<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head><meta name="charset" content="UTF-8"/><title></title><link rel="stylesheet" href="main.css" type="text/css"/> </head> <body><h3>1 Corinthians</h3> <p>First Corinthians was written by Paul, from Ephesus (1 Cor. 16:8), sometime between 49 and 55 CE. The authenticity of the letter is not seriously doubted, and most scholars accept its literary unity. It forms part of an ongoing communication between Paul and the Corinthian community. After his initial visit to Corinth, Paul has already written a letter (1 Cor. 5:9), and the Corinthians have written to Paul (1 Cor. 7:1). First Corinthians responds to this written communication and also to oral reports that have been brought to Paul (1 Cor. 1:11; 11:18). Further (more anguished) visits and letters follow 1 Corinthians (2 Cor. 2:1-4; 10-13) before an apparent reconciliation restores the relationship sufficiently for Paul’s collection project (1 Cor. 16:1-4; Gal. 2:10) to be revitalized and completed (Rom. 15:25-27; 2 Cor. 8-9).</p> <p>The character of 1 Corinthians as a response to issues raised in both letter and oral report makes it full of topics of ethical (and sociological) interest but also makes it a letter in which it is hard to discern an overall direction and focus of argument. More than any other Pauline letter, 1 Corinthians is full of Paul’s responses to specific issues of conduct and conflict, full of ethics in a broad sense. The opening four chapters are dominated by the theme of divisions at Corinth. Chapters 5-7 deal with issues of sexual ethics and marriage, chapters 8-10 with the question of food offered to idols. Chapters 11-14 broadly deal with issues relating to the worship of the community: head coverings for women (11:2-16), the Lord’s Supper (11:17-34), and the proper use of spiritual gifts (chaps. 12-14). Chapter 15 addresses the subject of the resurrection, while chapter 16 deals with various practical matters and greetings. It is notable that at least two of these major ethical sections (chaps. 8-10; 12-14) are structured in an A-B-A pattern in which the central section presents a paradigm for ethical action that fundamentally informs the response to the topic under discussion: Paul’s example in renouncing his rights for the sake of others (9:1-23) is a model to the Corinthian “strong” (8:9-13); love (13:1-13) is a crucial foundation for the proper exercise of any spiritual gift.</p> <p>Scholars have debated what are the main sources of influence on the ethics of 1 Corinthians. Some have argued that the Jewish Scriptures and interpretative traditions fundamentally shape the pattern of Paul’s instruction. Others have pointed out parallels between Paul’s treatment of ethical topics (such as sex and marriage) and the discussions of such issues in popular Greco-Roman moral philosophy, especially among Stoics and Cynics. There are significant differences of view on such matters, but it seems reasonably clear that Paul’s moral thought is shaped both by the Jewish scriptural tradition and by the philosophical discussions of his day; it is the relative weight and specific influences that are harder to determine. But whatever the influence of such sources and ethical traditions, it is clear that Paul reconfigures such influences around the central key to his ethics: Christ. Even here there are various possible strands to disentangle. Some have argued that Jesus’ teaching specifically permeates and informs Paul’s ethical instruction. First Corinthians is indeed unusual among the Pauline letters in including three of the four most widely agreed references to Jesus’ teaching in Paul’s writings: 7:10-11, referring to the teaching on divorce (Mark 10:2-12 // Matt. 19:3-9; Matt. 5:31-32 // Luke 16:18); 9:14, alluding to the mission charge instructions (Matt. 10:10 // Luke 10:7); and 11:23-24, citing the tradition of Jesus’ words at the Last Supper (Mark 14:22-25 pars.). Possible echoes of Jesus’ teaching also include 13:2 (cf. Matt. 17:20; 21:21). Yet clear use of Jesus’ teaching seems strikingly minimal as an influence on the substance and presentation of Paul’s ethics. More fundamental would seem to be Paul’s Chris-tology, in that he presents Christ both as the basis for unity and diversity in the community—“You are the body of Christ” (12:26)—and as the paradigm of self-giving and other-regard (10:33-11:1).</p> <p>In an important rhetorical analysis of 1 Corinthians, Margaret Mitchell argues that the fundamental “thesis” of the letter is found in 1:10, in the appeal for ecclesial unity. Her analysis of the following sections of the letter as “proofs” in support of this central argument seems occasionally forced, but the notion that the letter is focused around this theme of community unity is well founded. Indeed, some of the language Paul uses, especially in the opening chapters, seems close to the language of ancient political discourse dealing with factionalism and rivalry. Others have pushed a political-ethical reading of 1 Corinthians further, arguing that Paul is seeking to strengthen the ekklesia as an alternative society, standing in contrast and opposition to the imperial society ruled by Rome. David Horrell has argued that the metanorms of Paul’s ethics, in 1 Corinthians and elsewhere, can be summarized as those of corporate solidarity and other-regard. Paul uses the ideas of the body of Christ, incorporation into Christ, and so on as a basis for community unity, but he equally stresses the need for this to be a diverse community. Even on some topics of ethical dispute, most notably concerning food offered to idols, he does not set out a ruling on the specific practice that is correct. Rather, he appeals for the practice of Christlike other-regard, which respects the interests and perspective of the other.</p> <p>In terms of its relevance and contribution to contemporary ethical discourse, the appropriation of 1 Corinthians can operate at various levels. Christians study Paul’s teaching on marriage and divorce, for example, to inform contemporary views on the subject. Some of the specific topics, such as food offered to idols, may be less directly relevant in Western contexts, but they are highly relevant in countries such as China and Indonesia, where Christians struggle to negotiate a stance regarding customs such as offerings to ancestors. On a broader level, Paul’s way of doing ethics and the moral norms that inform this may be found instructive as a model for Christian ethics. The strongly christological basis to Paul’s ethics means that he presents, in Alasdair MacIntyre’s terms, a particular kind of tradition-specific and narratively founded ethics, while his concern to foster a corporate unity within which a (circumscribed) diversity of convictions and practices may be sustained bears some similarity to the central project of political liberalism.</p> <p>See also 2 Corinthians; Ecclesiology and Ethics; Idolatry; Marriage and Divorce; Narrative Ethics, Biblical;</p> <p>Narrative Ethics, Contemporary; New Testament Ethics; Sexual Ethics</p> <p>Bibliography</p> <p>Adams, E., and D. Horrell, eds. Christianity at Corinth: The Quest for the Pauline Church. Westminster John Knox, 2004; Deming, W. Paul on Marriage and Celibacy: The Hellenistic Background to 1 Corinthians 7. SNTSMS 83. Cambridge University Press, 1995; Furnish, V “Belonging to Christ: A Paradigm for Ethics in First Corinthians.” Int 44 (1990): 145-57; Horrell, D. Solidarity and Difference: A Contemporary Reading of Paul’s Ethics. T&T Clark, 2005; Meeks, W. “The Polyphonic Ethics of the Apostle Paul.” ASCE (1988): 17-29; Mitchell, M. Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation: An Exegetical Investigation of the Language and Composition of 1 Corinthians. HUT 28. Mohr Siebeck, 1991; Rosner, B. Paul, Scripture and Ethics: A Study of 1 Corinthians 5—7. AGJU 22. Brill, 1994; Wenham, D. Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity? Eerdmans, 1995.</p> <p>David G. Horrell</p><h3>2 Corinthians</h3> <p>The letter known as 2 Corinthians is not, in fact, the second letter that Paul sent to the Christian community in Corinth. It was preceded by at least two earlier epistles from the apostle to Corinth: one missive (unfortunately, no longer extant) mentioned in 1 Cor. 5:9; the other the canonical letter called “1 Corinthians.” The text of 2 Corinthians itself gives some indication that it may consist of two (or more) originally separate epistles, for there is a marked shift in tone between chapters 1-9, which are largely conciliatory in nature, and chapters 10-13, which reflect a context of hostility and tension between the apostle and some opponents whom Paul somewhat sarcastically labels “super-apostles” (2 Cor. 11:5; 12:11). In its canonical form, however, 2 Corinthians offers a rich resource for reflection on the nature of Christian ministry and community.</p> <p>One of Paul’s major concerns in 2 Corinthians, and perhaps the point at which the letter raises the most questions for contemporary ethical reflection, is found in the apostle’s attempt in chapters 8-9 to persuade the Corinthians to renew their support of the relief fund that Paul was organizing among the gentile churches of his mission for impoverished members of the Jewish Christian community in Jerusalem (see Rom. 15:25-32). Procedures for organizing this collection are explained in 1 Cor. 16:1-4, where Paul seems confident of the Corinthians’ participation in the offering. In between the writing of 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians, however, Paul and the Corinthians had experienced no small conflict (see 2 Cor. 1:15-2:13), a clash (perhaps motivated by charges of financial impropriety leveled against Paul) that seems to have led the Corinthians to suspend their efforts to gather a collection for Jerusalem. There are indications in 2 Corinthians that Paul’s opponents in Corinth seized on this controversy by charging Paul with financial impropriety (2 Cor. 11:7-15; 12:11-21).