christian faith informs the position I take in the debates surrounding them. I will start with a brief look at how humans have been impacting nature and what our collective attitude says about our view of nature. Next, I will summarise the critique of the conservation movement to this attitude, highlighting the philosophical debates within the movement. This will bring us to the heart of the matter, with an exploration of the roles of humans and nature within a biblical worldview. Finally, I will show why a proper theology of nature is so important, both for the personal lifestyles and the public testimony of Christians. 

Anthropocentrism 

Within Western societies, nature and humans are most commonly seen as two distinct categories, with nature clearly subservient to humans. Nature is something to be tamed, regulated by dykes and fences, its dynamic growth channelled into the orderly plots of our fields and forests. Nature’s primary purpose is to provide us humans with food to eat, space to live, and resources to build. 

This view is known as anthropocentrism, and it has a long history. Already the ancient Greeks distinguished between physis (the natural world) and nomos (the cultural world of humans). But regardless of whether or not this philosophy was explicitly expressed, its assumptions have implicitly shaped the relationship between humans and nature throughout history. 

For as long as there have been human civilisations, these civilisations have exploited nature, often to the point of severe environmental degradation. Plato described the deforestation and erosion of the Greek hills in the fifth century BC, and ancient Athens’ consequent reliance on timber imports was a major concern of its foreign policy – much like gas and oil shape geopolitics today. The Roman Empire deforested entire regions, polluted air and water across a continent, and may have hastened its own decline through the overexploitation of its agricultural lands. Similar tales of environmental exploitation, sometimes contributing to societal collapse, can be told from around the world, from Central America to China and Polynesia.²

The past centuries have seen a cycle of increasing pressure on nature, as technological improvements lead to greater resource availability, which lead to increased human population growth, which lead to yet greater resource demand. Particularly since the Industrial Revolution, the global rate of resource extraction has skyrocketed as we use ever more efficient methods to mine for minerals, trawl for fish, and farm our fields. 

One of the most significant ways in which we impact nature is through agriculture. Alexander von Humboldt documented in the 18^th century how large-scale cash crop cultivation in the Venezuelan Aragua Valley (then a Spanish colony) had exhausted the soil and denuded the surroundings of trees, thereby impacting the regional water cycle and threatening to transform a valley formerly known for its fertility into a barrens.³ Today, 38% of Earth’s terrestrial surface are used for agriculture,⁴ and clearing land for agriculture continues to be the leading cause of forest loss in the tropics.⁵

In the Global North, beginning in the 1950s, the “Green Revolution” transformed the way we farm. Industrialised agriculture introduced tractors, chemical fertilisers, pesticides, antibiotics, and yield maximising crop types and livestock breeds. The result has been a phenomenal increase in food output that has so far kept track with the simultaneous exponential growth of the human population. Nonetheless, its effect on nature has been severe. 

In 1962, Rachel Carson’s book “Silent Spring” showed how pesticides percolate up the food chain, poisoning not just harmful insects but also fish, birds, and humans. Similarly, fertiliser run-off from fields changes the chemical composition of streams, lakes, and coastal waters, prompting algal blooms that create oxygen starved dead zones and are toxic to fish and humans alike.⁶ And as orchards, hedgerows, and meadows have given way to larger and more intensively managed fields, our landscapes lose many of the habitats needed by birds, butterflies, and the natural enemies of aphids and other pest species.⁷ Consequently, many farmland species are in unchecked decline.⁸⁹

This problem is greater than the disappearance of a few obscure bugs, or even the loss of birdsong in springtime. As humans, we have the power to mold the world to our liking, but also the power to destroy the scaffolding we sit on. In the 1930s, vast swathes of the US Great Plains were depopulated as farmers fled exhausted fields, eroded by drought, wind, and agricultural mismanagement.¹⁰ Compounding the crisis caused by the crash of the stock markets, the Dust Bowl showed the stark reality of environmental constraints – natural boundaries we transgress at our own risk.¹¹ Yet, like the Prodigal Son, we continue to recklessly spend our savings, piling up ecological debt as we outpace the Earth’s capacity to regenerate its resources.¹² Already, around the world, people are bearing the consequences of environmental bankruptcy: overfished oceans, poisoned lakes, and creeping desertification.  

