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Humble Dominion
By James B. Tubbs, Jr.

"[I]f human dominion as despotic license is indefensible within the context of Old Testament theology, it is certainly unspeakable within the context of Jesus' teachings and New Testament christological models. Selfish dominance in any form is inconsistent with the model of obedient, humble service we find in Jesus Christ, the New Adam."

Biblical writers were concerned with questions of theological anthropology: How can we best explain the human condition? What is the place of humankind within the divine plan of creation? The answers we may discover or infer from the biblical writings offer us at least two forms of wisdom. The first is experiential-phenomenological wisdom: We may gain insight into common human attitudes, motivations, attitudes, and so on that gives meaning beyond the meaning we believe we have created for ourselves. The second is moral wisdom: Those of us who believe that God's will for creation must be normative for our own and who hold, further, that the divine will is in some sense manifest in Scripture, will find in biblical anthropology not only descriptive truths about the human condition but also guideposts for our own bearing and actions toward each other and the rest of creation.

I want to reflect upon sources of both forms of wisdom, emphasizing particularly the moral wisdom gleaned from biblical anthropology. My primary point of reference will be one of the best-known instances of anthropological question-raising in Scripture:

... [W]hat are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor. You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas (Ps. 8:4-8, NRSV).

This psalm contains one of those pregnant questions that asks much by asserting much, and the claims it makes about the human condition are both varied and grand. The particular claim I wish to examine here is the one about which the psalmist is most fully descriptive: that human beings have been given "dominion" over the works of divine creation. What is meant here by "dominion," and what might we infer from our response to that question about proper human attitudes and

James B. Tubbs, Jr. teaches ethics and religious studies at the University of Detroit Mercy.

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behavior toward nonhuman works of creation (and toward their creator)?

Biblical notions of human dominion in (or over) nature have been scrutinized heavily over the past few decades, and much of this scrutiny has been somewhat reactive rather than simply the fruit of exegetical curiosity. Specifically, modern historians, social scientists, and moralists critical of those attitudes toward "nature" that have yielded ecological devastation, "inhumane" treatment of animals, and the like have attempted to trace the philosophical and theological roots of such attitudes. Hebrew and Christian scriptural interpretations have been causally indicted often enough to invite (and demand) new and careful analyses of those sources. One critic, for example, historian Lynn White, Jr., has claimed that Christianity, "the most anthropocentric religion the world has seen," bears a "huge burden of guilt" for fostering attitudes toward nature that form the roots of our ecologic crisis. Moreover, he claims, "We shall continue to have a worsening ecologic crisis until we reject the Christian axiom that nature has no reason for existence save to serve man."¹ White is surely correct that some Christian interpretations of human dominion over nature have been quite dualistic and anthropocentric and have fostered instrumental and exploitive attitudes toward nonhuman nature. We shall see, however, that Christian theology and biblical interpretation also yield foundations for other, very different understandings of human dominion. Indeed, I will contend that the larger scriptural voice concerning our dominion indicates (and prescribes) a condition of humility, gratitude, and responsibility rather than one of freedom to exploit and destroy nonhuman nature.

I

Perhaps we should begin, though, by attending to some possible bases of the Christian "axiom" so disparaged by White. Christian history is replete with interpretations of "dominion" that seem to separate humankind from the rest of creation and offer us sovereign, exploitive rights over all things in nature.

The language of Psalm 8 appears closely related to that of the Priestly account of creation found in Genesis 1:1-2:4a. In that account, humankind appears as the final act of divine creation and is given charge to "be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it," to have "dominion" (radah) over "every living thing that moves upon the earth" (1:28) and to eat from every seed-bearing plant and tree (1:29). One interpretation of this is that the order of creation moved sequentially from its lowest to its highest forms, the last (the human) to be served by all the former. Likewise in this interpretation, the earlier, Yahwist creation account (Gen. 2:4b-25) makes the same point in a different way: Plants and animals are created and placed in the garden

¹ Lynn White, Jr., "The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis," Science 155 (10 March, 1967), pp. 1203-1207.

