“And God blessed them, and God said unto them, ‘Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.’”
Genesis 1:28
“For the creature was made subject to vanity (futility), not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.”
Romans 8: 20-22
What if the Beatles had never broken up as a band and continue to make records over the years even though they had to replace people and things? Even the Beatles, even the Beatles without the intrusion of Yoko Ono, could not have escaped the way of all flesh; people grow old, material things wear out, we all seem to rust, fade, and eventually fall apart. When John and George died other guitarists and vocalists would have replaced them. And later when Paul and Ringo died they would be replaced and in fact over the years the band known as the Beatles would have many times over replaced other members, as well as their instruments, amplification at some point you would have a situation in which the Beatles were made up of entirely of new people, state-of-the-art equipment, management, and even new music. Here’s my question: Is that band still be the Beatles?
Take another example. Let’s say that there is a popular tourists’ destination named Montebello, the old home place of one this nation’s founders. But there was a time when Montebello had fallen into ruin – dilapidated, the ceiling and roof were mostly rotten, but the walls were still standing. Then one day a group of interested citizens began to collect funds to restore Montebello to its former glory. Back then if you had stood on a little hill and gazed upon the building and someone had said, “There lay Montebello,” you would have agreed and probably made a contribution. But when the carpenters and masons began their work the original walls began to wobble so they took them down; they cleaned and stacked the bricks together based on their size and colors and then they ran out of money. But the citizens kicked off a souvenir campaign to fund the project by selling some of the bricks for doorstops and paperweights, and as one of smiling citizens said, “they make great whatnots!” Some new bricks, rafters, and singles were made and after months of work Montebello was restored to her original glory – or was she? Which is the true Montebello, the one that was falling to pieces or the one that was restored?
What is my point? What really makes a thing what it is? Remember Aristotle’s Four Causes: Does the material cause, the stuff it is made of, make a thing what it is? Is it the formal cause, the shape and appearance of the material it is made of that make a thing what it is? Or is it the efficient cause, the artists or the craftsmen, who formed the material, which makes a thing what it is? Permit me to simply cut to the chase and say it is none of those, but rather it is finality by which I mean God’s final cause that makes a thing what it really is and infuses a thing with ultimate meaning. I said this last week: “The finality, the final cause of all creation – man and beast, trees, rocks, cloud, oceans of stars and galaxies and empty space – the end for which we exist and toward which all of creation is in procession is the worship of God the Father, through God the Son, in the power of God the Holy Spirit. But remember that nothing is ever simple.
Nothing that God does is simple and you are not simple. God has created and shaped you in such a way that deep inside of yourself you want to know the truth and because of that you already know that nothing is simple and appearances can be deceiving. So no matter how much you change over the years, you remain who you are because of God’s final causation for you. In fact though every created thing is mutable and changes, it remains what it is because of its destiny.
“And God blessed them, and God said unto them, ‘Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.’”
Genesis 1:28
In the Book of Genesis theology is communicated through a narrative of God intentional creation of the universe and all living creatures on this planet. In the story-world of Genesis God waited till after he had created everything else that exist, and then on the 6th day he create man and woman in his own image and he gave them a blessing and a commandment: “Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it…” I pointed out last week that we should remember that at this point in the story-world of Genesis man and woman had not yet fallen. There were no enemies to subdue in the peaceable Kingdom in which Adam and Eve enjoyed a singular relationship with God and the rest of creation that no other human being, with the exception of our incarnate Lord, has come close enjoying. In light of the fact that creation was not a wild and furious enemy that needed to be conquered I want to suggest to you that God’s commandment to master creation is humanity’s deputation as God’s viceroy whose office is to be a father and a husband who would provide for the commonweal, the common good of God’s commonwealth. In short man was to be the husbandman who collaborated with God and learned how to grow creation, enabling every creature to achieve its full potential, which is another way of saying to help each creature realize its final cause which is God’s will. Now there are two misleading and mistaken beliefs that I would like for you to be aware of and understand the damage they have brought upon creation and if they have a place in your life to replace them with truth and holy living. The first mistaken belief is that God created the world for humanity. Humanity is God’s viceroy, his vicar on earth; he is not God. God created all that is for himself and he created man and stamped him with the mark of his authority, his image and likeness, an image and likeness that all creation knew, trusted and honored:
“What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.
Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet…”
Psalm 8
Creation bows to humanity’s dominion established at the dawn of creation and this is what St. Paul builds upon in Romans 8 when he writes:
“For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.”
Romans 8: 18-19
Humanity is not the central character of the story of creation. God, not man, is the center of universe; God, not man, is the final cause of the universe – of all that is.
The second mistaken belief – and this is really quite common in the Church – is that God’s final cause for creation is mechanistic, machine-like, in some manner programed and predetermined. But the fact of the matter is that our creation in the image of God involves the quality of responsibility by which I mean literally our ability to respond – to God’s love and will and to his creation as well and that requires attentiveness, discipline and work. Between the stimilus and the response there is a Subject, a Person who has the capacity to understand and the responsibility to decide how to respond. There is very little that is purely mechanistic; there are contingencies, conditions, and always the unknown. But we do know what God required of our first parents:
“Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and master it…”
God blessed man when he created him in his own image and likeness and he gave him a dual commandment. The first part was a commandment to multiply and to replenish the earth and the second part of the commandment was the office of viceroy over creation. But don’t forget that man’s rule over nature excluded eating the living creatures he was to bring to full glory so that his rule was to express itself in the agricultural framework of the garden in which he and his wife were placed:
“And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.”
Genesis 1:29
Furthermore, as I pointed out last week, no living creature fed upon another living creature because God provided plant life for his blossoming creatures:
“And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.”
Genesis 1:30
My point is that the Genesis narrative presents creation at peace with itself and with its Creator, which image provides us with a hint of creation’s finality. And here is the point I want to underline: ‘Regardless of how much creation changes and is misused, God never abandoned his final cause, which is most perfectly and beautifully, portrayed the Incarnation of his Son. In Jesus Christ we can know God’s final cause for creation.
Now what happened next in the narrative was the fall of man into sin and the bondage to death, decay and disorder that he brought upon creation. Recall that after the man and his wife had eaten fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil they tried to cover their disobedience with fig leaves. Man is always attempting to pass off his sin and failure as costing only a few fig leaves, but then we have the first shedding of blood in the Bible. God makes it perfectly clear that the disorder man has brought into the world does not change God’s will, but it destroys life and so God covered their nakedness with the skins of animals and he expelled them from the garden. And then Cain, their first born, attempts the same thing as his parents when he tries to offer vegetables up to God as though sin was really not so ruinous.
The next few chapters of Genesis continue the story of man’s dual blessing and commandment to be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth as well as his now failing and flawed duty to husband creation to her full potential. Maybe you can help me. I am puzzled by one thing and that is the fact that Adam and Eve did not have children till after the fall and after their ejection from the garden of God. Why did they not fulfill the commandment to be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth” before the fall?
The next several chapters of Genesis present us with humanity’s crippled attempt to fulfill of that commandment as we come upon page after page of those begotten by parents. And then we have the story of Noah in which sin had grown to utterly dominate human life till God sent the flood to wipe the earth clean and start all over again, except for Noah and his family. And this is where I will stop today, but first I want you to see just how sin had wreaked God’s well order and peaceable Kingdom. After the flood subsides Noah and his family disembark and God speaks to Noah the same blessing and the same commandment he first spoke to Adam and Eve – to be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth and master it – but now with a dark and disturbing change in the way creation responds to God’s co-ruler, man:
“And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you…”
Genesis 9:1-3