</p> <p>Thus, 2 Cor. 8:1-9:15 is written with the goal of cautiously encouraging the Corinthians to resume their support of the relief fund for needy believers in Jerusalem. In this section Paul employs a striking variety of rhetorical appeals to accomplish this aim: (1) he emphasizes the example of the Macedonians, who have generously contributed to the fund in spite of their own deep poverty (8:1-6); (2) he highlights the paradigmatic grace (charis) of the incarnate Lord Jesus Christ, “who became poor for your sake, although he was rich, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (8:9); (3) he draws upon the principle of “equality” (isotes) to promote a sharing of financial resources among believers in different economic and geographical locations (8:14); (4) he suggests that both he and the Corinthians will be shamed if believers come from Macedonia to Corinth and find the undertaking unfinished (9:1-5); (5) he paints an agricultural metaphor to suggest that giving to the collection is like sowing seed, a metaphor that emphasizes the generative activity of God in the act of human beneficence (9:6-10); and, finally, (6) he punctuates this appeal by indicating that true generosity results in thanksgiving and praise to God, the one from whom all benefactions ultimately originate (9:11-15). In his appeal Paul consistently underscores the point that the fulfillment of mutual obligations within the Christian community results in praise, not to human donors, as the dominant ideology of patronage in his cultural context would have suggested, but to God, the one from whom all benefactions come. Even the very human action of raising money for those in material need originates in “the surpassing grace of God” (he hyperballousa charis tou theou) and will result in “thanks to God” (charis to theo) (2 Cor. 9:14-15).</p> <p>Paul therefore challenges the Corinthians to conceptualize their beneficence as an act of worship, offered in praise to God. In this profoundly theocentric vision of gift-giving within the community of faith, the willing generosity of the Corinthians is empowered by and patterned after the grace of God in Christ. Moreover, in appealing to the principle of financial equality between the Corinthians and impoverished believers in Jerusalem (8:13-15), Paul assumes that believers with more abundant resources will work to address the needs of those who require assistance, even as the Corinthians might someday require aid from Jerusalem (8:14).</p> <p>Other motivations surely were behind Paul’s efforts to organize a collection for Jerusalem, not the least of which was the apostle’s goal of demonstrating an ecumenical solidarity between the gentile churches of his mission and the Christ-believing community in Jerusalem (cf. Rom. 15:25-32). Yet, to the extent that the contribution was aimed at meeting the very real financial needs of destitute believers in Jerusalem, readers today might ask themselves how individual and congregational resources can be used to support brothers and sisters in Christ who are experiencing economic distress. In a world of increasing disparity between the rich and poor—to say nothing of the extent to which globalization and technology have made these inequalities both manifest and also seemingly inescapable—the attempt to embody the kind of ecclesiological equality called for in 2 Cor. 8-9 is no easy task. Paul’s own logic would seem to preclude the development of any kind of fixed rule for resource sharing (2 Cor. 8:8, 12; 9:5-7). Nonetheless, faithfulness to the message of 2 Corinthians will not allow those whose lives are shaped by the narrative of the incarnate Christ to stand by while massive inequality exists among churches. What is needed is not a law for giving but rather the empowering grace of the God who still stands behind all human generosity.</p> <p>See also Collection for the Saints; 1 Corinthians; Economic Ethics; Generosity; Grace; Koinonia; New Testament Ethics</p> <p>Bibliography</p> <p>Cherian, J. “Toward a Commonwealth of Grace: A Pluto-critical Reading of Grace and Equality in Second Corinthians 8:1-15.” PhD diss., Princeton Theological Seminary, 2007; Downs, D. J. The Offering of the Gentiles: Paul’s Collection for Jerusalem in Its Chronological, Cultural, and Cultic Contexts. WUNT 2/248. Mohr Siebeck, 2008; Wheeler, S. Wealth as Peril and Obligation: The New Testament on Possessions. Eerdmans, 1995, 73-89; Young, F., and D. Ford. Meaning and Truth in 2 Corinthians. Eerd-mans, 1988.</p> <p>David J. Downs</p><h3>Cost-Benefit Analysis</h3> <p>Perhaps the greatest revolution of the modern era was not the American, French, or Bolshevik, but that of the accountants. Harvard economist Joseph Schumpeter recognized this when he stated that the invention of “double-entry bookkeeping” produced a “rational cost-profit calculation” that then subjugated everything, including our “philosophies,” “picture of the cosmos,” “concepts of beauty and justice,” and “spiritual ambitions,” to its “conqueror’s career.” Schumpeter gives the Christian scholastics credit for recognizing that a new spirit, one threatening the Christian faith, was behind this simple practice (Schumpeter 123-24). Is he correct?</p> <p>Insofar as everything is given a number and placed within a cost-benefit ratio, Schumpeter was right. Such quantification fits well a utilitarian ethic where everything is assigned a number establishing its “usefulness” to its owner. That number is often determined by an economic theory called “marginalism,” which asks at what cost will someone forgo exchanging for a certain product and use that money for something else. This gives things their “value” and forms an “economy.”</p> <p>The word economy comes from two Greek words: oikos (“household”) and nomos (“law, rule, norm, principle”). Economy is an ancient term that seeks the norms or principles by which a “householder” rules a household. The householder could be the head of a family, a city, or an empire, or even God. This is why theologians use the term “economic Trinity” to explain how the triune God orders or “rules” life for creatures. Scripture is our primary witness for discovering that rule. Both Scripture and a cost-benefit analysis give us nomoi, or principles, that form an economy. How do they relate?</p> <p>No single and definitive answer can be given to that question, but we do find practical wisdom in Scripture that suggests a tension between them. This is found in the commandment, “Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work. . . . For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it” (Exod. 20:8-11). This gives one of the basic nomoi of Scripture. Our labor is to imitate God. We keep the Sabbath by resting in order to hear God’s word, assuming that nothing can equal the “value” that it brings.</p> <p>Keeping the Sabbath does not prohibit cost-benefit analyses, but the command does call into question the “conqueror’s career” of that logic. Take, for instance, three of its nomoi: “time is money,” “24/7,” and the “virtue” of efficiency. Benjamin Franklin’s admonition that “time is money” suggests that we can always give time a value and determine if how it was “spent” was worth it. Yet time spent in worship and rest is not an investment that can be quantified and analyzed based on a return. If someone said, “I consider keeping the Sabbath an investment. I give of my time and expect a good return—eternity, streets of gold, all the wealth I can imagine,” I think most Christians would recognize that this fails to keep the Sabbath. We give God glory and imitate God’s actions in our labor because God is worthy of our worship. Moreover, for most Christians, Sunday is the Sabbath, which is a new day, an eighth day now made possible by Jesus’ resurrection. It is an eschatological day that cannot even fit within the seven-day economy. It cannot be defined by the axiom “time is money.” To expect an efficient economy where commodities are available 24/7 is to deny Sabbath rest and return to Egypt. Rest is the promise that we hope to inherit, as the book of Hebrews repeatedly witnesses. Jesus’ parables also challenge the conquering career of a cost-benefit analysis when he tells us that having found the kingdom, we recognize that nothing can be equaled to it, not even life itself.</p> <p>The ethics of the scriptural economy suggests not only that the Lord’s Day resists the servitude of the cost-benefit analyses but also that it is virtuous to do so. The goodness of family, sex, adoption, organ donation, friendship, and much more cannot yet, and should not, be fully defined by the cost-benefit economy. Some economists think that adoption and organ donation would be more “effi-dent” if we were to adopt that logic. They are most likely correct. But not everything should be bought and sold. As the cross of Christ reveals, charity is not always “efficient.” This is why the Lord’s Day is a protest against the cost-benefit ratio. It shows us a different vision, a divine economy.</p> <p>See also Capitalism; Economic Ethics; Sabbath Bibliography</p> <p>J. Schumpeter. Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. Harper, 1942.</p> <p>D. Stephen Long</p><h3>Courage</h3> <p>Courage, or fortitude (Lat. fortis means “strong”), is classified as one of the four cardinal virtues, alongside temperance, justice, and prudence. In classical antiquity, courage (Gk. andreia) was understood to be a settled quality of personal character that expressed moral excellence (arete) by acting rightly in fearful or dangerous situations. Ancient philosophical discussions of courage usually are related to expounding the “manly strengths” appropriate to military contexts, where fear of death in battle is assumed. The most influential interpretation was given by Aristotle, who argued that courage is “a mean with regard to fear and confidence.” Whereas the coward flees in the face of danger and the rash person dashes into it without adequate forethought, the courageous person avoids these extremes by fearing “the right things and for the right purpose and in the right manner and at the right time” for the sake of that which is noble. Aristotle held that only those who “fearlessly confront” a noble (or beautiful) death on the battlefield are courageous in the proper sense. The ability to face evil things in everyday life such as disgrace, poverty, disease, lack of friends, or ordinary death can be called courage only in a “metaphorical” sense and is not counted as “true” courage.