ESCHATOLOGY AND ECOLOGY: THE ENVIRONMENT IN THE END-TIME

Peter C. Phan
The Catholic University of America

It was once fashionable, especially in the wake of Lynn White's famous essay "The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis," to charge the Judeo-Christian tradition of having given rise to the ecological crisis. Christianity, it is argued, contributed to the destruction of the environment, especially through its injunction to dominate nature in order to satisfy the needs of humanity.

A number of recent studies, however, has shown that such an accusation rests upon an unwarranted oversimplication of historical data. Among other things, it was pointed out that the role of Christianity in the environmental crisis cannot properly be evaluated apart from other Western cultural movements such as the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the Scientific Revolution. It was noted too that other religious traditions, allegedly attuned to nature, have also assailed the environment. And, lastly, it was shown that the Christian theological tradition itself contains powerful motifs that if retrieved and developed, would contribute to a responsible care-for-creation ethics.

One of the basic articles of the Judeo-Christian faith is the belief that the course of history is not cyclical, bound up in an eternal meaningless return of all things to their former state. On the contrary, history is oriented toward a divinely appointed goal, and is therefore constituted not by a meaningless repetition of events but by a beginning and an end, a past and a future, the present being the time in which the divine plan is providentially enacted by humans with their free choices. The beginning is described in terms of God's creative act, and the end as the fulfillment of God's plan the symbol of which is the kingdom of God.

In formulating the doctrine of the end of time and eternal life (eschatology), Christian theologians have privileged the place of humans in the kingdom of God. Elaborate accounts are given of how humans, immediately after death or at least after their resurrection from the dead and the last judgment of their deeds, will enjoy either eternal blessedness through a direct vision of God (heaven or beatific vision) or eternal damnation through loss of communion with the deity (hell). Nature or the cosmos or the earth or the environment, if it figures at all in this description of eternal life, is said, in the biblical metaphor, to be "a new heaven and a new earth" (Revelation 21:1), but the precise nature of this new cosmos and its relationship to the present earth are left rather vague. Indeed, it may be asked why, morally speaking, efforts, sometimes extraordinary, should be undertaken to save the environment, if in the end it will disappear, or to use a biblical metaphor, will be reduced to ashes in a universal conflagration.

This essay will attempt to revisit Christian tradition and in broad strokes will outline what H. Paul Santmire calls its "ecological motif." On the basis of this motif, it will be asked how the question of eschatology has to be reconceptualized in light of an ecology in which humans no longer occupy the central place. In this way the relationship between the new heaven and the new earth of the end-time and the planet which we are now inhabiting can be clarified.

I. THE COSMOS IN CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY: THE SPIRITUAL AND ECOLOGICAL MOTIFS

H. Paul Santmire has helpfully suggested that in its reflections on the relationship between humanity and the environment Christian theology has been rooted in two experiential matrixes: the overwhelming mountain and the promising journey. The overwhelming mountain matrix emphasizes humanity's quest for transcendence, leaving historical concerns and the earth behind. It can give birth to two distinct metaphors: ascent and fecundity. The ascent metaphor, with its dimension of height and its focus on the top of the mountain, underlines relinquishment of the world and history. Employed consistently, it leads to what Santmire calls the "spiritual motif" of Christian theology in which the relation between God and humanity on the one hand and nature on the other is totally severed, now and at the end-time.

This acosmic and ahistorical dimension of the overwhelming matrix is obviated by the fecundity metaphor with its dimension of breadth. One can climb up the mountain, not to reach its height, but to look down in order to gain a better view of the earth's vastness and beauty. As a result, one feels not cut off from but deeply connected to the earth. The overwhelming mountain matrix then is ontically ambiguous in that it can lead to an anti-environmental, spiritual motif through its metaphor of ascent, or it can lead through its metaphor of fecundity to what Santmire calls the "ecological motif" in which God, humanity and the earth are intrinsically intertwined.

The ecological motif is strengthened not only by the metaphor of fecundity but also, and principally, by the metaphor of migration to a good land. It is rooted in the experiential matrix of the promising journey which emphasizes humanity's dwelling in history and rootedness in the earth. On this journey, travellers may at times be tormented by despair and fear, like the ancient Hebrews wandering homeless in the desert. But they are also energized by the vision of the promised land flowing with milk and honey; it is the good land stretching ahead that defines the identity of each traveller and the community to which he or she belongs. Of course, one's experience of the land can be unsatisfactory and one can be tempted to move on to a better piece of land. But, as Santmire correctly points out, the ambiguity of the metaphor of migration to a good land is not ontic, but at best ethical. That is, the question can only be how one relates to the land, not whether one is related to the land at all, because removed from the land, one is nobody . In this way, "the most intense of spiritual experiences will always be located not apart from nature, but in the middle of nature, surrounded by the creatures of the earth."

