Page 341 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

C R E AT I O N A N D T H E E C O L O G I C A L C R I S I S
Creation and the Ecological Crisis
Nowhere is this unity more clearly demanded than in the
ecological crisis. In our days, both science and religion
are changing rapidly, and these changes are bound to affect
the role each will play in the ecological crisis. The ecological
problem can no longer be treated as a marginal concern, for
it touches the very meaning of creation and the place of the
human being within it. The crisis forces both religion and
science to reconsider their most basic assumptions about
nature, humanity, and the destiny of the world.
Creation does not possess within itself the power of eternal
survival. Christian ecology cannot accept the view that nature,
if simply left alone without human intervention, will secure its
own future. The ecological problem cannot be solved by some
return to pagan naturalism, as though nature were self-
sufficient and self-saving. Creation is contingent, not self-
grounded; it exists only in relation to God, and its destiny
cannot be understood apart from this relation.
At the same time, creation needs the human being just as
much as the human being needs nature. Any separation
between humanity and nature is catastrophic for both. In the
biblical and patristic understanding, nature and person form
an unbreakable unity. Human beings are not strangers set over
against creation, nor are they merely one biological species
among others. They are placed within creation with a
distinctive vocation.
The Eastern patristic tradition insisted strongly on this
unity. Although certain currents influenced by Origenism and
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