ALL CREATURES OF OUR GOD AND KING

The Doctrine of Creation in David Clough’s On Animals, Vol. 1

All creatures of our God and King
Lift up your voice and with us sing,
Alleluia! Alleluia!

                                                        ~ Hymn, based on a poem by St. Francis

            What is the purpose of creation?  Where do humans fit into that purpose?  And where do other animals fit?  Are other animals – and the rest of the non-human creation – created solely for human benefit, or is something larger at work?  What separates humans from other animals?  What does it mean to be created in the image of God?

These are some of the questions David Clough seeks to tackle in Part 1 of his book, On Animals, Volume 1: Systematic Theology.  Last time, I looked at Clough’s introduction, which urges theologians to take the question of animal welfare seriously because it is one that touches on nearly every aspect of what it means to be Christian and because our relationship with animals has changed dramatically and nearly without question in recent decades.  It is time, he argues, to pull back the curtain, to pay attention to what we are doing and why, and to ask whether it is compatible with what we say we believe.  In order to do that, we need to consider the place of animals in fundamental Christian doctrines.   One of those fundamental doctrines is the doctrine of creation, which Clough addresses in Part One of his book.  This post will start at the beginning and ask, what is the purpose of creation? 

Photo credit: David Wye

              If the purpose of creation is solely God’s relationship with human beings, then the rest of creation, including the animals, is of secondary importance and may be used in any way that furthers that relationship.  If it is something else, however, then the rest of creation, including the animals, may need to be given more consideration.    
          The first point Clough makes is that scripture does not answer this question: “God creates; creation comes into being – the texts are more concerned to establish and celebrate this than to assert God’s end in this activity” (p. 4).  This silence, he suggests, may be due to an understanding that God must remain in some ways inexplicable to His creatures and that creation is an act of God’s gracious love; that to look too closely for a reason may be to try to constrain God’s freedom or to “trespass on this divine prerogative” (p. 5).  Yet, while scriptures may be silent on the issue, he notes, theologians have not been so reticent.  
        Clough addresses a number of ancient and modern theories regarding the purpose of creation, considering those that suggest creation’s central purpose is focused on human beings alone (anthropocentric); those that suggest creation’s central purpose is for God’s own glory (theocentric); and those that look to God’s desire to be in relationship with creation.  In his discussion, he considers viewpoints put forward by thinkers from Plato to Origen to Calvin to Barth. 

Plato by Raphael

In particular, he addresses the strong Greek philosophical influence on the development of anthropocentric views of creation, including Christian views.  This anthropocentric perspective has been highly influential in much Christian thinking, but, Clough argues, it is without biblical support.  Instead, it is grounded in the attempt by the ancient Jewish philosopher, Philo (c. 15 BC – AD 50), to reconcile the Genesis creation stories with Plato’s Timaeus, which places male humans at the heart of creation.  The Genesis account of creation, however, has a fundamentally different perspective:

In the first chapter of Genesis, human beings are given their own place and role in a diverse creation declared good in every respect by its maker, the purpose of which is not reduced to the human. . . .  In short, the doctrine that human beings are the aim, centre and goal of creation is being read into the Genesis text in order to make it congruent with a view of the place of the human in creation derived from other sources.  (p. 9) 

Readers of this blog will be familiar with this dynamic.  In earlier posts, I have discussed the influence of Greek philosophy and other extra-biblical sources on various theories about what it means to be created in the image of God.  In my post, Why Has The Church Traditionally Taken A Different View?, I quote Richard Middleton, who explains that theologians considering the image of God have relied on “extrabiblical, usually philosophical, sources to interpret the image and end up reading contemporaneous conceptions of being human back into the Genesis text.”[1]  Similarly, Clough explains that the view that human beings are the purpose of creation, “seems to be unnecessarily allied with contemporary philosophical and social pressures, emphasizing anthropocentric views of the universe.  The weight of theological opinion that human beings are God’s aim in creation, therefore, is not matched by a similar  weight of theological argument”(p. 15).

