Ernst Conradie
6/2/2009
"The Earth in God's Economy: Reflections on the Narrative of God's Work on Earth"
This is a third major project in which I am investigating aspects of the Christian faith from the perspective of contemporary ecotheology. This builds on earlier projects on eschatology (see Hope for the earth: Vistas on a new century, Wipf & Stock, 2000/2005) and on anthropology (see An ecological Christian anthropology: At home on earth? Ashgate, 2005). My hope is that such theological reflections will help to support an environmental praxis, ethos and spirituality in Christian communities in the Southern African context (see also my Christianity and ecological theology: Resources for further research, SUN Press, 2006).
The project on “The earth in God’s economy” is almost embarrassingly complex and ambitious. In order to make this project feasible, I have identifiedand followed a number of steps:
Phase 1: From “Creation and redemption” to the whole of God’s work (2006)
When I commenced with this project in 2006, I understood it as a study on the relationship between the Christian doctrines of creation and redemption, as understood within the reformed tradition, with specific attention to the place of the earth community in God’s work.
This is an important problem given the tendency in Protestant theology to privilege redemption and to see creation merely as the stage where the drama of God’s salvific interaction with human beings is being performed. The social impact of this tendency should not be underestimated, given the influence of Calvinism on the rise of capitalism (Weber) and the thesis proposed by Lynn White in 1967 that Christianity “bears a huge burden of guilt” for the ecological crisis. By contrast, there is a tendency in some contemporary forms of theology to underplay the themes of sin and redemption in order to focus on what Matthew Fox would call “original blessing”. This tendency is also prevalent in contemporary discourse on theology and the sciences where there is a tendency to subsume both the doctrines of creation and redemption under a discussion of the theodicy problem. The need to relate the themes of creation and redemption is recognised, in a quite different form, in African theology. This is evident from the question raised by Mercy Amba Oduyoye: “Is the God of our redemption the same God of our creation?” (Hearing and knowing, p. 75). This question is born from the African quest for identity. What is the continuity between a pre-Christian African notion of the creator God and the Christian message of redemption through Jesus Christ that became rooted in Africa as a result of Western mission and is therefore treated with some suspicion?
In my early work on the project I assumed that eschatology would provide the rubric where the relation between creation and redemption can be addressed most adequately – since the eschaton is cosmic in scope and salvific in its message of hope. I observed that the relationship between creation and eschaton calls for further clarification. The eschaton may be understood as a represtination, restoration (Van Ruler on re-creatio), completion, fulfilment (Pannenberg), culmination or the replacement (see Moltmann’s emphasis on a nova creatio) of God’s work in creation.
However, during a literature survey that served as orientation for the project in 2006, I came to the conclusion that the relationship between creation and redemption cannot be understood apart from all the other core themes of God’s work. This has traditionally been described as “God’s economy” (also with reference to the notion of the “economic trinity”), that is, the management of God’s household (oikos). The question is therefore how the story of God’s engagement with creation may be told. This is a narrative that has to account for (the relationship between) the themes of creation in the beginning, continuing creation through evolutionary history, the emergence of human beings, the destructive legacy of human sin, God’s providence, the history of redemption, the formation of the church, its ministries and mission and the completion of God’s work on earth. This is, of course, an enormously complex question given the long legacy of theological reflection on each of these themes.
Moreover, the earth’s own story is interwoven with this story of God’s work. There is a multiplicity of scientific, cultural and religious layers of this story, written over one another, as if on a palimpsest. While the natural sciences seek to reconstruct the earth’s own story, and while the humanities focus on the comparatively brief history of the human species, religious versions of the story seek to address human questions that science qua science cannot answer: Where does everything ultimately come from? Where does evil come from? What am I doing here? How can I cope with the demands of life? What will happen to me when I die? What is destiny of the universe? My concern to understand the place of the earth in God’s economy therefore makes the project even more complex.
Phase 2: How are they telling the story? Theological contributions on the narrative of God’s work (2007)
My work on the project focused in 2007 on the contributions of a number of reformed theologians, namely Arnold van Ruler, Jürgen Moltmann, Douglas John Hall and Colin Gunton, whose work I regard as helpful in reflecting on the place of the earth in God’s economy. In each case I am trying to reconstruct the way in which these theologians are telling the story of God’s work on earth.
In October 2007 I hosted a colloquium on the theme of “How are they telling the story?” at the University of the Western Cape. Several leading South African theologians were asked to reconstruct the way in which their dominant theological conversation partner has been telling the story of God’s work. The programme for this colloquium included some 15 papers on a variety of mostly twentieth century theologians.
Since I was responsible for editing the contributions from this colloquium that were submitted for publication, I also wrote a rather lengthy editorial in which the complexities involved in this theme were analysed. Most of these papers have been published in the form of articles in the peer reviewed journal Scriptura in 2008.
Phase 3: Understanding God’s work: Theories of divine action (2008a)
Theological discourse on God’s work assumes that God is indeed acting in the world in various ways. In the context of recent dialogue between Christian theology and the sciences there have been extensive discussions on theories of divine action. This is especially evident from the highly reputable series of six edited volumes produced by the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences and the Vatican Observatory and the contributions by leading scholars such as Philip Clayton, George Ellis, Niels Hendrik Gregersen, Nancey Murphy, Arthur Peacocke, John Polkinghorne, Robert John Russel, William Stoeger, Thomas Tracy, Keith Ward, Wesley Wildman and Fraser Watts. This discourse is by nature highly inter-disciplinary since it explored possibility for what is termed “Non-Interventionist Objective Divine Action” (NIODA) in the interface between Christian theology, religious studies, philosophy, the social sciences and a variety of natural sciences (the edited volumes mentioned above covered quantum cosmology, chaos and complexity, evolutionary biology, the cognitive sciences and quantum mechanics).