</p> <p>In Scripture, courage is associated with the boldness and confidence that is grounded in God’s presence, protection, guidance, and empowerment. In the OT, Yahweh is the singular source of courage for his people. The basic formula is “Do not be afraid, for I am with you” (Gen. 26:24). In times of vulnerability God’s people are exhorted to trust in God, who pledges to defend them. Yah-weh is depicted repeatedly as the basis of courage for the Israelites at key turning points in their history. The Israelites and their leaders are exhorted “to be strong and courageous” not for the sake of what is noble but rather for the sake of fidelity to God’s purposes and promises. A prominent example is when Joshua receives Yahweh’s assurance of protection (“No one shall be able to stand against you all the days of your life”) and presence (“As I was with Moses, so I will be with you”) as he leads the people into the promised land (Josh. 1:5). Yahweh’s faithfulness to Israel is the foundation for the exhortation, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go” (Josh. 1:9). Similarly, when faced with the Assyrian attack on Jerusalem by Sennacherib, King Hezekiah tells his military officers, “Be strong and of good courage. Do not be afraid or dismayed before the king of Assyria and all the horde that is with him; for there is one greater with us than with him. With him is an arm of flesh; but with us is the Lord our God, to help us and to fight our battles” (2 Chr. 32:7-8).</p> <p>In the NT, the presence of Jesus and intervention of the Holy Spirit are the sources of courage. For example, when Jesus is walking on the Sea of Galilee, the disciples are terrified, but he assures them by revealing his identity: “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid” (Matt. 14:27). His followers repeatedly demonstrate courage by risking their reputations or lives for the sake of fidelity to Jesus and his purposes. After the death of Jesus, “Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus” (Mark 15:43). In the book of Acts, the Holy Spirit empowers Jesus’ followers for audacious, costly witness to Christ: “When they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness” (Acts 4:31). At the height of Paul’s conflict with the Sanhedrin, “the Lord stood near him and said, ‘Keep up your courage! For just as you have testified for me in Jerusalem, so you must bear witness also in Rome’ ” (Acts 23:11). Through the prayers of the saints and the work of the Holy Spirit, Paul hopes that by “speaking with all boldness, Christ will be exalted now as always” through his ministry, even to the point of death (Phil. 1:20). Paul asks the Ephesians to pray for him that he will “make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel” (Eph. 6:19). Courage is expected from the Christian community: “Keep alert, stand firm in your faith, be courageous, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love” (1 Cor. 16:13-14). Here, courage is associated with the spiritual and moral strength of those who stand firm in the proclaimed word of God, whose energies are focused on the church’s mission on Christ’s behalf, and whose conduct is oriented by love (agape).</p> <p>Courage is depicted not as a natural virtue but rather as a gift of God’s grace given to enable his people to faithfully serve him and share in his mission to the world. In contrast to classical antiquity, the Bible presents courage as motivated by the pursuit of God and his glory. These themes are developed by the Christian moral tradition. The martyrs of the early centuries of Christianity became prime exemplars of heroic courage. Those who refused to compromise their faith and were willing to die for Christ’s sake demonstrated courage in its highest sense. Augustine reframed all the cardinal virtues as forms of love, hence, “Fortitude is love bearing everything readily for the sake of God.” Thomas Aquinas draws heavily on Aristotle but rejects military heroism as the paradigm of courage. Instead, Thomas argues that martyrdom most truly exemplifies courage, which he understands as a form of endurance that bears with difficulty and stands fast in the face of danger. He interprets martyrdom as a form of sacrificial love, which is oriented to the divine good, namely, the love of God, and inspired by the gift of the Holy Spirit, modeled after Christ’s example and fulfilling the biblical declaration, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13).</p> <p>See also Character; Habit; Justice; Prudence; Temperance; Virtue(s)</p> <p>Bibliography</p> <p>Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics, book 3, chaps. 6-9; Augustine. Of the Morals of the Catholic Church; Hauerwas, S. “The Difference of Virtue and the Difference It Makes: Courage Exemplified.” ModTh 9 (1993): 249-64; Ruether, R. “Courage as a Christian Virtue,” CrossCurrents 33 (1986): 8-16; Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 45; II-II, qq. 123-40; Yearly, L. Mencius and Aquinas: Theories of Virtue and Conceptions of Courage. State University of New York Press, 1990.</p> <p>Jeffrey P. Greenman</p><h3>Covenant</h3> <p>It surely was a moment of inspiration when the ancient Hebrews first recognized that certain relationships found in human history reflected the ways in which God both relates to creation and offers a model for how humans should relate to one another. The English word covenant comes from a medieval term with Latin roots (con + venire). It implies that distinct parties can come together to give and receive promises or to form associations by agreement on common laws or for common purposes. This term is used as a translation of the OT Hebrew berit and the Greek diatheke (= last will and testament) and, some say, dikaioma (“cov-enantal decree”) in the Greek NT. Words akin to these have also been found in all the languages into which the Bible has been translated. Over time, for the most part, covenant became differentiated in usage from those words meaning a two-party agreement made solely on human terms, for it implies the presence of the divine as a third party in a principled bonding.</p> <p>Covenantal relations tend to have one of two forms. The vertical form has to do with the way God calls a person or a people into a divine-human relationship with stipulations. Examples can be found in ancient suzerainty treaties in which powerful rulers promise to protect a people and the people take an oath of loyalty. While some traditions have held that by analogy human relationships must also have this stratified “sovereign-subject” relationship, others argue that if God is the Lord, no mere human authority can be. Thus, they accent a horizontal, more democratic meaning of covenantal relationship, found in a bond wherein the parties agree to walk together in the ways of God, who is invoked as the source of that relationship, witness to that pledge, and the seal of its sanctity. This normative relationship can be found in some marriages and communities of worship, advocacy, or service as well as in social movements that accent democracy rather than monarchy. Both models have a passive element and an active element. A person or a group finds it impossible to avoid being drawn into a relationship but also finds it good to be there and thus wills to affirm its demands.</p> <p>There are historical, theological, and ethical debates as to who is to be included in these relationships, for the word covenant is not introduced in the scriptural record until the survivors of the legendary flood in the story of Noah’s ark offer thanks to God. Then, God offers a covenantal promise to Noah, his descendants, and the earth itself that floods will never again wreak such destruction (Gen. 9:8-17), even if humans deserve it. Humanity is given a new start, and the earlier commands to Adam and Eve are repeated, now in an expanded environmental inclusion. As in the earlier mythic story, humans are to be fruitful and multiply, to exercise dominion over the plants and animals of the earth, and to avoid that which contains the spirit of life—that is, blood (Gen. 9:1-7). These parallels have suggested to some that from the beginning creation is laden with covenantal meanings that have to do with the “covenant of works,” or “cultural mandate” (Gen. 1:28-30). At stake are questions of whether sinful humanity is to take covenantal responsibility for the re-creative (technological) cultivation of “nature,” and whether all the peoples of the earth are to be seen as potential participants in covenantal living.</p> <p>A more historical covenant was made by God with Abraham, who became the father figure of the Semitic peoples, as new encounters between Jews, Christians, and Muslims have reminded us. From among all the peoples of the earth, Abraham was called to leave his native home and to go to a promised land that was to become the territory of Israel. Abraham also was warned that his people would later become slaves in Egypt (Gen. 15; Deut. 30). This set the stage for a theology of history in which the most important covenantal event of the OT took place, the Sinai covenant (Exod. 19-24). The escaped slaves from Egypt were made a united people by the giving of the covenant at Sinai and called to be witnesses to the universal moral laws of the Ten Commandments before all the peoples of the world.</p> <p>The question of the primacy of the vertical or the horizontal form of covenantal relations in human affairs was, however, unresolved. Was it to be a horizontal, covenanted “league” of tribes led by charismatic “judges” who would resist the threat of tyranny that a concentration of power and authority brings (1 Sam. 8), or was it to be a vertical covenant led by a monarch, representing God’s relationship with the people of Israel (2 Sam. 7)? The question is not only political, for many kinds of human relationships can be covenantal. The interplay of vertical authority and horizontal mutuality has been, and continues to be, debated in every sphere of life: friend-friend, husband-wife, parent-child, nation-nation, teacher-student, employer-employee, judge-jury of peers, marketer-customer, doctor-patient, clergy-laity, and so on. A common feature is that each may become an ethical outworking of the divine-human covenantal relationship. In brief, covenant, as Daniel Elazar has argued, seems ever to involve a “constitutionalization of relationship” that actualizes a dimension of what is divinely desired for the potentialities at the deepest levels of existence.