Creation of Adam from the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo

            A better view, Clough argues, is a theocentric view, which sees the purpose of creation as centered on God Himself.  One example of this perspective, according to Clough, is Barth.  Although much of Barth’s writings have a decidedly anthropocentric tone, Clough argues that Barth recognized that an anthropocentric view did not sufficiently account for what scripture tells us about creation.  Barth also recognized that placing humans at the center of creation risks suggesting that humans can be “spiritualized” without adequate recognition of God’s covenant of grace “and threatens to turn our attention away from theology and towards anthropological naval gazing” (p. 17).  Clough emphasizes Barth’s view that “God’s project [is] to be gracious to the creature, and thus the purpose of creation can only be rightly characterized by the fulfillment of [the] covenant of grace in Jesus Christ” (p. 17).  Hinting at chapters to come, Clough then explains that this covenant of grace is best understood as encompassing all of creation, and not just human beings.  He argues that it does not stretch Barth too far to make such a suggestion, since Barth himself recognized the paucity of biblical evidence for the centrality of humankind (p. 18).

Others who expressed a theocentric view include Aquinas, who looked at Proverbs 16.4a (translated in the Vulgate[2] as “The Lord has made all things for Himself”), argued that each creature exists for its own perfection, that lesser creatures exist for the nobler, each creature exists for the perfection of the universe, and the universe has “God as its goal” (p. 19).  Likewise, Bonaventure, looking at the same passage, concluded “the final end of creation cannot be anything outside God” (p. 19). 

Nevertheless, even this theocentric view is not without difficulties, as it can lead to the perception of God as oppressive and self-concerned, or as dependent on the creation and in need of glorification from it.  An alternative offered by Pannenberg suggests that God created for the sake of creation, and that everything in it exists for its own sake, and not as a means to an end.  Clough argues that this view is better supported in scripture, especially Psalm 104, which “represents an astonishing catalogue of God’s oversight and care for all of God’s creatures” (p. 20).  Along these lines, Basil of Caesarea said that the world was created “to contribute to some useful end and to the great advantage of all beings” (p.21).  Even this perspective has its limitations, however; like the anthropocentric view, “in isolation [it] risks the same dangers of creaturely self-preoccupation as the human version of the claim” (p. 22). 

Basil of Caesarea

            Instead, Clough argues that the best view of the purpose of creation offers a balance of glorification of God by the creation and the creation by God as act of graciousness toward creatures who exist for their own sake.  Clough cites Aquinas, Schwobel, Pannenberg, and Barth as contributing to finding such a balance.  “An apt summary” of that balance, was suggested by Pannenberg: “the goal of creation is ‘the participation of creatures in the trinitarian fellowship’” (p. 23).   This balance, Cough suggests, avoids the pitfalls of either self-obsessed creatures or a self-concerned creator.  It also comports more closely with what scripture tells us of God’s concern for and involvement with the whole of creation. 

I am struck by the similarity of Clough’s conclusion here with the work of Catherine Lacugna, some of whose writings I discussed in my posts Animals and the Trinity, Parts One and Two.  This is from Part Two: “[Ii]n God In Communion With Us, [Lacugna] says a Trinitarian theology grounded in the economy of salvation understands that we are created to live in ‘authentic communion with God, with other persons, and with all God’s creatures.’[3] In God For Us she explains the Trinity is ‘overflowing love, outreaching desire for communion with all that God has made.’”[4] 

            Clough and Lacugna, then, come to similar conclusions via different routes: the purpose of all of creation is to be in fellowship with God as Trinity.  While, as my Part Two on the Trinity complains, Lacugna did not consider the implications of this statement for our relationships with animals, Clough tackles it head on, as we shall see.  But this question of the purpose of creation is only one of the foundational issues Clough seeks to address in Part One of his book.  Next time, we will consider Chapters Two and Three, looking at the place of humans and other animals in this creation. 

Photo credit: David Wye

           

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[1] Middleton, J. Richard.  The Liberating Image: Imago Dei in Genesis 1 (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2005), 17.

[2] The Vulgate is a fourteenth century Latin translation of the Bible that because the official translation for the Roman Catholic Church. More recent translations render Proverbs 16.4a more along the lines of “The Lord made everything for its purpose” (NRSV).

[3] LaCugna, Catherine Mowry. "God In Communion With Us." In Freeing Theology: The Essentials of Theology in Feminist Perspective, by Catherine Mowry LaCugna, 83-114. New York: HarperCollins, 1993, p. 92.

[4] LaCugna, Catherine Mowry. God For Us: The Trinity & Christian Life. Chicago: HarperCollins, 1973, pp. 15-16.