Rethinking Dominion in Genesis 1:27-28

Rethinking “Dominion” in Genesis 1:27-28
By Lee Canipe, Pastor
Murfreesboro Baptist Church, NC[1]

            What did God mean when, in Genesis 1:27-28, God commanded humans to subdue the earth and have dominion over Creation? What are the implications of these commandments on the way that Christians understand their proper relationship to the environment? For almost a year now, these questions have troubled me—and in order to explain the reason why they have troubled me, I will need to share a brief story.

            My third child, a son, was born in April of 2007. Only days after we brought him home from the hospital, my wife and I watched Al Gore’s global warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. It was, to say the least, a troubling experience for both of us. We found Gore’s arguments to be very persuasive.

            For those of you who are not familiar with either the documentary or the substance of Gore’s advocacy, let me summarize it in a few words: Human activity, particularly our ever-increasing consumption of carbon-producing fuel, has caused a dramatic rise in the average temperature of our planet—a development which threatens to upset the delicate natural balances that sustain fragile ecosystems around the world. Global temperatures naturally rise and fall over the course of hundreds and thousands of years.

            The earth’s history, for example, is marked by numerous periods of extended colder temperatures; we call these periods, “ice ages.” Likewise, there have been numerous periods of extended warmer temperatures. These fluctuations are normal. They are also gradual. The changes that Gore describes have been occurring over the course not of centuries, but of decades. The potential consequences of this rapid and unprecedented global warming are not limited to the extinction of a few exotic plant species in a rain forest somewhere but, rather, could disrupt the lives of millions of people driven from their homes by drought, famine, or rising water levels.

As I said, my wife and I found Gore’s argument to be persuasive, frightening, and—perhaps most importantly—sobering. We had just brought a new life into a world that was being dangerously degraded before our eyes and could, potentially, be largely uninhabitable by the time our newborn son reached our age. It seemed not only indecent but immoral to dump the consequences of our careless consumption in the lap of our baby boy and millions of other children like him. To use the kind of biblical language I am accustomed to using in the church, what Al Gore was describing in his documentary was a matter of stewardship—or, to be more precise, a matter of poor stewardship. God had given men and women the responsibility of taking care of the environment for the next generation—that’s what stewards do: they’re caretakers—and we had failed to exercise that responsibility faithfully. It was, indeed, a sobering conclusion.

I assumed that the weight of Christian tradition would be solidly behind the idea that our natural environment was a good to be preserved and conserved by responsible men and women acting on God’s behalf as caretakers of Creation. That assumption, however, turned out to be wrong. There was, and continues to be, in the Christian tradition a strong proprietary understanding of how humans are to relate to nature. Lynn White, a professor of history at UCLA, neatly summarized this perspective in an essay—now regarded, at least among environmentally-conscious Christians, as a ground-breaking piece of scholarship—for the journal Science in 1967. White argued that, unlike the more nature-friendly religions of Asia and Western pagan traditions, Christianity “not only established a dualism of man and nature but also insisted that man exploit nature for his own needs.”[2]            According to this perspective, humans could and should use whatever resources they extracted from the planet as they saw fit. It was a God-given prerogative. Until the late 1700s, the practical effects of this attitude on the environment were minimal. With the coming of the Industrial Revolution and the discovery that carbon-based natural resources—first wood, then fossil fuels—could power great engines of production and development, the full implications of this proprietary perspective were soon illustrated by the landscapes ravaged by coal miners and the rivers polluted by toxic waste. White grimly concluded that “we shall continue to have a worsening ecologic crisis until we reject the Christian axiom that nature has no reason for existence save to serve man.”[3]

From whence did this destructive “Christian axiom” arise? Ironically, it came from the Creation story itself, as found in the first chapter of Genesis in the Old Testament. For our purposes, the relevant verses from chapter one are verses 26-28: “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth’” (NRV).

In these verses, God not only creates the first humans as male and female, but also prescribes a specific way in which they are to relate to the earth—“to subdue the earth and exercise dominion over it.” The Hebrew word translated here as “subdue” is kabash, and it signifies the action of conquering or, perhaps more politely, taming, as a farmer might tame a wild field in order to make it suitable for cultivating crops. Individuals whose actions may be described with the word kabash act to establish their physical authority over someone or something else. The practice of caretaking, then, whether it be for one’s own property or on behalf of another’s, necessarily involves an element of kabash. Caretakers who have no practical authority over the object of their care will most likely be ineffective caretakers.

Dominion, however, is a more problematic word for Christians who understand themselves as caretakers (or stewards) of God’s creation. After all, dominion comes from the same root as dominate and connotes the kind of arbitrary and absolute power typically associated with monarchs. Moreover, it suggests that the proprietary understanding of the relationship toward creation that so concerned Lynn White—i.e., that nature exists for the sole purpose of serving the needs of humanity—may have a firmer foundation in the biblical text than the more eco-friendly perspectives on environmental stewardship can claim. So, what sort of dominion does God call His creatures to exercise over creation? A more thorough study of the Hebrew word translated as dominion may be helpful in providing an answer.

Several possible meanings fit comfortably within the confines of the Hebrew word radah. Most literally, it means “to rule” in the sense of treading down, subjugating, or prevailing against. Radah appears nine times in the Old Testament, almost always in reference to military action or political authority. When the Israelite army is described in Judges 5:13 as “marching down”—or, radah—“for the Lord against the mighty” enemy, for example, one can hear the noisy tromp of heavily armored soldiers on the move. The scope of Solomon’s kingdom, we are told in 1 Kings 4:24, is such that “he had dominion”—or radah—“over all the region west of the Euphrates from Tipshah to Gaza, over all the kings west of the Euphrates; and he had peace on all sides.” The peace that Solomon enjoys, however, is a direct result of the military conquests achieved by his father David. Radah frequently carries with it, then, a sense indeed of domination imposed by a show of brute force over an enemy.