</p> <p>The biblical record acknowledges that the best possibilities are seldom realized. False prophets, faithless priests, and feckless politicians used their authority to exploit the weak instead of guiding the people in covenantal faithfulness, as was their task. Thus Israel began to worship false deities, violate moral laws, and pursue ungodly ends. It was only when the record of the covenant was rediscovered at the time of Josiah that a major effort at renewal was launched (2 Kgs. 22-23). In the books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel God promises a new covenant, one to be written on the hearts of the people and never forgotten.</p> <p>The NT is substantially about the fulfillment and radicalization of the covenantal traditions in Christ. Although the texts that refer to covenant are relatively few, the covenantal themes are pervasive, and the patterns of moral life that are commended both follow the general contours of covenantal ethics and give them a new spiritual base. One can hear in the Sermon on the Mount of Matthew’s Gospel the echoes of the Mosaic covenant, although the logic of command and obedience is given an inner logic of blessing and love. And Luke traces the genealogy of Jesus back to the implicit covenant of Adam more than to the covenants of David’s kingship or Abraham’s genetic heirs, setting the stage for a worldwide mission. The Communion meal becomes the enactment and symbol of the new covenant. Further, Jesus is treated in many places as the fulfillment of prophecy, as the final sacrifice supplanting the blood of priestly offerings, and as the King of kings who is also the Prince of Peace. All who are in Christ are bound into a covenanting community that prophetically advocates justice for all, pastorally heals and nurtures every neighbor, and politically takes responsibility for shaping public life according to their gifts. J esus inaugurates a new spiritual movement in human history, the reign of God, which surpasses the authority of Moses and supplants ethnic and imperial authority. It takes place within persons, in communities of conviction, and in the very dynamics of history that point toward a new Jerusalem, to which all the peoples of the world can bring their gifts, and in which the promises of covenant will be consummated.</p> <p>See also Atonement; Covenantal Ethics; Egalitarianism; Obligation; Old Testament Ethics; Sermon on the Mount</p> <p>Bibliography</p> <p>Allen, J. Love and Conflict: A Covenantal Model of Christian Ethics. Abingdon, 1984; Baker, J. Heinrich Bullinger and the Covenant: The Other Reformed Tradition. Ohio University Press, 1980; Elazar, D. Covenant and Polity in Biblical Israel: The Covenant Tradition in Politics 4 vols. Transaction Publishers, 1991—98; Hillers, D. Covenant: The History of an Idea. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969; Mendenhall, G. “Covenant Forms in Israelite Tradition.” BA 17 (1959): 50—76; Miller, P. “Creation and Covenant.” Pages 155—68 in Biblical Theology: Problems and Perspectives, ed. S. Kraftchick, C. Myers, and B. Ollenburger. Abingdon, 1995; Stackhouse, M. “The Moral Meanings of Covenant.” Pages 249—64 in The Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics, 1996. Georgetown University Press, 1996; Wright, N. T. The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology. Fortress, 1993.</p> <p>Max L. Stackhouse</p><h3>Covenantal Ethics</h3> <p>As a religious and moral image, covenant has a rich and variegated but erratic history. At certain times it has taken center stage in the moral imagination of Jews and Christians. But at other times it has faded into the background of their religious and moral lives, almost disappearing from the pool of metaphors and symbols that order human experience and interaction. Nevertheless, it has persisted and appears to be experiencing a bit of a renaissance in contemporary theology and ethics, particularly in the American context.</p> <p>Three features of covenant make it appropriate for retrieval in the contemporary period. First, while the Bible contains a variety of significant symbols, metaphors, and images for understanding God and his way with the world, covenant runs as a bright thread through the Scriptures, offering one way of weaving discordant elements into a unified narrative. Second, not only does covenant play a central role in Scripture, it also has always provoked engagement with those outside the boundaries of the Jewish and Christian communities, which is attractive to theologians and ethicists attempting to negotiate the complexities of faithfulness in a pluralistic cultural and religious context. Finally, covenant has a special relevance in the American context because of the significant role this powerful image has played in the religious, political, cultural, and economic history of the United States, largely through the early but important influence of Reformed Protestant Christianity. Given these features, covenant has become an important means for resisting the radical individualism that infects contemporary, Western (particularly American) culture without reverting to hierarchical and homogeneous models of human community.</p> <p>Covenant is a significant theme within the OT. God’s covenant with Israel at Mount Sinai is the heart of Hebrew identity. It is the touchstone for their sense of themselves and their place in the world as well as their conception of God and his way with the world. Fundamental to their cov-enantal self-understanding is the experience of being the undeserving recipients of God’s gracious providence and love. The account of the Ten Commandments in Exodus begins with a brief preamble and historical prologue: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Exod. 20:2). Obedience to the commandments (Exod. 20:1-17) and the Book of Covenant (Exod. 20:22-23:33) are presented not as a condition for God’s graciousness, but rather as an appropriate response to it. Blessings and curses are embedded in the covenant stipulations (Exod. 20:5-7, 12), but the character of the covenant is shaped more by gratitude for blessings received than by fear of threats made. God chose Israel, and the law shaped their life together by reminding them of their absolute dependence on God and their mutual dependence on one another. They were bound to God and one another through a covenant initiated by God’s gracious providence.</p> <p>While the people of Israel are identified as a “treasured possession” and a chosen people (Exod. 19:5; Deut. 7:6), the covenantal imagination resists exclusivism and nativism. A wider array of covenants placed God’s relationship with Israel in a more universal context: the covenant with Noah and all the creatures of the earth (Gen. 9:10) shows that God’s gracious and provident way transcends his relationship with Israel; God’s covenant with Abraham (Gen. 12:1-4) aims the covenant with Israel at a more cosmic and universal intention: “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3); finally, the laws of the covenant provoked generosity toward foreigners and strangers as the true measure of covenant identity and faithfulness: “you shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt” (Exod. 22:21). Far from promoting a special and exclusive relationship between God and his chosen people, covenant describes God’s way with the whole world and orients the chosen people toward a universal mission and cause: God’s whole creation and universal kingdom.</p> <p>The OT prophets and the witness of the NT reinforce and rearticulate these fundamental covenant themes. The prophets accused the people of Israel and Judah of forsaking the covenant that they had made with God. Despite Israel’s faithlessness and forgetfulness, however, they held out the promise of renewal through God’s continuing graciousness. “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah” (Jer. 31:31). The ministry and mission of Jesus Christ drew on this promise of a new covenant. Jesus’ summary of the law reflects and directly quotes the covenant tradition of Israel: “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matt. 22:37-40). J esus’ ministry among the excluded and marginalized—sinners, the sick, foreigners—drew on and reinforced the covenantal vision of God’s graciousness, choosing an enslaved, alien people as God’s own. Jesus’ words at the Last Supper reflect the hope and promise of a new covenant: “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20). Throughout his letters, the apostle Paul presents God’s actions in Jesus Christ as embodying both continuity and discontinuity with the original covenant. Most important, Christ universalizes the covenant, moving it beyond the people of Israel to all people (Gal. 3:13-14, 23-28), and internalizes it, making it a matter of the spirit rather than the letter of the law (2 Cor. 3:6). From the Gospels of Jesus Christ to the letters of the apostle Paul, the NT interprets Jesus’ life, ministry, death, and resurrection in the light of God’s covenant with Israel. Like the OT, the NT maintains a focus on God’s graciousness, but it presses the covenant toward a more inclusive community and emphasizes Jeremiah’s hope that the new covenant will be written on the heart rather than on stone.