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after Adam's creation in order to serve humankind, and Adam's first act is to express sovereignty over the animals by giving them their names. From this it follows, as White puts it, that "God planned all of this explicitly for man's benefit and rule: no item in the physical creation had any purpose save to serve man's purposes.²

One of the most notable adherents of this general interpretation is Thomas Aquinas. He argued that, among created beings, only the intellectual creature (the human) has "the essential character of a principal agent," while non-intellectual creatures have "the formal character of an instrument" and, thus, are not valued for their own sakes but "as useful to a principal agent.³ He goes on to offer teleological arguments and part-whole analogies to further his point that nonhuman creation stands in instrumental subjection to the human (citing Psalm 8 as one of his biblical warrants). Aquinas' interpretation reflects in large part that of Origen, who insisted in the Contra Celsum that the creator "has made everything to serve the rational being and his natural intelligence," and that the Stoics, too, "quite rightly put man and the rational nature in general above all irrational beings, and say that providence has made everything primarily for the sake of the rational creature.⁴

Both Origen and Aquinas base their arguments upon a hierarchical and teleological understanding of created nature derived, as many modern commentators note,⁵ not from biblical sources but from Stoic and other ancient Greek philosophies. Even so, their instrumental, nature-for-human-use interpretation of human dominion is echoed in more scripturally-oriented Reformation writings as well. Luther, commenting upon humankind's expanded dominion (to eat meat) granted by God in Genesis 9:2-3, notes that it is a "more extensive and oppressive dominion" than existed before the fall and flood, that humans are given authority like that of "a tyrant who has absolute power" over life and death. This should "make our consciences relaxed and free" in using created things, as there is no divine law to forbid such usage and thus it is no sin. Indeed, God's gift of tyrannical dominion provides reliable and excellent proof that God "no longer hates man but is kindly disposed toward him."⁶ And Calvin, while

² Ibid., p. 1205.
³ Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975), Book Three, Part II, Chap. 112. Aquinas notes that any scriptural prohibitions of cruelty toward animals are meant to prevent the extension of such cruel behavior to other humans, or to prevent temporal loss to a person of his animal property.
⁴ Origen, Contra Celsum (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953), IV, 78 and 74, quoted in Clarence J. Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian Shore (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), pp. 185-186.
⁵ See, for example, Robin Attfield, The Ethics of Environmental Concern (New York, Columbia University Press, 1983), pp. 26-27; C. J. Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian Shore, pp. 42-62; Andrew Linzey, Christianity and the Rights of Animals (New York: Crossroad, 1987), pp. 25-27; and John Passmore, Man's Responsibility for Nature (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1974), pp. 13-17.
⁶ Martin Luther, "Lectures on Genesis, Chapters 6-14," in Luther's Works, edited by Jaroslav Pelikan (St. Louis: Concordia, 1960), pp. 132-134.

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emphasizing the notion of human "stewardship" over all that God has given us,⁷ nevertheless insists that "we know that the universe was established especially for the sake of mankind" and, thus, we should took for that same purpose in God's governance of creation.⁸ His evidence for this conclusion comes from the Priestly creation narrative, where God took six days to create a universe of things useful and salutary to humankind before creating Adam.⁹

Clearly, then, Christian theology includes a significant tradition that views the doctrine of creation in profoundly anthropocentric terms-a tradition echoed even in the twentieth century by Karl Barth.¹⁰ In this view, human dominion entails broad license to use nonhuman creation for human purposes. Of course, recognition of God-given freedom to use natural resources does not in itself resolve the question of which uses (and which purposes) are consistent with divine intention, and within what limits. We are all too aware of the devastating ecologic consequences of assuming that our dominion over nature is simply a matter of despotic license to exploit. And we should remember that modern scientific and technological means of exploiting and transforming nature for human ends were utterly unknown to pre-modern theologians. Passmore suggests that the more actively despotic modern notion of human dominion-the idea that "since everything on earth is for man's use, he is at liberty to modify it as he will"-arose only with Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes in the seventeenth century.¹¹ Nevertheless, the examples cited above indicate that such a notion might seek its justification within a rather prominent strand of Christian anthropology and biblical interpretation.¹²

Even so, the critical question for our purposes here is not whether an anthropocentric, "despotic license" interpretation of human dominion has found a home in Christian theology nor whether it has been espoused by well-known and influential theologians but, instead,