Nevertheless, as Hebrew scholar Robert Chisholm observes about Genesis 1:28, “the earth is not cast in the role of an enemy or opponent of humankind.”[4] He proposes instead this nuanced addition to the generally understood meaning of radah: “to harness the potential of, to use for one’s benefit.”[5] When used in this sense, Chisholm explains, the verb does not mean “ruin” or “destroy,” but neither does it suggest any kind of especially delicate treatment, as though one were handling something fragile.

Chisholm contends, “The context of rulership militates against abuse of the earth being in view, but it also prohibits putting the earth on a par with humankind, God’s designated king over the created order. The point seems to be that the earth is at humankind’s disposal. In the ancient Near Eastern context of the passage, harnessing the earth’s potential would include, among other things, mining its riches, cultivating its fields, using its trees for lumber, and domesticating its animals so they might be used in service of humankind. As modern science has developed, we have discovered new ways to carry out this mandate as God’s vice-regents over the created order. In short, the earth exists as humankind’s dominion and for his benefit.”[6]

This interpretation of radah, in short, reflects precisely the kind of proprietary, anthropocentric idea of dominion that White found so troublesome forty years ago. This notion that God handed the earth and its resources over for men and women to consume as they pleased has helped to justify a good deal of environmental mischief in the name of Christian stewardship.

Criticizing what he considered to be the unfairly restrictive regulation of public land by the federal government, for example, James Watt (President Reagan’s controversial Secretary of the Interior) leaned heavily upon the same kind of nuanced understanding of Genesis 1:28 that informed Chisholm’s exegesis. “The laws which should have made us better stewards, in fact, made us careless landlords,” Watt wrote in 1982. “Instead of protecting resources, we have neglected them. Instead of using resources to build a strong nation . . . we have deprived America of the raw materials it needs.”[7] Watt’s solution to this problem of needlessly excessive conservation—make more national park land available for the development and extraction of natural resources. After all, he pointed out, “the earth is ours.”[8]

Such an interpretation of radah, of course, not only places creation at the arbitrary disposal of God’s creatures. It also implies that men and women live most consistently with God’s intentions when they act as consumers. To be truly human in the way God created us to be, in other words, is to consume often and abundantly. This conclusion may resonate with the values of a modern capitalist economy, but it is strikingly out of tune with such Christian virtues as charity, self-control, and patience. Nevertheless, the careful reader of Scripture must somehow account for the word radah. To ignore it simply because it is problematic would be an injustice to the text. So, if we reject the dominion-as-exploitation reading of radah, what can we offer as a more faithful alternative?

The word must be understood in the context of the entire command that God gives to the first couple in Genesis 1:27-28. Verse 27 tells us that God creates humans God’s image and according to God’s likeness. Here, I believe, lies the key to understanding the divine imperative in a way that both preserves the integrity of the text and establishes a true caretaker role for humanity toward creation. God does indeed call men and women to exercise radah, or dominion, over creation. But the real question is: What sort of dominion? According to verse 27, the answer is clear: a dominion that is in the image, or likeness, of God. Humans, in other words, are to rule over creation in a way that is consistent with the way God rules. And how does God rule?

Consider Psalm 72:8, the only time, significantly enough, that radah is used in the Old Testament to describe God or God’s activity: “May God have dominion”—or, radah—“from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth.” The psalmist then proceeds to describe the nature of God’s rule: “For he delivers the needy when they call, the poor and those who have no helper. He has pity on the weak and the needy, and saves the lives of the needy. From oppression and violence he redeems their life; and precious is their blood in his sight” (72:12-14). When used in connection with God, the potentially violent connotations of radah suggest instead a more generous sort of kingship. God, the psalmist writes, does not exploit or dominate or consume recklessly. God does not use His power to hurt, but rather to heal. God values what cannot be replaced. God works to preserve life, not to destroy it.

Created in God’s image and according to God’s likeness, then, humans are to exercise radah—or, dominion—over creation as God would exercise radah. The late Old Testament scholar Gerhard von Rad underscores this implicit connection between the image of God and the command to rule. “Just as powerful earthly kings, to indicate their claim to dominion, erect an image of themselves in the provinces of their empire where they do not personally appear,” von Rad writes, “so man is placed above the earth in God’s image as God’s sovereign emblem. He is really only God’s representative, summoned to maintain and enforce God’s claim to dominion over the earth.” That, ultimately, is the divine imperative of Genesis 1:27-28, and it contains within it the seeds of a coherent Christian theology of stewardship toward the environment. After all, stewardship is the act of caring for someone else’s property in a manner consistent with the way he or she would care for it.

We began with a story. Let us conclude with one. As those who have sounded the alarms of global warming remind us, the consequences of poor stewardship can be disastrous and, literally, life-threatening. In the parable of the unfaithful steward from the gospel of Matthew, however, Jesus reminds us that poor stewardship of what God has placed in our care can carry consequences that are even more far-reaching. “Blessed is the servant whom his master will find at work when he arrives. Truly I tell you, he will put that one in charge of all his possessions. But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants, and eats and drinks with drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour when he does not know. He will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Mt 24:48-51).