</p> <p>Despite the importance of the covenantal imagination in the scriptural witness, it remained in the background of Christian theological and ethical reflection until the Protestant Reformation. For a variety of reasons, more hierarchical and organic metaphors and images took prominence of place in medieval Christendom. But as the feudal orders of church and empire began to disintegrate, the emergence of more egalitarian, independent, and pluralistic social structures also required a new moral imagination. At the same time, renewed attention to Scripture in the Reformation era provided the opportunity to reinvigorate long-neglected biblical images. In the hands of various theologians and philosophers, particularly those shaped by the Reformed churches in Switzerland, England, Scotland, and the Netherlands, covenant became an important resource for reimagining human relationships with God and one another. Religious leaders such as Heinrich Bullinger (1504-75) in Zurich, Johannes Althusius (1557-1638) in the Netherlands, William Ames (1576-1633) in England, and Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661) in Scotland developed a covenantal approach to theology but also applied this image to the political and social spheres of life. Whether reforming ecclesiastical or civil structures, they moved in the direction of limiting power, dispersing authority, and federating diverse and relatively independent agencies. Their self-consciously theological, covenantal thinking played an important role in the development of modern conceptions of social and political life that founded their legitimacy upon mutually binding promises made by relatively free and equal partners. Without a doubt, these religiously inspired social movements influenced the more secular social contract philosophy of thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and John Locke (1632-1704).</p> <p>In the American context, religiously inspired covenantal approaches and more secular social contract influences intermingled to shape the social, political, and cultural order that became the United States of America. Because the colonists were building civic and ecclesiastical orders from the ground up instead of reforming existing structures, the American experiment was uniquely suited for the expression of covenantal ideas. From the very beginning, covenants were a part of the religious and civic order in the American colonies. The Plymouth Colony and the Massachusetts Bay Colony were founded on a covenantal basis. The leaders of the New England colonies generally were adherents to the federal theology in one form or another. Their leadership put in place not only institutional structures but also modes of thought that had a profound effect on future political and civic developments. The intellectual and political lineage of James Madison, the undisputed father of the US Constitution, can be traced back to the covenant tradition through his teacher at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), John Witherspoon, a Presbyterian clergyperson and theologian. James Madison’s contributions to the Federalist Papers are seen by many as a profound expression of covenantal social thought in secular form. After this early formative period in American life, the covenantal imagination receded into the background once again, though its influence on America’s institutions and ethos persisted.</p> <p>Covenantal ethics as an approach to contemporary theology and social philosophy emerged in the United States in the middle of the twentieth century. The theology and ethics of H. Richard Niebuhr (1894-1962) provided an important impetus for the recovery of covenant as a significant image for religious, political, and social life, particularly within Protestant Christianity The philosophy of Martin Buber (1878-1965) played a similar role, from a Jewish perspective, provoking renewed attention to the dynamic, interdependent nature of human beings. Along with other proponents of covenant, Buber and Niebuhr inspired a generation of Christian theological ethicists, including Paul Ramsey, Joseph Allen, James Luther Adams, William Everett, William F. May, Clinton Gardner, Robin Lovin, Philip Wogaman, Charles McCoy, and Max Stackhouse. Noted J ewish social philosophers such as Michael Walzer and Daniel Elazar also tapped the image of covenant for resources to reconceptualize contemporary political thought and social ethics. Unlike the sixteenth-century revival of the covenantal imagination, however, its contemporary renaissance has emerged as an alternative not to a hierarchical and organic conception of human life, but rather to radical individualism and social contract liberalism.</p> <p>While the covenantal and social contract traditions had once made common cause in the transition from the medieval to the modern order, these two related moral images now find themselves at odds. The covenantal imagination provided a way to resist some of the utilitarian and atomistic aspects of contemporary individualism without abandoning the liberal and egalitarian impulses of modernity. As a polemical matter, the differences between these two images, rather than their similarities and shared origin, are emphasized. The contractual model of human existence emphasizes the autonomous agent who enters into limited contracts for the sake of self-interest. The moral legitimacy of the contract is based simply on the consent of the parties, which guarantees the presence of mutual self-interest. A covenantal understanding of human existence, however, conceives relationship as more fundamental than autonomy. Human existence, according to a covenantal vision, is not a matter of equal exchanges in a fair marketplace but rather is characterized by receiving gifts and responding with gratitude. All beings (including human beings) are bound to one another in relationships of unavoidable interdependence within the ultimate context of their absolute dependence on Being Itself. Covenant, in distinction from contract, is triadic rather than simply diadic; while the contracting parties must contend only with one another, the covenanting partners find themselves unavoidably engaged with a transcendent moral order that cannot be thwarted or ignored. Whether done so willingly or grudgingly, the interdependent structures of existence must be accepted; otherwise, as the biblical prophets proclaimed, disaster awaits. The covenant can be (and often is) rejected or betrayed, but not without undermining the very things thereby sought.</p> <p>Both contract and covenant base social relationships on the binding force of mutual promises. The social contract model, however, assumes that people have no responsibilities that they do not voluntarily accept. Individuals are, first of all, independent and autonomous. Covenant, however, assumes that these mutual promises simply acknowledge and embrace relationships of interdependence that already exist and cannot be avoided. Thus, whereas contracts are focused simply on the negotiated agreement of the two parties, covenants must always take broader realities and implicit responsibilities into account. Whereas a contractual view will see an agreement between employer and employee as legitimate to the extent that it is entered voluntarily, a covenantal view requires that other questions be asked as well. For example, does this agreement reflect and accept the deeper obligations of mutual interdependence that exist before and beneath it? From a contractual perspective, therefore, questions of whether the agreed upon wage is just or sufficient are short-circuited. But from a covenantal perspective, an agreement that does not provide a living wage is illegitimate, whether it was made voluntarily or not. Similarly, from a social contract perspective, a just law is one that reflects the will of the people. But from a covenantal perspective, the will of the people does not necessarily qualify as a just law. The problem with Jim Crow laws in the American South, for example, was not simply that they did not reflect the will of all the people—no law can meet such a rigorous standard—but that they betrayed the fundamental nature and dignity of humans bound in relationships of mutual dependence on one another. American political culture, therefore, continues to reflect a fundamentally cov-enantal conception to the extent that the will of the people can be overruled by the Supreme Court, and labor contracts must meet minimal standards such as the minimum wage and workplace safety.</p> <p>In his now classic work Love and Conflict: A Covenantal Model of Christian Ethics, Joseph L. Allen distinguishes between the inclusive covenant and the many special covenants. He argues that while people enter into a variety of special covenants with various people for different reasons—familial, civic, economic, religious, and cultural—these always take place within the context of and are subordinate to the inclusive covenant. The conviction of a universal covenant certainly reflects the biblical witness that God created everything good, with its own inherent worth and dignity, and placed all creatures in relationships of mutual interdependence under his gracious and sovereign providence (Gen. 1:1—2:3). It also suggests, however, the character of the reality that confronts all people in all places, times, and cultures. For this reason, covenantal ethics is attractive to many contemporary theologians and social philosophers seeking what Max Stackhouse calls a “public theology.” Acknowledging that all human ways of knowing and valuing are shaped by particular, inherited images, narratives, and cultural contexts, covenant provides a way out of the closed circle of religious fideism and private interests into a robust moral discourse about what we owe to one another in a world shared in common.</p> <p>Today, the covenantal imagination is being investigated along a variety of trajectories applied to a variety of spheres. Biblical scholars are further elaborating our understanding of the covenantal theme within Scripture. Historians continue to investigate its role in the development of modern political, economic, civic, and family spheres, particularly in the American context. Cross-cultural studies are comparing it with other cultural images and resources around the world. And theological ethicists and social philosophers are applying the insights of the covenantal imagination to the problems of political life in a pluralistic context, economic life in the age of the business corporation, marriage and family life in an increasingly liberalized social order, medical ethics in an era of patient autonomy, professional identity and ethics in an individualistic society, civil society in an increasingly fragmented context, and the environment in the age of global warming and the degradation of nature. This rich but often neglected moral and religious image is, once again, providing provocative resources and lines of inquiry for moral discourse for a new and quite different time.