Where nature suffers, humans will suffer too. A worldview that focusses exclusively on human needs and desires, disregarding the planetary context in which we live, will ultimately destine us for destruction. So how can we move beyond anthropocentrism, and find a worldview that gives an appropriate place to both humans and nature? 

Ecocentrism 

Beginning with Alexander von Humboldt, and continuing with figures such as John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and Rachel Carson, scientists have been both studying the causes of environmental degradation and pushing for a better protection of nature. These scholars, and many others like them, have combined ecological research with philosophy, ethics, and even political advocacy. Conservation biology has thus been called a “crisis discipline”, a values-driven program of research that brings together the knowledge, perspectives, and methods of a wide range of scientific disciplines to help preserve the diversity of life. 

The conservation movement has seen and continues to see vigorous debates about its raison d’être. Why should we preserve nature and biodiversity? In essence, there are two types of answers to this question, respectively referencing the utilitarian and intrinsic values of nature.¹³

The utilitarian argument stresses the benefits humans draw from nature, from the food we eat to the beauty we enjoy. These benefits have been termed “ecosystem services”, and comprise provisioning services like food and fuel, regulating services like flood control and water purification, supporting services like pollination and soil formation, and cultural services like aesthetic and recreational uses of nature.¹⁴ The ecosystem service concept has been used to assign an economic value to biodiversity, in an attempt to integrate the often hard-to-see benefits of nature into our market-oriented decision-making.¹⁵ However, the concept has also been criticised for being too focussed on monetary evaluations, leading to its subsequent expansion into the more holistic “Nature’s Contributions to People” framework.¹⁶ This recognises that nature provides many different benefits, which are often not easily interchangeable nor evaluable in financial terms. 

While the debate over the most suitable terminology for the utilitarian value of nature is still ongoing, critics continue to attack its fundamental assumptions. By focussing on human benefits, some say, the utilitarian argument perpetuates the very anthropocentric worldview that is the root of our environmental problems.¹⁷ Consequently, they emphasise the intrinsic values of nature, apart from and independent of any use it might have for humans.  

The best-known expression of this intrinsic-value argument is Aldo Leopold’s essay on the “land ethic”.¹⁸ Leopold argues that in the course of human history, the boundaries of ethical responsibility have steadily expanded. The “community of interdependent parts” of which each individual is a member and to which he is responsible has grown from small families to large societies. The necessary next step, Leopold says, is for it to grow to encompass the land itself. Just as slaves were once considered property not persons, so we must overcome our perception of nature as a commodity. Instead, we ought to see soil and water, plants and animals, as entities in their own right, members of our community to whom we owe an ethical obligation. 

In practice, the utilitarian and the intrinsic argument are rarely mutually exclusive. Most conservationists espouse both, seeing them as complementary. However, the question remains: if nature has an intrinsic value, what is its relation to humans? Which human uses of nature are justified, and where do we curtail human use to protect nature? In short, how do we weigh the interests of humans against those of nature? 

Noted conservation biologist Georgina Mace described in one of her papers how attitudes within the conservation movement have shifted over the last few decades. She identifies the phases of “nature for itself”, “nature despite people”, “nature for people”, and “people and nature”.¹⁹ In a way, this reflects a dialectical movement from a thesis (prioritising nature) to an antithesis (prioritising humans) to a synthesis (nature and humans must coexist). As with the value-of-nature debate, the discussion is far from over and all of these different positions still have supporters. Indeed, it may be said that the question about the relationship between people and nature is the fundamental debate of conservation.  

