Creation, Liberation, and Property: Virtues and Values Toward a Theocentric Earth Ethic

Religion continues to play a significant role in shaping our attitudes toward nature.2 Time-honored principles of stewardship of the land demand that we owe a duty to future generations to allow them to inherit a healthy environment. Essential to this obligation is spiritual faith, not the trendy brand of secular humanism espoused by ecodogmatists seeking environmental justice through means unmoored from centuries-old principles of creation. What secular humanism ignores-and what religious traditions the world over have recognizedis the reality that we are a creative expression of the earth\u27s own evolution. 3 Thus, in light of our duty to posterity, mere emphasis on a stewardship of the environment does not go far enough.4 After all, we are in the words of Thomas Berry, a dream of the earth.