</p> <p>See also Covenant; Fidelity; Social Contract Bibliography</p> <p>Allen, J. Love and Conflict: A Covenantal Model of Christian Ethics. University Press of America, 1995; Bellah, R. The Broken Covenant: American Civil Religion in Time of Trial. Seabury, 1975; Elazar, D. The Covenant Tradition in Politics. 4 vols. Transaction Publishers, 1995-98; Everett, W. God’s Federal Republic: Reconstructing Our Governing Symbols. Paulist Press, 1988; Hillers, D. Covenant: The History of a Biblical Idea. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1964; Lovin, R. “Covenantal Relationships and Political Legitimacy.” JR 60 (1980): 1-16; May, W. The Physicians’ Covenant: Images of the Healer in Medical Ethics. Westminster, 1983; McKenzie, S. Covenant. UBT. Chalice Press, 2000; Mount, E., Jr. Covenant, Community, and the Common Good: An Interpretation of Christian Ethics. Pilgrim Press, 1999; Niebuhr, H. “The Idea of Covenant and American Democracy.” CH 23 (1954): 126-35; idem. Radical Monotheism and Western Culture. Harper & Row, 1960; Stackhouse, M. Covenant and Commitment: Faith, Family, and Economic Life. Westminster John Knox, 1997; Walzer, M. Exodus and Revolution. Basic Books, 1985.</p> <p>Timothy A. Beach-Verhey Covetousness See Jealousy and Envy Creation, Biblical Accounts of</p> <p>There are at least five self-contained accounts of creation in the OT: Gen. 1:1-2:4a; Gen. 2:4b-3:24; Job 38-41; Ps. 104; Prov. 8:22-31. In the NT, the prologue to John’s Gospel (1:1-18) also counts as a bona fide creation narrative. In addition, many other biblical texts describe creation one way or another, such as Eccl. 1:3-11 and portions of Isa. 40-55. The ethical implications of each of these texts are examined below.</p> <p>Genesis 1:1-2:4a</p> <p>Due to its canonical placement, Gen. 1:1-2:3 (known as the Priestly account of creation) enjoys pride of place in the Bible. Structured around seven days, the account describes a steady process of creation initiated and governed by God’s word, beginning with light and concluding with life. God, moreover, does not entirely work alone: in several instances the waters or the land are enlisted to aid in the creative process (1:9, 11, 20, 24). The result is a world of ordered complexity that accommodates and sustains the rich panoply of life, each “according to its kind.” Light, sky, seas, and land are established first, followed by the creation of particular agents and living creatures within these domains: stars, birds, marine life, and land animals, including humans. Some have particular functions or mandates: the sun and the moon determine the seasons and religious festivals (1:14). Marine and aviary life receive the blessing to multiply (1:22). Humans are charged with the responsibility of exercising “dominion” (1:28). The outcome of every stage in the creative process is declared “good” by God, climactically so at the completion of creation (1:31). Such approbation acknowledges creation’s integrity and self-sustainability, from seeds to reproduction. The climax of creation, however, is not the sixth day, with the creation of humankind, but rather the seventh day (2:1-3), when God ceases to create, thereby allowing creation, under human “dominion,” to thrive on its own. The Exodus version of the Decalogue bases the Sabbath commandment on God’s resting on the seventh day (Exod. 20:11; cf. Deut. 5:15).</p> <p>Creation in Gen. 1 is a cosmic temple in which the holy seventh day corresponds to the temple’s holiest of holies, the inner sanctum (1 Kgs. 8:1213; see Exod. 40:34-35). While God remains outside creation, humans, created “in the image of God,” reside within (Gen. 1:27). Elsewhere in the Bible, the term image designates a statue or engraving that represents God, explicitly forbidden in biblical tradition (e.g., 2 Kgs. 11:18; cf. Exod. 20:4; Lev. 19:4; Deut. 4:15-18). Genesis 1, however, applies the language of image to humans, who bear God’s presence in the world and are commanded to exercise “dominion.” For an ancient agrarian society, such a command gave divine warrant to cultivate the land and harness its fertility for sustaining life, human and nonhuman (Gen. 1:29-30). Stewardship, thus, is an appropriate way of making sense of “dominion” in Genesis for today.</p> <p>Genesis 2:4b-3:24</p> <p>Whereas creation in Gen. 1 begins in a primordial soup (tohu wabohA [1:2]), the second creation story, known as the Yahwist account, begins with a dry stretch of land. The soil takes center stage in this narrative, for from it God, like a potter working with clay, creates a human being, the ’adam. From such a simple narrative beginning, a wordplay is born: the ’adam is created out of the ’adama, the “ground.” Just as the English word human is derived from the Latin humus, the meaning of ’adam carries with it the sense of “groundling.” If God is king of the cosmos in Gen. 1, God is king of the compost in Gen. 2. God animates the first human being not by divine touch (contra Michelangelo), but rather by mouth-to-nose resuscitation. In Gen. 2, creation is intimately physical.</p> <p>In the Yahwist account of creation, God plants a garden for the ’adam and gives him the task of serving and preserving it (2:15). The divine farmer entrusts the garden to the human farmer. Thus, the ’adam becomes the servant of the soil, in contrast to the royal, nearly divine elevation of humanity in Gen. 1. There is nothing in the garden to be “subdued.” Indeed, the ground and the “groundling” form a fruitful partnership, a kinship by which the ’adam is sustained and the soil yields its productivity. But as fruitful as the garden is, God finds that the life of the human farmer is “not good” (2:18). The ’adam needs a companion, and so God creates out of the ground the animals to see if a coequal can be found. Having failed, God resorts to a more invasive procedure: the woman is created from the ’adam’s own flesh and blood, and only then does the ’adam become a “man” (’is [2:23]). Such a creation by no means implies subordinate status for the woman, but rather indicates coequality and mutuality with the man, hence the marriage etiology in 2:24.</p> <p>Life in the garden embodies mutuality and harmony, meaningful work and intimacy. It is marred, however, by the couple’s attempt to grasp divine power and wisdom. The man and the woman are deemed unfit to care for the garden and are expelled. They suffer the curse of pain and alienation (3:14-19). But God’s curse, as a consequence of the couple’s disobedience, is no mandate. The garden story does not command subordination and conflict any more than it mandates crop failure. Rather, it recognizes that the blessed life of mutuality, intimacy, and harmonious work is far more difficult to embody outside the garden. Nevertheless, the garden’s ethos remains binding.</p> <p>Job 38-41</p> <p>God’s answer to Job presents a vividly panoramic view of creation. Beginning with earth and all stars and concluding with monstrous Leviathan (to which a whole chapter is devoted), creation in the book of Job is testimony to God’s providential care, which extends far beyond what is familiar to humans. God, for example, makes it rain “on a land where no one lives . . . to satisfy the waste and desolate land” (38:26-27). Creation’s focus here is on the wilderness, where the wild things are, from ostriches to aurochs. There, each creature has its freedom and vitality, each valued and cherished by God. Unlike Adam, to whom the animals were brought to be named in the garden, Job is shown the natural habitats of these wild creatures and taught their names. Although creation extends far beyond human reach, God points out that Job is inextricably linked to the wild: “Look at Behemoth, which I made just as I made you” (40:15). In God’s answer, Job discovers his link to the wild even as the wild remains untouched by him. And so it should. Creation near and far is full of vitality and variety, dignity and terrible beauty.</p> <p>Psalm 104</p> <p>Psalm 104 matches Job 38-41 almost animal by animal, from the lion to Leviathan (minus Behemoth). In addition, trees are celebrated, including the majestic cedars of Lebanon. The psalm’s broad focus is on creation’s habitational integrity. Each animal has its home, from the lion’s lair to the coney’s rock and the stork’s juniper. Creation is not just habitat for humanity; it is habitat for diversity, including even habitat for divinity (104:2b-3a). God provides for all, and the products of nature provide joy for human beings (104:14-15). Dominion has no place in this psalm (cf. Ps. 8); humans are simply counted among the host of living creatures, all exercising their right to live in God’s manifold world. The psalmist delights in the sheer variety of creatures and habitats that fill creation (104:24), a delight that God also shares (104:31b). Psalm 104 is God’s fanfare for the common creature.</p> <p>Proverbs 8:22-31</p> <p>Wisdom presents herself as the consummate eyewitness to God’s work in creation. She recounts how God constructed the world, ensuring its integrity. As for her place in creation, personified Wisdom claims to have been “brought forth” (i.e., birthed) prior to anything else created (8:24-25). Wisdom is God’s cosmic child, and as a child she plays with both God and creation (8:30-31). Creation, in short, is fashioned for Wisdom’s enjoyment. Humanity, on the other hand, is scarcely mentioned, except at the very end as Wisdom’s play partner, the object of her delight, along with God. Humans exist for Wisdom’s sake, for her delight. Wisdom’s playful delight requires humans to live up to their biological name, Homo sapiens (the “wise human”), and also to be Homo ludens (the “playing human”).