⁷ "Let every one regard himself as the steward of God in all things which he possesses" (Calvin, Commentary on Genesis 2:15, ET 1847, quoted by F. B. Welbourn in "Man's Dominion," Theology 78 [November 1975], p. 563 fn.l.).
⁸ John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), I. xvi. 6.
⁹ Ibid., I. xiv. 2; and I. xiv. 22.
¹⁰ See, for example, Linzey, Christianity and the Rights of Animals, pp. 23, 29-3 1; and Passmore, Man's Responsibility for Nature, pp. 122-123.
¹¹ Passmore, Man's Responsibility for Nature, pp. 17-23. Descartes' philosophy in particular, with its mechanistic understanding of all nonhuman nature, provided, in Passmore's view, the "charter of the Industrial Revolution" (p. 21). But see Attfield's response concerning the ecological limits implied by Bacon and Descartes, in The Ethics of Environmental Concern, pp. 39-42.
¹² Of course, the very "prominence" of this strand of thought may have arisen simply because of its apologetic usefulness rather than its theological profundity. F. B. Welbourn considers it likely that biblical and theological ideas about human dominion did not give rise to the development of Western technological power but instead were sought out and used in its defense after its development ("Man's Dominion," p. 561f.). Passmore offers a similar rationale for the very origin of the biblical creation narratives: "By the time the Genesis stories were composed ... man had already embarked on the task of transforming nature. In the Genesis stories man justifies his actions" (Man's Responsibility for Nature, p. 7 fn.).

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whether it can be shown to be a truthful expression of biblical anthropology on the whole. And if we are to find an answer to that question, I believe we must look at the broader scriptural context(s) within which notions of human dominion appear. Only then can we hope to hear what the psalmist (and the Genesis writers) are saying to us about what we have been created to be and to do.

II

First, scriptural allusions to human dominion over creation must be interpreted in light of what the texts have to say about the status of created "nature" in general. Unlike other ancient Near Eastern and oriental religions, the Hebrew tradition offers a radically de-sacralized view of the natural world. Trees, rocks, and animals are not objects of awe or worship; neither are they incarnate deities nor the abode of deities. The creator is transcendent Other, having formed everything that exists from nothing. Since creator and creation are radically distinct, worship of the latter would be idolatrous. But this does not mean that created things should be regarded simply as "unsacrosanct raw material."¹³ They have intrinsic value inasmuch as they reflect the work of their creator. In the Priestly creation account, each and every part of the creation is seen by God to be "good." God's status as sole author and sole owner of everything is one of the most consistent themes of the Old Testament. "The earth is the Lord's and all that is in it" (Ps. 24:1, 50:10, 89:1 1; Exod. 19:5; Deut. 10: 14; Job 38-41). And God is pictured as caring for creation quite apart from any human agency. God sends rain to areas with no human inhabitants (Job 38:26-27) and provides habitation, food, and drink for animals in the wild (Job 39:5-6; Ps. 104:10-27). This theme is echoed in the New Testament as well, where Jesus notes the Father's constant concern for sparrows (Matt. 10:29; Luke 12:6) and lilies (Matt. 6:28-29).

Clearly, such depictions of the natural (nonhuman) creation as subject to God's ownership and providence imply strongly that its proper value and status extend far beyond its utility to humankind. In this context, we should recall that the "dominion" described in Genesis 1 allows humans to use only seed-yielding plants and trees for food, while animals are given "every green plant" to eat (Gen. 1:29-30). After the flood, animals live in "fear and dread" of humans and are allowed as human food, with the proviso that their "lifeblood" (nephesh) must not be consumed (under penalty of divine reckoning-Gen. 9:2-5). Gerhard von Rad notes that this is presented not as a cultic "dietary law" but as a universal ordinance: "Even when man slaughters and kills, he is to know that he is touching something, which, because it is life, is in a special manner God's property; and as a sign of this he is to keep his hands off the blood."¹⁴

¹³ See, for example, Welbourn, "Man's Dominion," p. 564; Attfield, The Ethics of Environmental Concern, pp. 25ff.; and Passmore, Man's Responsibility for Nature, pp. 9f.
¹⁴ Gerhard von Rad, Genesis (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1972), p. 132.

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Other limitations regarding human uses of nature appear throughout the Old Testament. The fruit of trees is not to be eaten until the fifth year after planting; all fruit from the fourth year is to be "set apart for rejoicing in the Lord" (Lev. 19:23-25). Fruit trees are also to be spared during time of war, even when their wood is needed for the construction of siegeworks (Deut. 20:19-20). Oxen treading out grain are not to be muzzled (Deut. 25:4), and a neighbor's donkey or ox fallen in the road should be helped to its feet (Deut. 22:4). A mother bird should not be taken for food along with her young (Deut. 22:6-7). Fields and vineyards are to be left fallow every seventh and fiftieth (jubilee) year-"a year of complete rest for the land" (Lev. 25:1-12). And tithes of the land's produce belong to the Lord (Lev. 27:30). In sum, the rather circumscribed uses of natural resources authorized to human beings in the Old Testament would hardly support any notion of human "dominion" as a matter of license to exploit.

