Creation is to be cared for, not exploited.

“When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them. You may eat from them, but you shall not cut them down. Are the trees in the field human, that they should be besieged by you? Only the trees that you know are not trees for food you may destroy and cut down, that you may build siegeworks against the city that makes war with you, until it falls.” Deuteronomy 20.19, 20

One of the best-known examples of the wanton destruction of the creation in the name of war occurred during the American Civil War, when General Sherman instructed his army to burn a swath across Georgia from Atlanta to Savannah. Farms and lands were put to the torch. Animals that could not be eaten or put to work were destroyed. In order to bring the South to its knees, General Sherman extended the violence and brutality of war against the very creation itself.

Other examples of the wanton destruction of creation in the name of human gain could be multiplied: the pollution of local streams and rivers by the discharge of corporate waste; slash and burn policies against pristine jungles and rain forests; strip logging and mountain-top coal extraction; overplanting lands until they become exhausted, carelessness leading to soil erosion in construction practices, the pollution of the atmosphere with carbon-based emissions, and more. Human beings can become so focused on maximizing material gain or personal convenience that they completely disregard the effects of their covetous practices on the creation. In so doing they compromise neighbor-love and offend against the purposes of God by jeopardizing the fruitfulness of the creation for the generations to come.

But it is not enough, in considering the use we will make of the earth and its resources, to calculate the most efficient ways of maximizing convenience or wealth. We violate the Lord’s purposes for His creation, it would seem, when we do not take into account the larger purposes of the creation. Fruit trees are not for weapons for war; they are for sustenance. Streams are not for discharging waste; they are for beauty and provision. Whenever human beings are planning a project that will involve significant interaction with the creation, more questions must be asked than simply, “What can we do to make the most money for the longest period of time?”

In recent years laws and codes guiding the development of lands for residential or commercial purposes have begun to reflect something of this awareness of the larger purposes of the creation. It is not cost-efficient for developers to have to take precautions against erosion or to landscape in certain kinds of ways. However, the long-term wellbeing of the property requires that we develop it not merely for human interests but according to the creational interests of the land itself. Such policies reflect a concern for justice more than for the bottom line and thus demonstrate the reality of the works of God’s Law being written on the hearts of all men.

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