On the one hand, conservationists must reckon with the history of their own movement, which has often displayed a contemptuous disregard for the concerns of people whose livelihood depends on a section of nature that conservationists want to preserve. This has included overtly colonialist attitudes towards indigenous people, who have repeatedly been excluded from their traditional lands as these were converted into national parks for rich white tourists.²⁰ It also frequently exhibits itself in the traditionally antagonistic interactions of conservationists with farmers, fishermen, and game hunters. In the interest of equity and inclusivity, it has therefore been an important (though still incomplete) development to emphasise that conservation is about people as much as it is about nature. 

On the other hand, there is a growing realisation that utilitarian arguments alone cannot justify a comprehensive conservation of biodiversity.²¹ Although we have plenty of evidence to show that functioning ecosystems are necessary for human wellbeing, quantifying this relationship can be effectively impossible. As conservation biologists, we often cannot prove which species are important for which purposes, nor how much land may be used in a certain way before local ecosystems collapse. We therefore find ourselves either advocating caution (“better safe than sorry”) or reverting back to moral arguments of the intrinsic worth of nature, thereby placing the integrity of nature over the immediate interests of humans. 

This, of course, requires a justification that cannot be found within an anthropocentric worldview. Realising this, many conservationists instead promote an ecocentric worldview – one that seeks to overcome the human-nature dualism of Western thought by emphasising that humans are a part of nature, not separate to it. By this shift in perception, ecocentrists aim to abolish the hierarchy that sets humans above other organisms, and instil a feeling of kinship and responsibility for the living world with all its manifold components.²² This framing may feel alien to some, but it is an attractive proposition to many who are disillusioned with the contemporary, all-consuming pursuit of material wealth and happiness. Ultimately, ecocentrism promises a better world, where the current environmental and social exploitation for materialist gains are replaced by a global community of care and a holistic view of all living beings. 

But can it deliver on these promises? The first challenge is again one of justification. Our feelings of kinship with other species may be justified with a common evolutionary origin, but evolution is always more about competition than about altruism. Why should we, as a species, be altruistic towards other species, if this doesn’t increase our own evolutionary fitness? The evolutionary framing does not actually solve the problem of why we should care about parts of nature that are not relevant to us. The second challenge is one of realism. Are humans capable of showing such all-encompassing care? Is a simple shift of mind-set enough to root out the egoistic tendencies that are so deeply engrained in all of us? 

Obviously, this discussion goes beyond the realms of both science and politics. Here, we are talking about worldviews, about philosophy and religion – and one of the most deepseated questions of all: “What does it mean to be human?” And that is something that Christianity has a lot to say about. 

Theocentrism 

Insofar as they think about Christianity at all, many conservationists are quite sceptical of it. Too often in history, the biblical doctrine of man’s God-given “dominion over creation” has been used to justify the strongest forms of anthropocentrism and the total subjugation of nature. Indeed, writers such as the historian Lynn White, Jr., have explicitly blamed the West’s Christian heritage for its anthropocentric exploitation of the environment.²³ Regrettably, it is undeniable that the biblical doctrine of creation has been used in this way. However, it should be questioned whether this interpretation of Scripture is theologically sound. 

In fact, it may be argued that an anthropocentric reading of the scriptural passages about nature does not only not do them justice, but completely misses their point. Looking at the creation accounts as well as the magnificent descriptions of the natural world in passages like Job 38-41 or Psalm 104, we see that the focus is not on humans, but on God. Concerning the Job passages, Jewish theologian Robert Gordis writes: “The Speeches out of the Whirlwind do not describe the beauties of nature for their own sake; they are concerned with nature’s God.” He concludes:  

“The universe is not anthropocentric, but theocentric, with purposes known only to God, and  which man cannot fathom. Man is not the goal of creation and therefore not the master of the  cosmos.”²⁴

The biblical authors repeatedly stress that “the earth is the Lord’s”.²⁵ Creation cannot be understood without reference to its Creator. Accordingly, within a Christian worldview, we cannot consider the relationship between humans and nature in isolation, but must always see them in relation to the God who created both. 

This perspective, theocentrism, completely changes our picture of reality, simultaneously subsuming and subverting both anthropocentrism and ecocentrism. 