Given these observations about divine regard and care for created nature in general, let us turn to the more specific issue of humankind's status vis-a-vis nature and nature's God. We are most accustomed to viewing ourselves as the middle level of a divinely mandated, triplex hierarchy (God-humankind-nature). In the Christian tradition, much of the sense of separation between humanity and the rest of nature has been due to a pronounced emphasis on humanity's unique eschatological destiny, as well as the Greek influences mentioned above,¹⁵ and Old Testament phrases like "fill the earth and subdue it" (Gen. 1:28) and "you have put all things under their feet" (Ps. 8:6) might be seen to imply a strong dualistic separation between human beings and other created beings. Yet we also have dramatic biblical examples of God's ordering of and activity toward creation, which clearly include humanity with the rest of nature. The most obvious example of this is the finitude bestowed by God on all things in nature. The mortal fate of humans is the fate of animals: "As one dies, so dies the other ... all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again" (Eccl. 3:19-20). It is the fate of plants, too: "All people are grass.... The grass withers, the flower fades" (Isa. 40:6-8; 1 Peter 1:24).

Moreover, God's curses and covenants are known to extend beyond the human species. In the story of the flood, divine anger is directed not only at humankind but also at animals, creeping things, and birds; yet God also preserves representatives of each species, human and animal (Gen. 6-7). After the Flood, God's covenant of the rainbow is made with Noah, his descendants, and "every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth" (Gen. 9:8-17). Further, the New Testament

¹⁵ Sallie McFague argues, further, that our sense of humanity-nature dualism emerges from our traditional metaphors for God and God's relationship to the world. Those metaphors have been quite monarchical, patriarchal, and triumphalist. In contrast, she seeks to "remythologize" Christian theology for our contemporary ecological, nuclear context by proposing metaphors of God as "mother," "lover," and "friend," and of the world as God's body. See her Models of Go & Theology for an Ecological, Nuclear Age (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988).

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epistles seem to include all of nature in God's redemptive purpose: In Christ, "all things" were created, and through Christ, God has reconciled all things to himself (Col. 1:16-20). Thus, the "whole creation" can hope to be freed from its bondage to decay (Rom. 8:19-22).

Clearly, then, the unity of all creation is a theme that has been given substantial biblical emphasis. Equally clear, however, is the emphasis given to human uniqueness in nature. Specifically, humans alone are created "in the image of God." Our "dominion," according to the Priestly creation account, follows from our creation in God's image (Gen. 1:26-28). Perhaps the Psalmist had the imago dei in mind when he described humankind as "a little lower than God" and "crowned ... with glory and honor" (Ps. 8:5).

But what does this created status mean in terms of humankind's relationship to the rest of the natural world? We have seen that it cannot be taken to mean either authorship or ownership of nature; both belong to God alone. Nor does it warrant usage of natural resources without restriction. It does not even imply a full human understanding of natural processes and events, as God reminds Job so dramatically (Job 38-41). Rather, it may imply a God-like responsibility for the natural world. Like other created beings, humans are dependent upon God. But, like God, humans are, to some extent at least, capable of rational, purposive attitudes and actions toward other created beings. In one sense, then, the "image of God" denotes a reflection or reproduction of certain divine capabilities in the human. In a broader sense, however, God's "image" in the human also connotes a reflection of God's purposes in human purposes. As von Rad points out, "image" refers to a plastic image, and the "dominion" related to it is a representational dominion:

Just as powerful earthly kings, to indicate their claim to dominion, erect an image of themselves in the provinces of their empire where they do not personally appear, so man is placed upon earth in God's image as God's sovereign emblem. He is really only God's representative, summoned to maintain and enforce God's claim to dominion over the earth.¹⁶

Implied in this description is both a human responsibility to rule nature as God's representative and a human accountability (to God) for ruling as God would rule. Other modern commentators have expressed the same basic meaning of human dominion "in God's image" through a variety of metaphors and analogies, referring to the human as God's "ambassador," "vice-regent," or "vice-gerent" in the natural world.¹⁷ Claus Westermann finds "something kingly" attributed to humanity in Genesis 1 and Psalm 8; yet he cautions that it

¹⁶ Gerhard von Rad, Genesis, P. 60.
¹⁷ See, e.g., Welbourne, "Man's Dominion," p. 563; Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian Shore, p. 166; and C. F. D. Moule, Man and Nature in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1967), p. 3.

