Theology of nature: Reflections on the dogmatic doctrine of creation

Christian Danz

doi:10.4102/hts.v77i3.6720

Abstract

The doctrine of creation and the knowledge of nature have come into tension in modernity. Against this background, the article discusses the basic problems of a theology of nature starting from a systematic theology of religious communication. Dogmatic statements about the world as God’s creation are not about a description of nature and reality but about a reflexive account of Christian–religious communication. The object of the doctrine of creation is thus the world-related contents of the Christian religion as well as the function these have in it. Thus, both the critique of the representational version of the doctrinal tradition’s conception of creation and its reflexive turn in 20th-century Protestant theology are taken up and carried forward in such a way that the belief in creation is not understood as a general qualification of the world but is related to the concrete contents of religious communication.Contribution: The article proposes a new formulation of the traditional doctrine of creation on the basis of a systematic theology of religious communication. This approach is intended to avoid a coexistence of religious belief in creation and scientific explanation of the world, as well as their being pushed into one another. By transferring the belief in creation to Christian–religious communication, the latter thematises how religious contents are created in the Christian religion.

Highlights

With the onset of the ecological crisis or climate change, the doctrine of creation has again become the focus of theological attention
Theology has taken up these discussions under headings such as ‘deep ecology’, ‘deep incarnation’ and ‘ecotheology’
Doctrinal tradition of Lutheranism’s annihilatio mundi was still its divinely determined final goal, the preservation of creation is almost inversely connected with the will of God. Already these mutually exclusive theological versions of the fate of creation raise the question of how a theological doctrine of creation is to be elaborated in the 21st century, and of what its object is in the first place

Summary

Introduction

With the onset of the ecological crisis or climate change, the doctrine of creation has again become the focus of theological attention. Both the critique of the representational version of the doctrinal tradition’s conception of creation and its reflexive turn in German-speaking 20th-century Protestant theology are taken up and carried forward in such a way that the belief in creation is not understood as a general qualification of the world but is related to the concrete contents of religious communication.

Results

Conclusion