Group two

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Chapter 2-THE GOSPEL OF CREATION SUMMARY.

 THE LIGHT OFFERED BY FAITH

-politics and philosophy there are those who firmly reject

the idea of a Creator but science and religion, with their
distinctive approaches to understanding reality, can
enter into an intense dialogue fruitful for both.
-If we are truly concerned to develop an ecology capable
of remedying the damage we have done, no branch of the
sciences and no form of wisdom can be left out, and that
includes religion and the language particular to it.
-Dialogue with philosophical thought has enabled the
church to produce various syntheses between faith and
reason presented as social teaching enriched by taking
up new challenges.

-Faith leads to ample motivation to care for nature and for

the most vulnerable of their brothers and sisters.
-Faith tells us that the environment has cared for us and
we should in turn care for it also.
-It is good for humanity and the world at large when
believers better recognize the ecological commitments
which stem from faith in God and his creation.
 THE WISDOM OF THE BIBLICAL ACCOUNTS.

-In the first creation account in the Book of Genesis, God’s

plan includes creating the earth and humanity after which
“God saw everything that he had made, and behold it
was very good”.
-Human life is grounded in three fundamental and closely
intertwined relationships: with God, with our neighbor and
with the earth itself.
-The harmony between the Creator, humanity and creation
as a whole was disrupted by our presuming to take the
place of God and refusing to acknowledge our creaturely
limitations.
-“Tilling” refers to cultivating, ploughing or working,
while “keeping” means caring, protecting, overseeing
and preserving. This implies a relationship of mutual
responsibility between human beings and nature.

-Each community can take from the bounty of the earth

whatever it needs for subsistence, but it also has the
duty to protect the earth and to ensure its fruitfulness
for coming generations.
-Along these same lines, rest on the seventh day is
meant not only for human beings, but also so “that your
ox and your donkey may have rest’. Clearly, the Bible
has no place for a tyrannical anthropocentrism
unconcerned for other creatures.
 -With our obligation to use the earth’s goods responsibly,
we should recognize that other living beings have a value of
their own in God’s eyes: “by their mere existence they bless
him and give him glory”, “the Lord rejoices in all his works.

-A spirituality which forgets God as all-powerful and

Creator is not acceptable. That is how we end up
worshipping earthly powers, or ourselves usurping the
place of God, even to the point of claiming an unlimited
right to trample his creation underfoot. The best way to
restore men and women is to speak once more of the
figure of a Father who creates and who alone owns the
world ending human laws and interests on reality.
 THE MYSTERY OF THE UNIVERSE.

-Nature is usually seen as a system which can be studied,

understood and controlled, whereas creation can only be
understood as a gift from the outstretched hand of the
Father of all, and as a reality illuminated by the love which
calls us together into universal communion.
-If we acknowledge the value and the fragility of nature
and, at the same time, our God-given abilities, we can
finally leave behind the modern myth of unlimited material
progress.
 -Faith allows us to interpret the meaning and the
mysterious beauty of the universe directing our
intelligence towards things evolving positively, or towards
adding new ills, causes of suffering and real setbacks.

-living beings and plants as mere objects subjected to

arbitrary human domination. When nature is viewed solely
as a source of profit and gain, this has serious
consequences for society.
-The destiny of the universe is in the fullness of God, and
all creatures are moving forward with us and through us
towards a common point of arrival, which is God. Human
beings, endowed with intelligence and love, and drawn by
the fullness of Christ, are called to lead all creatures back
to their Creator.
 THE MESSAGE OF EACH CREATURE IN THE
HARMONY OF CREATION.

-The entire material universe speaks of God’s love, his

boundless affection for us. Soil, water, mountains:
everything is, as it were, a caress of God.
-When we can see God reflected in all that exists, our
hearts are moved to praise the Lord for all his creatures
and to worship him in union with them e g. St Francis.
-failure to interpret this message lead us to unduly
demanding of creation something which it, in its being,
cannot give us.
 A UNIVERSAL COMMUNION.

-All of us are linked by unseen bonds forming universal

family, a communion filling us with a sacred, affectionate
and humble respect. We are linked to the world around us
that we can feel the desertification of the soil almost as a
physical ailment, and the extinction of a species as a
painful disfigurement.
-A communion with the rest of nature cannot be real if our
hearts lack tenderness, compassion and concern for our
fellow creation and when our hearts are authentically open
to universal communion, this sense of fraternity excludes
nothing and no one.
 THE COMMON DESTINATION OF GOODS.

-The earth is essentially a shared inheritance, whose fruits

are meant to benefit everyone.
-Ecological approach needs to incorporate a social
perspective which takes into account the fundamental
rights of the poor and the underprivileged.
-A type of development which did not respect and promote
human rights – personal and social, economic and political,
including the rights of nations and of peoples – would not
be really worthy of man.
 THE GAZE OF JESUS

-Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of
them is forgotten before God. “Look at the birds of the air:
they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet
your heavenly Father feeds them”
-The kingdom of God is like a grain of mustard seed which
a man took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all
seeds, but once it has grown, it is the greatest of plants”
-The New Testament does not only tell us of the earthly
Jesus and his tangible and loving relationship with the
world. It also shows him risen and glorious, present
throughout creation by his universal Lordship.