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refers to concepts of kingship from antiquity which are markedly non-despotic:

As lord of his realm, the king is responsible not only for the realm; he is the one who bears and mediates blessings for the realm entrusted to him. Man would fail in his royal office of dominion over the earth were he to exploit the earth's resources to the detriment of the land, plant life, animals, rivers, and seas....

...What is decisive is the responsibility of man for the preservation of what has been entrusted to him; and he can show this responsibility by exercising his royal office of mediator of prosperity and well-being, like the kings of the ancient world.¹⁸

But perhaps the most useful-albeit less majestic-metaphor that captures this meaning of dominion is "stewardship." Like Adam in the Garden, a steward has broad but derivative (that is, bestowed) authority, generous but limited freedom of usage, and the privilege of profit but not ownership. Above all, a steward is responsible for preserving and advancing those interests defined by the owner and is accountable to the owner for having done so.

I would advocate "stewardship" as the most appropriate dominion metaphor for another reason, too. While "ambassadors" or "vice-regents" are certainly responsible and accountable, they may also be perceived as distant or uninvolved, somehow above it all. Stewards, on the other hand, are usually pictured not simply as overseers but as workers and producers (often alongside those under their responsibility). And the biblical picture of human "dominion" over nature is a picture of human work within nature, literally from the beginning.¹⁹ In the Yahwist creation story, Adam is placed in the garden of Eden "to till it and keep it" (Gen. 2:15). That task is not removed after the Fall-it just becomes more onerous and difficult. Also, the Yahwist account describes the creation of animals as God's first attempt to provide for Adam "a helper as his partner" (2:18, NRSV; or "a helper fit for him," RSV). Only when none of the animals proves a suitable "partner" does God create another of Adam's own species. And even then, animals are not reported to lose their "helper" status, even when they begin to have "fear and dread" of humans (Gen. 9:2). In short, the human-animal relationship described in the Yahwist account would seem to be far more collegial than is often assumed.²⁰

¹⁸ Claus Westermann, Creation (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974), pp. 52-53.
¹⁹ The theme of human work in and with creation has found many theological expressions; some of the most beautiful may be found in the poetic works of the Benedictine writer Hildegard of Bingen (d. 1179). Her poems emphasize human dependence on the created world; humanity's status as the "guardian" of creation; and our calling as co-creators who, with nature's help, can glorify God through the "right and holy utilization of the earth," thus making everything in nature "a temple and altar for the service of God" (Meditations with Hildegard of Bingen, introd. and versions by Gabriele Uhlein [Santa Fe: Bear and Co., 1983], esp. pp. 70-71, 78-79, 102-103 and 106-107).
²⁰ Many writers have noted that Adam's prerogative of naming the animals (Gen. 2:19-20) expresses ancient Near Eastern notions of absolute sovereignty, and that this passage parallels closely the Priestly description of Adam's "dominion." We should note, however, that the Yahwist Adam names his human partner no less than the animals, and the Priestly account certainly does not indicate any human "dominion" over other humans (even though it has been used by some in defense of patriarchy as well as animal domination).

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Much more could be said concerning human "dominion" within the context of biblical writings about humankind's role in nature. But the reflections offered here are sufficient, I believe, to refute a despotic license model of dominion in favor of a responsible stewardship model. We were not created to be Luther's "tyrants" in the natural world, but rather to preserve and care for God's creation in the image of God's own providence.

Finally, all that has been said thus far must be seen in light of the most important thing the Bible has to say about our dominion in creation: It is a gift. We have not and cannot earn or merit dominion in any sense; rather, it has been freely bestowed by our all-powerful Creator. It should always evoke in us a sense of profound gratitude. Moreover, human dominion, like all other aspects of creation, exists for and reflects the glory of God. Whatever pretensions to human grandeur may be found in the biblical saga, they pale to insignificance in light of the awesome and majestic power of God, the author and owner of everything that is. The very structure of Psalm 8 reminds us of that reality, for its claims about human "glory," "honor," and "dominion" are sandwiched between a common preface and refrain: "O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!" (Ps. 8:1,9). Indeed, the Old Testament reminds us again and again that human dominion at its grandest must yet be seen as a grateful, humble dominion.

