meaning of man of enviroment
Answers
What is man’s relationship to nature? Does he have an ethical responsibility to the world he lives in? Is he justified in controlling other forms of life? There are many answers given to these questions, reflecting a wide variety of worldviews. But in order to understand the environmentalism of today’s popular culture, it may be helpful to examine some of the major streams of thought that have built it.
Unlike other religions, Judaism and Christianity made a strong distinction between God and his creation. Nature was not divine (Schaeffer, Pollution 49). Both man and the world he lived in were created by God for his glory. This gave them both intrinsic value. But nature was not sacred, not something to be revered or worshiped (Passmore 10). It was man’s duty to God to worship and obey him alone. Man’s relationship to nature was, for the Jew or Christian, based on God’s instruction to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden: "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth" (Gen. 1:28). In the Biblical view, not only was the Creator clearly distinguished from what he had made; man was distinct from the rest of creation as well (Schaeffer, Pollution 50). Man was under the authority of God, and, in turn, had been given authority over nature. The world’s wealth was at his disposal, to be used for his ends.
Yet the Biblical Christian recognized that he was not free to abuse the earth. Just as the human race had value because it was made by God, the rest of creation was to be treated with dignity because of its origin (Tarnas 180). To consider an animal to be "low," or of little value, insulted its Maker (Schaeffer, Pollution 55). Cruelty toward animals was condemned
