Quotes from William P. Brown

But the [Eden] story takes a dramatically different turn: it tells of the couple succumbing to fear, blame, and the will to power, which from Cain and Lamech to today continues to engulf the world.

Science alone cannot provide the impetus for changing human conduct. It does not provide a compelling warrant for acknowledging the intrinsic value of life or its sanctity.... If, however, we take our cue from Genesis, damaging creation is tantamount to defacing God's sanctuary, an act of utter sacrilege.

To claim the world as created is to claim God's care for it and our responsibility to care for it.

Read ecologically, the psalm [Ps 104] claims God's biophilia as a model for humanity's role and presence in the world. Delighting in creation has nothing to do with exploiting the world for the common greed. Rather, it has all to do with receiving the world's abundance for the common good, a sufficiency to be shared, not hoarded.

No subordination pertains in the garden. The adam's service to the garden is rooted in his kinship with the ground. Marriage, according to the Yahwist, is founded on the kindship intimacy of partnership and companionship (2:24). Life in the garden is one of fruitful work, abundance, and intimate companionship. In the garden there is neither fear nor shame, even before God. These are 'lacks' that are meant to endure. But, alas, they do not.

As God in Genesis 1 is no imperious warrior, so human beings are not conquerors of creation. The language of dominion lacks all sense of exploitation (1:26, 28). The hoarding of resources is implicitly forbidden in the account: seed-bearing plants and fruit trees are granted to animals and humans alike (1:30). Absent is any hint of the savage competition for resources. God's gift of sustenance is one of abundance, not scarcity, to be shared, not hoarded.

God's active delight in creation only heightens human agency in behalf of creation, for it all comes down to this: to feed the flame of biophilia, both God's and ours, we must preserve and sustain creation's biodiversity. If Leviathan falls, then so do we all.

The God of Job exhibits biophilia: an 'innate pleasure from living abundance and diversity' [Edward O. Wilson] .... God chooses to approach wildlife not with a sword, but with a word of admiration and an open hand.

From Job's perspective, God's answer is tantamount to a Copernican revolution. Job comes to realize that the world does not revolve around himself, not even around humanity. Creation is polycentric.

Job, behold the Snout: Even when the pond dries up, it is not alarmed. It remains confident, even above the face of the waters. Do not mock the Snout, Job, for in three hundred and seventy-five million years, its face would be your own.