A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO THE THEOLOGY OF THE ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

Christian Theology, through its paternal texts and teachings, can penetrate and find those aspects which reveal original, basic, and essential elements regarding the relationship between Man and the Natural Environment, with the goal of understanding the role of God in the relations of man, the natural world and beyond his mission. In this article we will examine the primary element of the Christian Revelation, which is Theocentrism, that is, the teaching that the existence and meaning of the world and man are found in God (Wilder, 1991). The world's meaning is not found in it, but in its relationship with God and man. Every man's purpose and destiny are directly related to God and his natural environment. The second primary element that we will study in this study is the element of Christian revelation the reference to the original (pre-fall ences, especially history, refer exclusively to the transitional man. But everything shows how the man is also "something else", how his beginning cannot be just a few stone tools and a few teeth of a prehistoric jaw! But this "something else" is beyond the possibilities of scientific research. This is precisely where Science stops, where the role of divine Revelation and of Christian anthropology begins (Floros, 2000). The Christian Revelation's light illuminates the world and man in a unique way. Without Christian Theology's illumination, the world loses its causal basis and its connection to Christian anthropology, it loses its ontological value and significance. Likewise does the man too. The Christian view of the world and man is based on the reciprocity and interdependence of these two factors and refuses to accept the absolute metaphysical distinction between man and his environment (Xatzinikolau, 2001). Cosmology and anthropology are separated and mutually interpreted within the wider context of Theology. The subject to be studied and investigated above has numerous implications and a vast array of scientific peculiarities, which is why it becomes extremely intriguing. To this end, we will study and analyze it, focusing our interest on the relationship of man with the Creator God, who made man, the crown of His creations and the king of all Creation. The recommendation is to study how man interacts with the natural world, both according to the Holy Bible and the Sacred Tradition. At this point, within the above frameworks, we will go into the elements of Orthodox Theology, Cosmology and Anthropology to underline and emphasize the basic positions on man's relations with his natural environment.