III

Now, while the passages (and interpretations) cited thus far offer significant contextual glosses on the meaning of human dominion as given to Adam in the creation, they do not yet address Christianity's most important gloss on the divine will for human being and doing: God's self-expression in Jesus the Christ. New Testament theology depicts Jesus Christ not simply as one created in God's image, but rather as the image of God appearing within the creation. Pauline theology, in particular, represents Christ as the one in whom all things were created (Col. 1:16) and also as the one who brings "new creation" (2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15). Just as all things were created in Christ, all things are saved in Christ. He is the "firstborn of all creation" (Col. 1:15); Adam was but "a type of the one who was to come" (Rom. 5:14). Thus, Jesus Christ is not only the center and savior of creation but also the unique model of true humanity.

So, what can be said, based upon that unique model, of the dominion proper to human beings? According to the Epistle to the Hebrews, we have not seen in human history the sort of dominion described in Psalm 8; but we have seen Jesus "crowned with glory and

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honor" because of a very different sort of dominion: a model of abasement, of priestly, sacrificial service to God for the sake of others (Heb. 2:7-18). Likewise Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, describes Christ's self-emptying service and urges his readers to adopt "the same mind" (Phil. 2:5-11). Jesus, who has all power and dominion and is the self-revelation of God's will for all humanity, has taken the form of a servant (Mark 10:43-45) whose dominion is in the form of obedience.²¹

This is, to be sure, a most humble notion of dominion! And if we recognize Christ's model as the revelation of God's will for our lives and thus as normative for ourselves, then we must attempt to take seriously its implications for humanity's role in relation to the rest of nature. Some would argue that those implications will be few, that Jesus' salvific katabasis and kenosis express God's loving concern for humans alone and not for other created things. Yet we have seen that Paul, at least, regards "all of creation" as subject to God's reconciling activity in Jesus Christ (Rom. 8:19-22; Col. 1:16-20) and, thus, as fit subjects of our concern, too, if we are to "be of the same mind" as Christ.

It is difficult, of course, to try to derive any specific norms or principles regarding ecological responsibility, treatment of animals, and so forth, from the recorded teachings of Jesus. His treatment of the barren fig tree (Mark 11: 13, 20-24) and the Gadarene swine (Matt. 8:28-34; Mark 5:1-20; Luke 8:26-39) have suggested to some a despotic or human-utility attitude toward plant and animal life.²² On the other hand, though, an attitude of solicitude and positive evaluation of the natural world is even more evident in the Gospels. We have already noted Jesus' remarks about the Father's concern for sparrows and lilies-remarks very much in line with Old Testament assertions about God's providence for all things. Even more striking, perhaps, are Jesus' references to the relationship between shepherd and sheep. His parable about the lost sheep (Matt. 18:12-14; Luke 15:4-7) explicitly likens God's concern for lost sinners to the shepherd's disinterested concern for each of his sheep; the shepherd's concern can hardly be attributed to the sheep's utility-value alone, since there would seem to be little marginal utility in leaving ninety-nine sheep to rescue one.²³ Indeed, such concern is given dramatic emphasis when the Joharmine Jesus declares that the good shepherd "lays down his life for the sheep" (John 10:11). That Jesus is referring metaphorically to himself and his sacrifice is clear enough, but it is equally clear that his metaphor can be understood only via its recognizable worldly referent: a good shepherd's proper regard for his charges. Taken together, Jesus' metaphors relating to the care of sheep, vineyards, and other

²¹ See Walter Brueggernann's discussion of Psalm 8 in light of New Testament theology in his The Message of the Psalms (Minneapolis: Augsburg Press, 1984), pp. 36-38.
²² See, for example, Attfield's discussion of Augustine's use of these passages to defend ruthlessness" toward animals and plants (The Ethics of Environmental Concern, p. 29f.).
²³ See Ibid., p. 29.

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aspects of nature all seem to presuppose a benign view of nature and to encourage gentle concern and responsibility for natural beings, in the image of God's own providence.²⁴

If the Old Testament view of human dominion is best understood through the metaphor of "stewardship," as I have suggested above, then the Gospel stories of Jesus' teachings and the Epistles' christological claims about him would seem to broaden (and even radicalize) that metaphor in markedly nonimperious directions. New Testament representations of the humanity-nature relationship do not deny that humans have been given a degree of power or control over nature. But any usual sense of control is overwhelmed by models of profound gratitude and obedience; any usual sense of power as dominance gives way to models of humility, servanthood, and emptying onself of egoistic claims. In sum, if human dominion as despotic license is indefensible within the context of Old Testament theology, it is certainly unspeakable within the context of Jesus' teachings and New Testament christological models. Selfish dominance in any form is inconsistent with the model of obedient, humble service we find in Jesus Christ, the New Adam. And exploitive, anthropocentric attitudes toward nature would certainly be precluded for those who believe, with Paul, that all of creation is subject to the redemptive, reconciling action of Christ.

