“On Values” Revisited: A Judeo-Christian Theology of Man and Nature

Abstract

This article counters widely publicized opinions expressed by lan McHarg and others alleging that Judeo-Christian values have fostered Western man's unprecedented environmental exploitation. History suggests that such exploitation is neither unique nor religious in inception. Biblical exegesis reveals a theology of man and nature which is, in fact, antithetical to exploitation. Judeo-Christian theology holds, instead, that man is called into a sacred relationship with nature founded upon loving dominion, discerning stewardship, and covenantal co-existence, and that nature as creation is sacred, bearing the image of God. Since man has free will, exploitation is a possible consequence of wrong choice, not of Judeo-Christianity itself.