Multiply and Subdue the Earth

Multiply and Subdue the Earth
Draft Notes by J. Glenn Eugster. Undated.


Ian McHarg once wrote:

The primacy of man today is based more upon his power to destroy than to create.

His religions, philosophies, ethics, and acts have tended to reflect a slave mentality, alternatively submissive or arrogant toward nature.

The origin for this attitude traces back to the Book of Genesis; Chapter 1: 26 which says:

Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Let him have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and the cattle, and over all the wild animals and the creatures that crawl on the ground.

God blessed many saying, be fertile and multiply: fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion
Over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all living things that move on the earth”.

It seems as if many people took this direction quite literally. However, more recently, in a message on Biodiversity an Element in Efforts Against Hunger (October 15, 2004) Pope John Paul II said:

It is urgently necessary in many areas to revise the strategy which has thus far been followed in order to protect the immense and irreplaceable resources of the planet and to achieve not only sustainable development but, above all, development with solidarity.

Solidarity, properly understood as a model of unity that can inspire the action of individuals, government authority, international organizations and institutions, and all members of civil society, strives for the proper growth of peoples and nations, and its objectives is the good of each and everyone.

Solidarity… safeguards the various ecosystems and their resources, the people who live there and their fundamental rights as individuals and community members.

The mandate that the Creator gave to human beings to have dominion over the earth and to use its fruits (cf Genesis 1:28), considered in the light of the virtue of solidarity, entails respect for the plan of creation through human action that does not imply challenging nature and its laws, even in order to reach new horizons, but on the contrary, preserves resources, guaranteeing their continuity and availability to the generations to come.