CREATION AND CONSERVATION
by Ken Ham

A lot of people around the world today are becoming more and more 
concerned with the environment and what man is doing to it. With many, 
including many Christians, this issue has become a very emotional one. 

For instance, at one of our recent Back to Genesis meetings, I was 
talking about pre-evangelism, establishing the need for destroying the 
stumbling block of evolution in people's thinking so that they will 
listen to the message of the Gospel.

To illustrate the point, I showed 
my overhead transparency which depicts trees and rocks (representing 
the barrier of evolution) being cleared by a bulldozer. At the end of 
the session, one young person in an emotional response described this 
overhead as anti-environmental, and insisted that I should stop using 
it! Perhaps you have heard of the environmental group who advocates 
violent destruction of earth-moving equipment to protect the earth. I 
don't know if this young man was from this evolutionary, new-age 
group, but he seemed to have been influenced by them. My immediate 
response was likewise emotional. I thought of lots of questions I 
could have asked: "Is there any wood in the house you live in? Do you 
drive on roads made after clearing trees? Have you ever heated 
yourself with a wood fire?" Thankfully, I held my tongue, but the more 
I thought about it, the more I realized that my illustration (which 
was using the clearing of land only as an analogy) could tend to 
offend needlessly those deeply concerned about the environment.

Rather than emotionally responding to environmental issues, we need to 
develop a Christian environmental ethic. To do this, we must have a 
foundation upon which to build this ethic, and this foundation must be 
the Word of God. And, as with other issues, we ultimately end up back 
in the Book of GenesisÄthe book of beginningsÄto build our thinking 
and develop a truly Christian viewpoint and plan of action.

WHO OWNS THE WORLD?

"In the beginning God created...." The very fact that God created the 
world means He owns it. Surely man can hardly claim ownership of 
anything. Psalm 95:5 states, "The sea is His, and He made it." In 
Psalm 24:1, we read, "The earth is the Lord's and the fulness 
thereof." Everything that we have has come from God who created all 
things. Because we don't own anything, this also means we have no 
right to exploit the creation--that is, make a profit for profit's 
sake, where the glory of God and the good of the creation is not 
sought.

WHO HAS THE RIGHT TO RULE OVER THE EARTH?

In Genesis 1:28, we read where God told Adam and Eve to "Be fruitful, 
and multiply, and replenish (fill) the earth, and subdue it: And have 
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and 
over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." Genesis 2:15 
states, "And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the Garden of 
Eden to dress it and to keep it." God created man different from all 
the other animals, with a superior brain and with the ability to 
communicate so that information can be passed from one generation to 
the next, that he might subdue the earth and have dominion over it, as 
commanded. Man therefore has a special responsibility and is expected 
to care for what has been entrusted to him by his Creator.

HOW IS GOD CONCERNED FOR THE CREATION?

In Matthew 6:28,29, God tells us that He clothes the lilies of the 
field so that "even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one 
of these." Furthermore, not even a sparrow falls without God's 
knowledge and permission. If God is that concerned about living 
things, surely man, His steward, must be similarly concerned. We would 
then want to eliminate or minimize harm to the world and its 
occupants.

WHY ARE THERE ENVIRONMENTAL CRISES?

When God first made the world, everything was "very good," or perfect 
(Genesis 1:32). All living things were in perfect harmony, with a 
sinless man tending to the perfect creation.

However, that is not the situation now. Romans 8:22 tells us that "the 
whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now." 
Genesis 3 records the event that led to this sad state of affairs, 
with all living things and all world systems decaying and dying. 
Romans 5:12 explains that man's actions (disobedience to God's command 
not to eat of the forbidden fruit) led to sin, which resulted in God's 
cursing the world with death. Genesis 3:17-19 describes some of the 
ways this sin affected the creation: "Cursed is the ground for thy 
sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns 
also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee;. . . In the sweat of 
thy face shalt thou eat bread."