</p> <p>Ecclesiastes 1:3-11</p> <p>Although not a creation account proper, the opening chapter of Ecclesiastes presents a unique snapshot of creation in perpetual motion, from rising generations and flowing streams to circling sun and blowing wind. And yet for all its frenetic activity, the earth remains the same (1:4b). There is “nothing new under the sun” (1:9). Change is a mirage. Creation, moreover, is fraught with “vanity” (Heb. hebel), making life futile and fleeting. As for humanity’s place and role in a world of hebel, the ancient sage warns against getting swept up in the relentless, all-consuming quest for “gain.” In Qoheleth’s eyes, creation presents a lesson, but it is a negative one. As the world is full of expended effort, all for naught, so humans cannot grasp anything permanent and profitable, no matter how hard they try. Hebel always wins. Instead, the sage commends a nonprofit existence: “There is nothing better for mortals than to eat and drink, and find enjoyment in their toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God” (2:24). To pause amid the toil and to savor the simple gifts of sustenance—themselves the fruits of creation—is the highest good for humans. In his own way, the sage advocates a life of simplicity and joy. He is not a hedonist, not one to strive for pleasure as one strives for gain. No, Qoheleth commends a life of grateful acceptance.</p> <p>Isaiah 40-55</p> <p>Known as Second Isaiah, this corpus of prophetic poetry is filled with references to creation, all bound up with the prophet’s bold historical pronouncements of release for the exilic community. As much as Qoheleth denounces anything new, the prophet of the exile heralds the new. In Isaiah, history and creation are inseparably wedded. God stretches out the heavens as a tent or curtain (40:22; 42:5) and hammers out the earth as a firmament (42:5b; 44:24b). God creates both light and darkness, weal and woe (45:6b-7; cf. Gen. 1:3). Incomparably transcendent, God stands alone as creator of all. All in all, God did not create the earth “a chaos [tohu], he formed it to be inhabited” (45:18). As the heavens are stretched out, so God commands Zion to “enlarge the site of your tent” and to “let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out” in order to accommodate Zion’s lost children, the returning exiles (54:2-3). Creation prefigures Israel’s restoration in the land, inaugurated by a new exodus (43:16-23). This is indeed something “new” (42:9; 43:19; 48:6). Released from exile, Israel will never be the same; so also creation. Indeed, the prophet likens Israel’s restoration to new botanical growth (41:17-21; 45:8; 55:10-11). God’s saving word is a creative word.</p> <p>John 1:1-18</p> <p>The word that initiates creation in Gen. 1 reaches its creative fullness in the prologue to John’s Gospel. Rewriting Gen. 1, especially the first three verses, John lifts up the divine “Word” (logos) that was present “in the beginning” and, at the same time, brings it down to earth, fully enfleshed (1:1, 14). Drawing from Prov. 8, John identifies Christ with primordial Wisdom, who was “with God” (1:1 [cf. Prov. 8:30]) and who “enlightens everyone” (1:9). As “light” was the first of God’s primordial acts in Genesis, light in John is the sign of God’s glorious effulgence “coming into the world” (1:4-5, 8-9). As in Genesis, light and life are interconnected (1:4). In Gen. 1, God fashions creation by divine word, but no indication is given as to when or how God will enter the cosmic temple, if ever. For John, however, the Christ event marks God’s formal entrance into creation, once and for all (1:9-10). The evangelist establishes a broad theological arc extending from Genesis to John, from the creator God to the incarnate Christ, the “light of the world” (8:12). In John, God’s creative “Word” is God’s incarnational presence in the world (1:14).</p> <p>Each in its own way, these creation traditions claim the world as God’s creation and acknowledge creation’s God-given worth and integrity, its goodness and its beauty. As God’s cosmic temple, creation bears a sanctity that must not be profaned. Humankind, the accounts attest, is creation’s royal steward and loyal servant, its most powerful agent and most grateful recipient. As God’s “images,” humans are called to reflect God’s life-affirming ways, to embody the God who cares for all creatures and seeks their well-being. In the biblical narrative, the one who most fully exercises divinely ordained “dominion” is Noah, who preserves the diversity of all creation. The world that “God so loved” is nothing less than cosmic (John 3:16).</p> <p>See also Animals; Creation Ethics; Ecological Ethics; Humanity; World</p> <p>Bibliography</p> <p>Brown, W. “The Moral Cosmologies of Creation.” Pages 11-26 in Character Ethics and the Old Testament: The Moral Dimensions of Scripture, ed. M. D. Carroll R. and J. Lapsley. Westminster John Knox, 2007; idem. The Seven Pillars of Creation: The Bible, Science, and the Ecology of Wonder. Oxford University Press, 2010; Davis, E. Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible. Cambridge University Press, 2009; Fretheim, T. God and World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation. Abingdon, 2005.</p> <p>William P. Brown</p><h3>Creation Ethics</h3> <p>Issues of creation ethics are pressing in today’s world as society increasingly recognizes creation’s ecological fragility. Many now even characterize the situation as a crisis that threatens the survival of all creatures on earth. This crisis is closely related to the problem of poverty, as ecological degradation is often worst in areas inhabited by the poor. Yet many worry that environmental regulations may have the unfortunate effect of stultifying the economic development especially needed by the poor. In view of this balancing act, what responsibilities do Christians have to care for the well-being of nature in relation to human flourishing?</p> <p>These critical issues of Christian ethics depend significantly on the biblical and theological questions surrounding the Christian understanding of the world as creation. What does it mean for the world to be “creaturely”? Is the created order meaningful beyond its role as the environment in which humans live? What does the creaturely status of human beings—we are creatures in ontological kinship with the nonhuman creaturely world—entail for the moral life?</p> <p>God as Creator</p> <p>Creation by definition is the gracious work of God, the Creator king. This key theme of creation as God’s kingdom is established in the keynote creation accounts of Gen. 1-2 and is sounded by various other biblical texts (e.g., Ps. 24:1). Reflecting the full-bloom monotheism of the exilic period, Deutero-Isaiah affirms God’s status as the Creator of all (Isa. 40:26; cf. Jdt. 9:12). God’s position as sole maker and therefore king of all creaturely reality is itself one of the key biblical-theological themes that informs ethical considerations, for the line that differentiates appropriate behavior from idolatrous living runs along the Creator/creature distinction. Living rightly and faithfully requires the embrace of one’s creaturely status rather than an idolatrous straining for the prerogatives that belong to God alone (see Gen. 3). This theme runs throughout the biblical canon, as echoed in the apostle Paul’s theological account of human sin: “They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Rom. 1:25). By contrast, true worship acknowledges God’s status as Creator, as seen, for example, with the twenty-four elders of Revelation (4:11). In short, to live properly is to accept creaturehood rather than confuse oneself or other creatures with the Creator God.</p> <p>The Status of Creation</p> <p>Though subordinate to God as Creator, creature-hood is not a diminishment, but rather bears great dignity and goodness. The first Genesis creation account is particularly clear in its assessment of the high value, worth, and dignity of the created order. Throughout the formative days of creation, the various categories of creaturely being are regarded by God as “good,” with the final refrain assessing the whole work of creation with a resounding “very good” (Gen. 1:31).</p> <p>From Jesus’ pronouncement that “it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles” (Matt. 15:11) to Paul’s assertion that “everything is indeed clean” (Rom. 14:20), the NT strongly affirms the goodness of creation (e.g., Rom. 11:36; 1 Tim. 4:4). This goodness theme is advanced most definitively through the promise of a renewal of all creation, a hope present in OT prophetic literature (Isa. 65:17-25) but portrayed most strikingly through Revelation’s vision of a “new heaven and a new earth” (Rev. 21:1). There the divine king of creation promises to renew all of reality: “See, I am making all things new” (Rev. 21:5).</p> <p>The NT as a whole interprets this promise through Jesus. His role as mediator of the original divine work of creation (see Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:2; cf. Rev. 3:14) and his redemptive incarnation in the dust and history of creation itself will culminate in a renewal of all creation. In short, the world’s enduring goodness is not just a creational claim, but ultimately is a christological and soteriological claim: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16). While the second half of this venerated verse brings the idea to a rather anthropocentric close, we should not ignore the first half’s insistence that it is the Creator king’s love for the whole kosmos that precipitates the incarnation’s validation of the goodness of creation (cf. Rom. 8:21).</p> <p>The Role of Humankind</p> <p>Among God’s creatures it is seemingly only humans who have had a difficult time accepting creaturely limits and respecting the goodness of creation. This sinfully inflated sense of humanity was bolstered by certain understandings of the exalted status of humans as bearers of God’s image. In Gen. 1 God creates humanity with the following words:</p> <p>“Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” (Gen. 1:26-28)</p> <p>While various interpretations of what exactly constitutes the divine image have been proposed, this text often was assumed to be teaching that humans are overlords of the nonhuman creation, possessing the divine mandate to exercise domination over a wild, dangerous, or dormant nature.