Does Creation Equal Nature? Confronting the Christian Confusion about Ecology and Cosmology

Abstract

Much of the recent interest in the idea of creation among Christian writers has suffered from a fundamental misconception that creation and nature are equivalent or nearly equivalent terms. While the two are not unrelated, they are nonetheless distinct. Two particular areas where this misconception appears are the movement that calls itself “creation science” and certain strains within the movement known as “theology of nature” or “ecological theology.” One promising way to distinguish the ideas of creation and nature is by introducing Hans-Georg Gadamer’s understanding of world (Welt) as a hermeneutical construct. This allows us initially to distinguish world as creation from world as nature. Once the lines of division have been laid, Gadamer’s ideas provide the groundwork for a more critical reintroduction of ideas of creation and nature that offers productive possibilities for an ecological ethic as well as a general ethic.