During my stay at CTI I was able to draw on resources from the Speer Library to expand a pre-final draft of manuscript that I worked on mainly in the first half of 2008. I also made use of opportunities to discuss such work with fellow CTI member Willem Drees and Wentzel van Huyssteen (at PTS).
Phase 4: Abraham Kuyper and the story of God’s work (2008b)
Following my ongoing research on the varied ways in which reformed scholars such as Douglas John Hall, Colin Gunton, Jürgen Moltmann and Arnold van Ruler have been telling the story of God’s work, I recognised the need of delving further back in the reformed tradition in order to fathom the roots of a reformed understanding of this story. The influential contributions of Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, Herman Bavinck, Abraham Kuyper and John Calvin would obviously have to be taken into account in this regard. I subsequently opted to focus on the legacy of Abraham Kuyper. The question which I addressed is how Kuyper’s version of the story of God’s work may be reconstructed and what significance this may have for the well-being of the earth community.
In the second half of 2008 I worked as a CTI member mainly on this aspect of the larger project. The access to the famous Speer library where the Abraham Kuyper collection is housed enabled me to make excellent progress with this phase of the larger project. I need to admit that work on this text was for me not only most enjoyable and fascinating but also deeply existential. I sought some clarity amidst a number of conflicting voices from afar (Barth, Bavinck, Berkouwer, Brunner, Kuyper, Van Ruler) coming to me from my theological past. I became aware of many theological dangers related to these discourses and I am not at all sure that I managed to avoid them.
Initially I intended to write two publishable articles, namely on Kuyper’s understanding of the relationship between “general” and “special” revelation and on the relationship between creation and re-creation. I then added an introductory section on selecting Kuyper as a conversation partner from within the South African context. However, the length of this three-part essay and its deeply polemical nature prompted me to consider the publication of this in book-form. As a result, I have submitted a book proposal with Brill publishers for an edited volume entitled “Abraham Kuyper’s legacy for contemporary ecotheology: An inter-continental dialogue” to be published in their series Studies inReformed Theology.
My three part-essay entitled “Abraham Kuyper’s legacy for contemporary ecotheology: Some reflections from within the South African context” will form the basis for this envisaged publication. This will be followed with responses from the following persons who accepted invitations in this regard:
Rudolf Britz, Christo Lombard, Jan Lubbe, Leslie van Rooi (SouthAfrica), Dirk van Keulen & Kees van der Kooi (the Netherlands), Günter Thomas (Germany), Benjamin Myers (Australia) and Clifford Anderson and Vincent Bacote (USA). Two of these persons were CTI members with me in the fall of 2008 while Christo Lombard and Kees van der Kooi are former members. Clifford Anderson is attached to PTS. This alone provides ample indications of the fruitfulness of the conversations that CTI facilitates. The manuscript will be submitted for publication by the end of August 2009 – after I have edited the responses and added a rejoinder.
Phase 5: Creation and redemption in the theology of John Calvin (2009)
The year 2009 marks the 500thanniversary of the birth of John Calvin (1509-1564). In order to make a contribution to the international efforts to assess the significance of his enormous legacy, I am currently investigating his understanding of the relationship between creation and redemption during the course of 2009. I have accepted invitations to read papers on Calvin’s “natural theology”, on the suffering embedded in creation (the legacy of Darwin, see also Günter Thomas’work in this regard) and on the relationship between creation and redemption. In all three cases current and former CTI members will be present and I hope to continue ongoing conversations with them.
Phase 6: Discourse on “salvation” in contemporary ecotheology (2008-2012)
This project will also feed into Working Group 4 of the international collaborative project on “Christian Faith and the Earth”. I was invited by Prof Willis Jenkins (the moderator of this group) to present a paper on the concept of salvation in discourse on Christian ecotheology for a colloquium at Yale Divinity school, 11-12 December 2008. The question that was addressed at this colloquium was the following: “How is the Christian notion of ‘salvation’ to be understood in the context of environmental threats such as anthropogenic climate change, the loss of biodiversity, pollution and ecological destruction?”
This same paper was also discussed in the residential colloquium at CTI in December 2008. It was revised on the basis ofthe highly fruitful interaction before, during and after this colloquium.
This group will continue its work during the period between 2009 and the culminating conference of the project in August 2012. One of the questions that has already been identified and will also be addressed in the process is the following: “How can the relationship between the Christian doctrines of creation and salvation be articulated in such a way that justice can be done to both? This question is indeed at the very heart of my own individual project. The group envisages an edited volume of essays in which the views of selected major theologians on the relationship between creation and redemption are reconstructed. Work on this will take place from July 2009 to June 2010.
Phase 7: An envisaged monograph on “The earth in God’s Economy” (2010-2012+)
On the basis of the preceding phases, I hope to produce a monograph on the theme of “The earth in God’s economy”. It is likely that this may be published by SCM Press in an envisaged series entitled “Radical ethics” (co-edited by Celia Deane-Drummond, myself and various others).
Ernst Conradie
Department of Religion and Theology
University of the Western Cape