</p> <p>Given this prominent interpretation of the imago Dei, coupled with Jewish and Christian roles in fostering the development of modernity, especially the scientific revolution and industrialization, the Christian religion has often been accused of complicity in the making of the ecological crisis. Lynn White Jr. famously argued in 1967 that Christianity, in aiding the rise of modern science, gave unchecked blessing to the exploitation of the earth, in no small part through its exalting humanity at the expense of the nonhuman created world. The degradation of creation is often also associated with particular movements</p> <p>or attitudes within Christian history, such as the world-denying gnostic Christianity that emerged early on and has afflicted the church even into the present, or forms of escapist eschatology that regard the material world as bound for destruction and therefore in need of little human concern here and now. While the precise degree of Christian culpability is debatable, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the church often has provided biblical and theological warrant for the despoiling of nature.</p> <p>A more nuanced interpretation of the imago Dei concept, however, as suggested by biblical scholarship, points in a very different direction (see, e.g., Middleton). In the ancient Near Eastern world, an “image” (Heb. selem) often referred to a statue that represented and demarcated a king’s dominion. This background suggests that human beings, as dignified divine image-bearers, are called to be living, breathing representatives of the reign and concerns of God the king. As those who “have dominion,” humans have only representative dominion and are called to serve as stewards of the true king, caring for and preserving the king’s do-main—that is, God’s creation. “Be fruitful and multiply” and “subdue the earth,” then, cannot rightly be taken as license for humans to adopt haphazard or anthropocentric conceptions of their relationship to the rest of creation, but actually are mandates to dwell caringly in the world as faithful stewards of God, bringing forth the fruits of the created order in a way that sustains its well-being in honor of the true Creator king.</p> <p>In view of the NT portrayal of Jesus as the true “image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15), the work of stewardly image-bearing takes on even crisper contours. Sin fosters an inappropriate and destructive living out of the image-bearing task. It is thus only through Jesus Christ, the sinless one who is the true image of God, that we can get our clearest idea of appropriate image-bearing and creaturely existence. Among other things, Jesus’ inauguration of the kingdom of God through proclamation and healing, his faithful attendance to the “least of these” (Matt. 25:31-46), and his self-effacing journey to the cross of reconciliation provide christological soundings for creation ethics, although they are undoubtedly items that require careful translation into the arena of environmental considerations. If a degraded natural order, for instance, qualifies as a creational “least of these,” then the church’s image-bearing witness to Jesus’ ministry may require significant attention to the well-being of nature, by analogy to the naked, hungry, and imprisoned.</p> <p>Jesus’ full embrace of creatureliness, despite his divine prerogatives, should also inform creation ethics. The christological hymn of Phil. 2:5-11 makes the point with its incarnational overtones: the one who by nature is God did not, ironically, like the first Adam, grasp after that equality, but rather accepted the servant status of a creature, even unto suffering and death. The moral and spiritual punch line of the text, of course, is that we who are not God, but by nature are creaturely servants of God, are called to reject our idolatrous strivings. In short, to live faithfully is to live as creatures, without deifying ourselves or exalting ourselves above other creatures. In this broad sense, we are called to follow the pattern of Christ, who embraced his incarnational creatureli-ness through his faithfulness to the calling of the Father by the leading of the Spirit.</p> <p>Sustainability, Stewardship, and the Spirit</p> <p>If the imago Dei is centrally a matter of human responsibility before God to conserve and cultivate the goodness of creation—to tend the creational kingdom on behalf of the Creator king—then a key motif for creation ethics is sustainability. The created order, at least the one planet over which humans currently have influence, should be protected because the triune Creator desires it—every facet of it—to flourish in its created goodness. While this means that human flourishing cannot rightly be pursued apart from its environmental impact, it also means that nonhuman environmental considerations cannot wholly trump questions of human well-being, especially concerns of the poor. In a sinful world, creation ethics, with its goal of sustainability, will always be a realm of difficult choices. At the same time, seeing the issue as a holistic set of ecological considerations should remind us that the well-being of humanity and of nonhuman nature are fully bound up with each other as one system of nature and one created kingdom of God. While nature depends significantly on humankind for its flourishing, especially given modern technology’s provision of unprecedented human control over nature, humankind itself cannot flourish apart from nature, which has given rise to human life and provides us the resources for human sustainability.</p> <p>How can stewardship and efforts toward sustainability be encouraged in the church? One recent family of theological proposals points to the immanence of the Holy Spirit in creation as a theme that can help to counterbalance the modern industrial desacralization of nature. Some of these proposals contend in very strong terms that the Spirit is the “Earth God,” who dwells within the created world, penetrating all life and filling it with divine sanctity (Wallace). Others suggest that the person of the Spirit is the “womb” of creation, with all of creation existing “in” the Spirit (Moltmann). These proposals presuppose that a greater sense of the Spirit’s presence and investment in creation will help the church avoid the temptation to see nature as mere “stuff” that we can use according to our whims. The difficulty with such proposals is how to invest creation with appropriate divine sanctity without blurring the clear biblical and monotheistic line between Creator and creation.</p> <p>The Epistle to the Romans provides guidance in this regard. Paul speaks of the Spirit’s indwelling of the adopted children of God as the ground of hope for future human renewal, despite our current sufferings (Rom. 8:17-18). Paul then connects the present suffering and future-minded hope of human beings to the situation of creation as a whole:</p> <p>For the creation was subjected to futility . . . in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. (Rom. 8:20-23)</p> <p>Paul’s analogy between the suffering of believers and the “groaning” of creation as a whole, with the Spirit’s presence and intercession filling the space between persecuted present and redemptive future for believers (Rom. 8:26-27), is highly suggestive of the Spirit’s broader redemptive indwelling of the whole creation. Thus, the Spirit’s role in sanctification is closely linked to the Spirit’s work in the larger renewal of creation. To live faithfully in creation, then, is to live as a creature in the Spirit, recognizing that the Spirit’s presence and work, through Christ, extend to the whole of creation.</p> <p>Led by the Spirit’s redemptive role in the Christian life and in recognition of the Spirit’s renewing presence in creation, where should Christians direct their efforts in the area of creation ethics, especially its environmental considerations? One focus in contemporary discussions emphasizes Christian political responsibility: Christians should support policies that enhance the sustainability of the created order. They should advocate actively for programs and practices that respect the integrity of creation and foster its inhabitability for all creatures.</p> <p>Along with political advocacy, the approach to Christian ethics articulated by thinkers such as Stanley Hauerwas suggests an additional mind-set. It reminds the church simply to be itself, to be a distinctive community of witness that lives the life of Christ and pursues creaturely faithfulness while recognizing that the well-being of creation ultimately depends on God. On this approach, rather than relying only on grand measures such as the marshaling and channeling of political power, the church is called to start small (to do “one thing,” as Hauerwas puts it)—to pursue creative stewardship in day-to-day matters as an expression of faithfulness, to remember the particular “least of these” (whether imprisoned neighbor, hungry and homeless person, or polluted park) in the local church’s midst—as a witnessing parable of the Creator God’s concern for all of creation.</p> <p>See also Animals; Creation, Biblical Accounts of; Ecological Ethics; Humanity; Image of God; Stewardship</p> <p>Bibliography</p> <p>Gunton, C. The Triune Creator: A Historical and Systematic Study. ESCT. Eerdmans, 1998; Hall, D. Imaging God: Dominion as Stewardship. Eerdmans, 1986; Hauerwas, S. The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics. University of Notre Dame Press, 1991; Middleton, J. The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1. Brazos, 2005; Moltmann, J. God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God. Fortress, 1993; Plan-tinga, R., T. Thompson, and M. Lundberg. An Introduction to Christian Theology. IR. Cambridge University Press, 2010, 147-94. Wallace, M. Finding God in the Singing River: Christianity, Spirit, Nature. Fortress, 2005; White, L. “On the Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis.” Science 155 (March 10, 1967): 1203-7.</p> <p>Matthew D. Lundberg</p> <p>Credit See Loans Cremation See Death and Dying</p> </body> </html>