IV

Now, having surveyed these various biblical expressions concerning the nature and meaning of human dominion, we are in a position to ask, What contribution-or what difference-can they make in our moral reasoning about ecological responsibility, treatment of animals, and so on? They do not, in my view, offer clear, specific, unambiguous principles or rules for all human decisions involving nonhuman entities. They do, however, offer much-needed perspective on the relative significance of human and nonhuman beings, perspective which can inform our basic attitudes toward the world, our identification of desirable ends or goals within nature, and our very ability to see particular value-conflicts as moral issues in the first place.

For example, if our perspective is shaped by stories of God's ownership of and providence toward all creation, of divine limitations placed upon human uses of natural resources, and of Jesus Christ's reconciliation of all creation to the Creator, then our understanding of ourselves "in God's image" will include attitudes, dispositions, or bearings of respect, care, and preservation toward that which God values. Such a perspective will be theocentric rather than anthropocentric (to use James Gustafson's distinction). It will recognize that humans must be measurers, but not the measure, of things and their

²⁴ Ibid., p. 31.

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value.²⁵ Thus, it will engender strong suspicion (if not outright rejection) of well-known anthropocentrisms such as John Locke's "labor theory of value." Locke held that the earth and everything in it is given to humans "for the support and comfort of their being," and that the value of any natural resource is almost entirely ("nine-tenths" or, usually, "ninety-nine hundredths") a function of the human work applied to it to make it humanly useful. It follows that natural resources left without any human "improvement" may rightly be called "waste."²⁶ This view has been highly influential in the history of Western political philosophy over the past three centuries. Locke and his followers applied it in a natural-rights defense of the institution of private property; Marx and his followers applied it in scathing critiques of the alienation of workers' labor-value from the fruits of their labor in capitalist systems. But I would argue that, from a perspective based on biblical notions of human dominion, we cannot envision the value of any natural entity simply on the basis of its humanly-wrought development, improvement, or usefulness to ourselves-not, at least, when we have so much evidence that God values it on other grounds.

A second area of concern for moral reflection, following from the matter of attitude or disposition toward nature, may be expressed in the question, Who, or what, is to be counted as part of the moral community? In other words, Who, or what, has moral standing and confronts us with interests that must be regarded and taken into account in our moral deliberations? Most definitions of moral language, claims, or norms include a material criterion of "other-regardingness."²⁷ In order to proceed with moral reflection, then, we must identify which others we are including as subjects of our regard.

Contemporary discussions of social justice and environmental responsibility have yielded wide agreement upon an ethic of conservation of natural resources, based upon the identification of future persons as others whose welfare and material needs must be regarded. Note that a conservationist ethic is quite consistent with even the most despotic conceptions of biblical dominion, since the gift of dominion is given to all human beings in common, not to any one generation at the expense of another.

Beyond this area of agreement, however, stand a growing number of philosophers, theologians, and others who argue that our understanding of moral community should be expanded to include all sentient

²⁵ See James M. Gustafson, Ethics from a Theocentric Perspective, Vol. 1: Theology and Ethics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), and Vol. 2: Ethics and Theology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984).
²⁶ John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, edited by Thomas P. Peardon (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1952), chapter V, "Of Property."
²⁷ For example, David Little and Sumner B. Twiss, in their Comparative Religious Ethics (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1978), propose that, "An action-guide is moral only if it includes (together with prescriptivity, superiority, and general legitimacy ... ) judgments and so on that (1) concern emotions, attitudes, and acts that impinge upon the material welfare of others, and (2) involve, in the justification of its course of action, some consideration of the effects of the action of one person on the material welfare of others" (p. 41).

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beings,²⁸ or all living things,²⁹ or that we should recognize independent moral standing of the biosphere itself.³⁰ A wide range of criteria have been suggested by which we might identify those nonhuman entities with moral standing; I will not venture to explore the conceptual merits or limitations of those criteria here. I would point out, though, that such expansion of the category of "others" for whom we should have regard yields an ethic of ecologic preservation as well as conservation, for it ascribes inherent or intrinsic value (beyond human utility-value) to nonhuman entities, thus establishing their interests in, or claims to, preservation for their own sakes.

