Jesus Christ Is Our Doctrine of Creation
An exploration of Eco-Theology in the Lutheran Confessions
On the one hand it would be anachronistic to ask of the Lutheran confessional documents to contain what we might today call an “eco-theology.” Such an approach to a “concern” for creation arises only more recently with an awareness of humanity’s complicity in the degradation of the environment, particularly the climate.
That is to say some parts of the call for an Eco-theology arise only because of the existential situation.
On the other hand, that a collection of confessional texts like the Lutheran confessions lacks anything expressly like an eco-theological section illustrates the extent to which the care of creation is genuinely a lacunae in Christian theology, and this lacunae has, tragically, had effects.
Any work of recovery of an adequate eco-theology in our tradition has some options on directions to take, and many of them have been taken.
One might take the route illustrated in the Psalms, giving creation both voice and volition.
One might catalog the actual extensive sense of creation in Scripture as a whole, which has been remarkably highlighted by theologians like Ellen Davis.
Or one could take the practical liturgical approach illustrated by Lutherans Restoring Creation.
But here in this post I’m going to do something much more indirect. I’m going to work with what we actually have in the Lutheran confessions, and proceed from that basis, assuming that what we have is actually quite a bit to work with that we have in various manners overlooked.
The Large Catechism sets out the most direct sense of God and creation. Luther writes in the explanation to the first article of the creed: Ask as if you were to ask a little child: My dear, what sort of a God have you? What do you know of God? They could say: This is my God: first, the Father, who has created heaven and earth; besides this only One I regard nothing else as God; for there is no one else who could create heaven and earth.
Later in the explanation Luther continues:
Moreover, we also confess that God the Father has not only given us all that we have and see before our eyes, but daily preserves and defends us against all evil and misfortune, averts all sorts of danger and calamity; and that God does all this out of pure love and goodness, without our merit, as a benevolent Father, who cares for us that no evil befall us.
So the most straightforward doctrine of creation is that God created AND ALSO SUSTAINS all of creation. God remains in relationship to creation and will work for its good. Inasmuch as we wish to be responsive to who God is, we can pick up on this and partner with God as co-sustainers. But the main point is probably more that of hope: a Christian doctrine of creation will not despair because God remains as sustainer of a creation God loves.
Luther adds an additional insight:
Here we could say much if we were to expatiate, how few there are that believe this article. For we all pass over it, hear it and say it, but neither see nor consider what the words teach us. For if we believed it with the heart, we would also act accordingly, and not stalk about proudly, act defiantly, and boast as though we had life, riches, power, and honor, etc., of ourselves, so that others must fear and serve us, as is the practise of the wretched, perverse world, which is drowned in blindness, and abuses all the good things and gifts of God only for its own pride, avarice, lust, and luxury, and never once regards God, so as to thank Him or acknowledge Him as Lord and Creator.
All of this being laid out, a long read of the Lutheran confessions will ultimately give the impression that our theology is especially concerned not directly with God as creator but more more Jesus as redeemer. So much of the content of the confessions focuses on this. For better or worse the attention is on God’s relationship to humans.
But there is something to work with here for us that is not inconsequential. WE are part of creation.
All the things that make up creation? They are part of us, from the heavy matter in our bones all the way to the water that makes up most of what we are.
We share more with creation than we differ from it. We are in and of creation, not distinct.
It is precisely here we can pick up the Christological aspect of a Christian doctrine of creation and run with it.
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