In a reply to White’s above-cited paper, Francis Schaeffer uses a theocentric exegesis of the Bible to present a more nuanced view of the role of humans in creation. Schaeffer argues that man is a special creature, but a creature – a part of nature in communion with its Creator. He writes:  

“Who am I? Am I only the hydrogen atom, the energy particle extended? No, I am made in the  image of God. I know who I am. Yet, on the other hand, when I turn around and I face nature, I  face something that is like myself. I, too, am created, just as the animal and the plant and the  atom are created.”²⁶

Humans are material creatures, created “out of the dust” just like the animals, and living in a natural world created along with them. In this sense there is a “kinship relation” between humans and all other species. Yet, humans are not only material, but also spiritual. Though formed from dust, they have been given the breath of God and enjoy a special fellowship with Him, setting them apart from the rest of creation. Humans are told to “fill the earth and subdue it”, but also given the charge to “work it and take care of it”.²⁷ Clearly, there is an element of authority here, but not in the sense of complete domination. The earth is still the Lord’s. Humans are given stewardship, not sovereignty. 

Indeed, the Mosaic law confirms the limitations of human dominion over creation. The Sabbath rest applied to animals as much as to humans, fields were to lie fallow and regenerate in the Sabbath year, no fruit trees were to be felled in war, mother birds were not to be hunted, and threshing animals were not to be muzzled.²⁸ Similarly, King Solomon declared: “The righteous care for the needs of their animals”.²⁹ This suggests that the biblical concept of sin, traditionally understood to concern the relationship of humans with God and with one another, also takes into account human relations with the rest of creation. 

Beyond our God-given stewardship of creation, there is another reason why the protection of nature is relevant for Christian theology and ethics. This may be summed up as follows: the morality of humans affects the wellbeing of nature, which feeds back to our own wellbeing. Around the world, human greed and injustice are causing environmental degradation that impacts peoples’ health and livelihoods. From deforestation and desertification to overfishing and toxic algal blooms, we are reaping the fruits of our insatiable desires. Where nature suffers, humans will suffer too. All too often, the exploitation of nature and the exploitation of people go hand in hand. One poignant example is that of excessive meat consumption in the Global North. While gluttony may not be a sin we talk about much, average meat consumption in the rich countries is several times higher than recommended, causing widespread diet-related health problems. It also carries an immense ecological and social price.³⁰ Because every kilogram of meat requires multiple kilograms of animal feed to produce, the amount of agricultural land needed to provide such a meat-heavy diet is many times larger than that for a more plant based diet. Thus, much of the ecological destruction of our landscapes is linked to intensive agriculture for feed production. In Europe, two-thirds of cereals grown are fed to animals, not humans.³¹ And because that is not enough to feed the millions of cattle, pigs, and chicken we keep, Europe imports huge amounts of soy from places like South America. Here, expanding soy plantations destroy tropical forests, cause regional water shortages, and displace subsistence farmers.³² In short, meat overconsumption in Europe not only damages our health and degrades land and ecosystems, but also fuels vicious cycles of poverty and even debt slavery.³³ 

Examples such as this show how intertwined social and environmental concerns are. Throughout the Bible, God presents Himself as a God who takes up the cause of the weak and the poor, the oppressed and the needy. Justice is one of God’s fundamental concerns, and the Bible holds stark warnings for those whose greed is greater than their fairness:  

“Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you.  […] Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out  against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have  lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourself for the day of  slaughter.”³⁴

God, the Righteous Judge, will hold people accountable for their deeds. When we seek to “love our neighbours”, that also means considering how our everyday actions and choices affect others. Although the outcome of our modern-day consumption may not immediately be visible to us in our globalised world, that does not absolve us of our responsibility. We are accountable for the consequences of our actions, even if those consequences are only apparent halfway around the world or in thirty years’ time. 

