Biblical Foundations
God is the Creator

The cosmos, in all its beauty, wildness, and life-giving bounty, is the work of our personal and loving Creator. Our creating God is prior to and other than creation, yet intimately involved with it, upholding each thing in its freedom, and all things in relationships of intricate complexity.

God is transcendent, while lovingly sustaining each creature; and immanent, while wholly other than creation and not to be confused with it. God the Creator is relational in very nature, revealed as three persons in One. Likewise, the creation which God intended is a symphony of individual creatures in harmonious relationship. The Creator's concern is for all creatures.

Creation is Good

God declares all creation "good" (Gen. 1:31); promises care in a covenant with all creatures (Gen. 9:9-17); delights in creatures which have no human apparent usefulness (Job 39-41); and wills, in Christ, "to reconcile all things to himself" (Col.1:20). (An Evangelical Declaration on the Care of Creation.)

It is not quite right to say that human beings were the climax of God's creation in Genesis 1-2. The real zenith comes with God's own Sabbath rest as God entered into the enjoyment of God's "very good" creation. It is important to note that the creation is not solely for human benefit. The Old Testament gives it value in relation to God directly, to glorify and to bring delight to God. Creation is good and beautiful independent of our presence within it and our ability to observe it. . . . [The] goodness of creation is not mererly a human reflective response to a pleasant view on a sunny day, but the seal of divine approval on the whole universe. (Christopher Wright, "Creation — Distinct & Dependent" in Let the Earth Be Glad: An Evangelical Kit for Caring for Creation, Evangelical Environmental Network.)

Biblical Foundations
Creation Reveals God

Despite the abuse humans have inflicted on it, creation clearly witnesses to its Creator. God "has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy" (Acts 14:17). While Jesus expects his disciples to "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation" (Mark 16:15), creation itself proclaims God's everlasting power and divinity, leaving people "without excuse" (Rom. 1:20). . . . The loud-proclaiming silent heavens give evangelical witness to God's glory (Psalm 19:1-4) and creation pours forth praise to its Creator (Psalm 95-100). God has given us this testimony "so that [we] would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us" (Acts 17:27). (Calvin DeWitt, Earth-Wise: A Biblical Response to Environmental Issues, CRC Publications.)

The Human Role in Creation

God gave the care of his earth and its species to our first parents. That responsibility has passed into our hands. We affirm that God-given dominion is a sacred responsibility to steward the earth and not a license to abuse the creation of which we are a part. We are not the owners of creation, but its stewards, summoned by God to "watch over and care for it" (Gen 2:15).

This implies the principle of sustainability: our uses of the Earth must be designed to conserve and renew the Earth rather than to deplete or destroy it. (National Association of Evangelicals, "For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility."(PDF))

The Impact of Human Sin on Creation

Our God-given, stewardly talents have often been warped from their intended purpose: that we know, name, keep and delight in God's creatures; that we nourish civilization in love, creativity and obedience to God; and that we offer creation and civilization back in praise to the Creator. We have ignored our creaturely limits and have used the earth with greed, rather than care.

The earthly result of human sin has been a perverted stewardship, a patchwork of garden and wasteland in which the waste is increasing. "There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land.... Because of this the land mourns, and all who live in it waste away" (Hosea 4:1, 3). Thus, one consequence of our misuse of the earth is an unjust denial of God's created bounty to other human beings, both now and in the future. (An Evangelical Declaration on the Care of Creation.)

Ethical Principles
Jesus Christ Restores the Proper Relationship of Humans to Creation

God's purpose in Christ is to heal and bring to wholeness not only persons but the entire created order. . . . In Jesus Christ, believers are forgiven, transformed and brought into God's kingdom. "If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation" (II Cor. 5:17). The presence of the kingdom of God is marked not only by renewed fellowship with God, but also by renewed harmony and justice between people, and by renewed harmony and justice between people and the rest of the created world. . . . We believe that in Christ there is hope, not only for men, women and children, but also for the rest of creation which is suffering from the consequences of human sin. (An Evangelical Declaration on the Care of Creation )

Stewardship

The earth and the seas are the Lord's. We are stewards—called to represent God's interests. Further, when we harvest the creation, we should not only avoid damaging God's world, we should share God's blessings with other humans. Just as we are responsible to God for our finances, we need to be responsible with natural resources. (Susan Power Bratton, "Rockfish, Redfish, Stockfish, Foodfish: Seven Biblical Principles for the Care of Creation," Sojourners, March 2004)

Prudence

Greed can blind us to our own destructive business practices. Proverbs 20:21 admonishes, "An estate quickly acquired in the beginning will not be blessed in the end." The rush and unrelenting work of the Protestant ethic can backfire when we damage forest soils and the forest does not regenerate; or we capture far too many juvenile redfish with the shrimp hauls and the redfish population collapses. Christians should discourage complete efficiency and speedy implementation of new technologies in harvesting natural resources. It is better to test each new scheme carefully and seek selective and lower-impact methods of resource harvest. Although environmentally sound methods of resource extraction may cause small increases in the cost of fish or timber, the patient consumer will find that respect for the normative working of divine providence is the superior business strategy. (Susan Power Bratton, "Rockfish, Redfish, Stockfish, Foodfish: Seven Biblical Principles for the Care of Creation," Sojourners, March 2004)

Contentment

Our first parents and their succeeding generations were not satisfied with the fruitfulness and grace of the Garden-- the gifts of Creation (Genesis 3-11). Even though God promised not to forsake them nor leave them, they chose to go their own way-- grasping more and ever more from the Creation for selfish advancement. The result is an overexploitation of Creation-- a pressing of the Creation to produce ever more, without limit. But this is not right in the eyes of our Creator, who wants us to pray: "Turn my heart to your statutes and not toward selfish gain" (Psalm 119:36). The apostle Paul who has "learned the secret of being content in any and every situation" (Philippians 4:12b) writes to Timothy: "...godliness with contentment is great gain... If we have food and clothing, we will be content with that" (1 Timothy 6:6,8). We are told by scripture: "Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, 'Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you'" (Hebrews 13:5). (Calvin DeWitt, "Biblical Principles for Respecting the Integrity of Creation")