Given all that has been said earlier in this essay about biblical portrayals of human dominion and humanity's relationship to nature, I believe that there are scriptural grounds for recognizing intrinsic value and moral standing of some sort for all things in nature-animals, trees, streams, whole ecosystems, and all the rest. After all, they have been declared "good" by God in the creation myths, they have been identified as subjects of divine providence, and in Pauline theology they are, with humanity, subjects of the divine economy of salvation. I would suggest, then, that the biblical model of human dominion points us in the direction of both ecologic conservation and ecologic preservation.

But this suggestion requires qualification, too. Moral reflection, regardless of the extent of moral community one defines, often involves prioritization of and choices between values within that community-values that cannot all be preserved or defended in a given decision. This is the burden of moral discernment. Recognition of the intrinsic value in (and moral standing of) nonhuman entities means that their well-being and preservation must be taken into account, along with specifically human values, in all decisions that affect them. Now, that does not mean that the well-being and preservation of nonhuman entities should be (or even can be) weighed in exactly the same way as human well-being and preservation when those goods conflict. (I cannot, for instance, abstractly equate the well-being of a Plasmodium protozoan with the well-being of its host, a human being with malaria.) But I would suggest that a proper understanding of human dominion involves recognition of presumptive or prima facie claims of welfare on the part of nonhuman beings. Prima facie claims can be overridden when they conflict with stronger, more extensive, or more pressing moral claims, but they cannot be ignored or considered irrelevant, and the burden of proof always rests upon those who seek

²⁸ For example, Peter Singer, Animal Liberation (New York: Random House, 1975); Tom Regan, ^"An Examination and Defense of One Argument Concerning Animal Rights," Inquiry 22 (1979), pp. 189-219; and Joel Feinberg, "Human Duties and Animal Rights," On the Fifth Day: Animal Rights and Human Ethics, edited by R. K. Morris and M. W. Fox (Washington: Acropolis Books, 1978), pp. 45-69.
²⁹ For example, L. C. Birch and John B. Cobb, Jr., Liberation of Life (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982).
³⁰ For example, Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (New York: Oxford University Press, 1949); and Kenneth Goodpaster, "On Being Morally Considerable," Journal of Philosophy 75 (1978), pp. 308-325.

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to override them in favor of some other claim of moral value. Moreover, even when we do believe we are justified in overriding or outweighing a prima facie claim, that claim still makes demands on us in terms of how and to what extent it is overridden.

Take, for instance, the issue of slaughtering animals for the human consumption of their meat. This may be viewed as a conflict between prima facie claims-claims of the good of continued existence of animals versus claims of enhanced human welfare via the provision of animal protein. Relevant to moral reflection are questions about how necessary animal meat is to human well-being (and in what quantities), about whether other alternatives are available for the suitable promotion of human health, and so on. Yet even when we believe we can justify a carnivorous diet, the prima facie claims of animals require us to confront other moral questions as well, such as the relative degree of painfulness in the method of their slaughter and the degree of discomfort and restriction imposed upon them in raising them for food production. To carry this example further, justification of killing animals for human food production would not entail or imply justification of killing them for human sport or recreation. The latter activity would require its own separate (and, in my view, rather more difficult) justification, based upon the same kind of questions noted above. Likewise, the justification of any use of animals in medical experimentation must take into account the specifics of how they are treated in that venture as well as a more general weighing of the degree of their potential suffering against the actual degree of fundamental human good to be obtained by their use. This process of weighing and comparing prima facie claims depends, once again, upon the perspective that informs it. And the sort of perspective I have sketched here requires, at the very least, a profound sensitivity to the nonhuman costs of human choices and projects.

V

In summary, then, biblical accounts of human dominion can influence our moral reflection by offering perspective-perspective on what we should value in the world around us (and for what reasons) and perspective on the extent of the moral community we see around us. That perspective can (and, I believe, should) undergird our identification of desirable ends or goals within the created world. It can also deepen and broaden our appreciation and concern for the effects and consequences of human decisions upon nonhuman beings. Finally, that perspective can inform our moral lives by engendering certain habits or dispositions we call "virtues": the virtue of gratitude in answer to God's gift of human dominion; the virtue of responsiveness to God's will for creation; and, last but not least, the virtue of humility in the face of a measure of value infinitely greater than our own aims, needs, or desires.