All of this leads us to the conclusion that many of the environmental and ecological problems we face are, at their heart, sin problems. We sin when we fail to acknowledge the overlordship of the Creator, when we treat His creation as if it were ours, when we fail to respect the living world as fellow creatures, when we choose to satisfy our own desires without thought for the consequences for other people. It is our sin that is scarring this planet – sin that requires redemption. 

At this point, conservation intersects with the gospel. 

Christians in Creation 

In the last sections, we have considered the three worldviews of anthropocentrism, ecocentrism, and theocentrism. We have seen that from a Christian perspective, anthropocentrism is right to see humans as special, but goes too far by seeing us as the center of the cosmos. In practice, anthropocentrism is often only a thin veil over human greed and selfishness. Ecocentrism tries to right this by emphasising the inherent worth of nature and our connections with other living beings, but it suffers from an unclear justification and unrealistic optimism about the unselfishness of human nature. 

I have argued that theocentrism takes up the good and important aspects of both anthropocentrism and ecocentrism, while compensating their weaknesses. We are special, created in the image of God, but responsible stewards not exploitative autocrats. At the same time, we share a deep connection with the rest of nature, recognising the living beings around us as fellow creatures before our common Creator. 

Finally, biblical theocentrism offers something that neither anthropocentrism nor ecocentrism do: justified hope. Aldo Leopold famously wrote: “One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.”³⁵ Feelings of hopelessness and frustration are common among conservationists, as societies repeatedly fail to address pressing environmental problems, or only offer attempts that are too little, too late. Into this Slough of Despond, the biblical message shines a double beam of light.

First, the Christian gospel offers hope for the present. As we have seen, it is our selfishness, greed, and injustice that are the ultimate causes of ecological collapse. This is not something that can be fully fixed by more equitable governance systems or more inclusive worldviews, important though they are. Changing our attitudes to nature and to one another requires changing our heart, the core centre of who we are. The good news is that that is exactly what God is willing to do through Jesus: to take away our selfishness and apathy when we come to Him, and to make us into people who genuinely care about each other and the world around us. That doesn’t mean we immediately become perfect when we become committed Christians, but it does mean that God begins to work in us, slowly but steadily changing our attitudes for the better. 

Secondly, the gospel gives us hope for the future. Just as God created this world, He promises to one day create a new one. In this new world, God will complete the renewal He has already begun here of everyone who decides to live with Him. But significantly, He will also renew the rest of creation. Paul writes in Romans 8 that “the whole creation has been groaning”, but that “the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.”³⁶ This final redemption is the ultimate hope of Christians – and it is a hope for our worn-out planet. This is not an excuse to continue exploiting this creation, just as the prospect of an upcoming job promotion does not remove our responsibilities for our current position. But it is a comforting thought that, no matter how bleak the prospects are at the moment, there will be a new beginning. 

Until this new creation comes, there is still plenty to do. The Christian faith provides both motivation and justification for engaging in the conservation of nature. Sadly, this has been neglected by large parts of the Church.³⁷³⁸

As Christians, we need to reconsider what the Bible actually teaches about nature and the relationships between us, God, and the rest of creation. We need to repent where we have indulged in greed and selfishness, and learn to see the connections between the way we treat nature and the way we treat other people. The Brazilian farmer is my neighbour too. Thankfully, there are examples of Christian organisations and projects that take a holistic view, addressing the spiritual, physical, and ecological needs of the people they serve.³⁹ 

Even as we think through what these insights mean for our daily lives, they can become part of our witness. Our culture is rediscovering the value of nature, longs for justice, and fears for the future. As Christians, we can engage confidently in these discussions, affirming the worth of creation, fighting for equity, and sharing our hope. We have something so say about creation – more importantly, we have something to say about the Creator. 

I will never forget one trip I took as a teenager, riding the night bus through our province in Zambia. It was a night of full moon, and looking out my window, a bright silver sheen lay over every tree and field and village for miles around – and then the sun rose. I have never seen a dawn so beautiful. The image of this African landscape, flooded by the early morning light, is for me a continual reminder of the wonder of creation. God has given us a beautiful, intricate, and marvellous nature. That is worth fighting for.