The whole of creation is now running down and wearing out. "The earth 
shall wax old like a garment" (Isaiah 51:6), and man's sinful nature 
has disrupted man's relationship to the environment. The sin of Adam, 
which we all inherit, was one of rebellion against God's rules, and 
man, ever since, has made his own rules. This results in selfishness 
(and therefore exploitation), the refusal of man to practice love to 
his fellow man and other creatures, as well as poor stewardship of His 
creation, and man's desire to serve his own personal ends.

CAN MAN PROFIT FROM THE CREATION?

Deuteronomy 25:4 states: "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he 
treadeth out the corn." In Isaiah 5 and John 15, God shows that even 
He expects fruit or "profit" from His work. In other words, there is 
benefit to be gained from wise stewardship.

But man is not a perfect steward anymore. Even though the resources 
which God created are there for our use, man now often exploits these 
resources at the expense of his fellowman, and causes needless loss 
and destruction of other parts of God's creation. Surely this is 
wrong!

Conversely, much of the emphasis of the modern conservation movement 
is strongly evolutionary and pantheistic, worshipping the creature 
rather than the Creator (Romans 1). However, this ignores the Biblical 
mandate to rule over the earth and subdue it. The development of 
energy sources (coal, natural gas, petroleum, atomic power, etc.), the 
mining of mineral resources, the cutting of timber for building, etc., 
is not wrong. Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 states that there is "a time to plant 
and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to 
tear down and a time to build, a time to keep and a time to throw 
away, a time for war and a time for peace." It is the abuse of these 
resourcesÄthe exploitation, the waste, the greed and the haste that is 
wrong.

Remember, Proverbs 12:10 says, "A righteous man regardeth the life of 
his beast: But the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel." Dominion 
means to rule, to administer, to work, and take care of the 
creationÄnot lording over it in a tyrannical manner, or needlessly 
destroying it.

WHAT SHOULD THE CHRISTIAN DO ABOUT THIS?

Some have said that Christians can cut down a tree to build a house, 
or burn timber to keep warm, but not just destroy it for the sake of 
cutting down a tree. It has also been said by some that Christians can 
kill animals for food but not just slaughter them.

But then, if controlled deer-hunting or kangaroo-killing were not 
allowed, many more animals would suffer for various and complicated 
reasons. Because it is no longer a perfect world, there would be harm 
to their own kind and others. If ripe timber is harvested properly, 
there will be no net loss, even if the timber is not just used for 
housing, for example. If it is not harvested, the forest becomes 
unhealthy and fireprone. Proper management is essential. This would 
all be a part of using the earth's resources as God intended in 
telling man to rule over the earth and subdue it.

A WARNING

It is natural to want to see things in black and white terms. And 
there certainly are black and white issues.

However, because some things are so varied and complex, often 
involving sinful human behavior and motives, black and white answers 
may be risky and hard to find. Sincere, Bible-believing Christians may 
end up on opposing sides of such issues.

Regarding things like uranium mining, logging, etc., we usually have 
far more questions than answers. We do not often even have enough 
information to ask the proper questions. We need to gather and 
carefully assess all the information possible in our attempt to 
resolve these issues. Sometimes it will be a matter of weighing 
competing rights and wrongs, which will give rise to different answers 
for different situations. Use of a resource might be right for one 
area, circumstance, or time, and wrong for another. Instead of blanket 
rules applied indiscriminately, we must fall back on principles.

Most of all, we need to continue to adopt and develop a Christian 
environmental ethic based on the Bible, and we need to practice it. 
The Biology Department here at ICR is now attempting to develop just 
such a Christian perspective. We need to take dominion, ruling over 
the earth and subduing it, gaining fruit for our labor, all the while 
understanding that our own sinful natures may blind us, and refusing 
wanton and needless exploitation of the creation for selfish gain. 
There will be no perfect solution to the environmental crises until 
God makes a new heaven and a new earth in which "righteousness 
dwells."

../