In Santmire's account, these two motifs, spiritual and ecological, waxed and waned throughout Christian theology, sometimes in the theological career of the same author. Among those who unequivocally favor the spiritual motif with its attendant degradation of the earth, Santmire singles out Origen, Thomas Aquinas, most German-speaking Protestant theologians (e.g., Albrecht Ritschl, Wilhelm Herrmann, Adolph von Harnack, Rudolf Bultmann, Emil Brunner, and Karl Barth) and Teilhard de Chardin. What these disparate thinkers have in common is the dominance of the metaphor of ascent in their theological thinking and the so-called anthropocentrism, that is, the notion that humans occupy the central place in the universe and that nature is to be harnessed to serve their needs. Nature, e.g., minerals, plants, and animals, does not possess any intrinsic value in itself but acquires its worth only from its usefulness to spiritual creatures. This anthropocentrism was buttressed up by the rise of natural sciences, the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, and the industrial-mechanical approach to nature.

Among those whose theology contains an ambiguous promise for an ecological motif, either because this motif emerges late in their theological career or because it is on the periphery rather than at the center of their theological system, Santmire includes Augustine (the former case) and Bonaventure, Dante, Luther, and Calvin (the latter case). While the spiritual motif is dominant in these theologians, the countervailing metaphors of fecundity and migration to a good land are operative to a certain degree in their thought. Common to these thinkers are a qualified anthropocentrism and a decisive theocentrism in which God, to use the language of Arthur Lovejoy, is seen less as "the Good," the world-transcending spiritual ground of all material and spiritual things, than as "Goodness," the Being who grants with overflowing abundance the divine riches to all creatures.

The two historical figures who represent the triumph of the ecological motif are Irenaeus and Francis of Assisi, the former in his writings, the latter in his life. In Santmire's view, Irenaeus, in his struggle against Gnosticism, emphasizes the intrinsic goodness of nature and matter and accents the immanence of God and humanity in an unfallen earth. Summarizing Irenaeus's theology of nature, Santmire writes:

...Irenaeus thinks chiefly in terms of the metaphor of migration to a good land. There are signs that his thought is also influenced by the metaphor of fecundity.... This results in a consistent affirmation of the natural order in terms of goodness in Irenaeus's thought. Nature for him is tangibly good and ultimately significant. Irenaeus celebrates the flesh of this world, both now and in the age to come. The symmetry of Irenaeus's understanding of creation and redemption, moreover, could not be more pronounced. His vision of God's grand design begins with the moment of creation of all things... and concludes, vividly, the the renewal of all things.

What the bishop of Lyons expressed with words, the Poverello of Assisi lived out in his life. Santmire highlights Francis's love for all creatures of God, not simply as an instrument for his own ascent to God, but as centers of value in their own right. Indeed, for Francis, the ascent to God is a descent to the earth, in the image of God's descending and overflowing goodness in the creative act and of the Logos' self-emptying descent in the incarnation and on the cross. Santmire summarizes Francis's lived theology of nature as follows:

Francis's life story represents the flowering of the ecological promise of the classical Christian ethos. The mind and life of Francis are shaped... by the metaphor of migration to a good land and the metaphor of fecundity. Francis climbs the mountain of God's creation in order to stand in universal solidarity with all God's creatures, both in this world and in the world to come, for which he so passionately yearns. Then he descends, as he perceived God's love always to be overflowing, in order to embrace all the creatures of God, not only the specially elected and specially blessed human creatures.

In sum, there has been in the history of Christian theology a struggle between two basic metaphors, ascent and migration to a good land, with the metaphor of fecundity located in the middle. When the metaphor of ascent predominated, that of fecundity was subordinated to it, with the result that nature was degraded (the spiritual motif). On the other hand, when the metaphor of migration to a good land triumphed, that of fecundity was subsumed under it, with the result that nature retained its intrinsic value and goodness (the ecological motif).

II. THE COSMOS IN THE END-TIME

Central to the theology of nature is the issue of the final status of the material world, besides pure finite spirits (angels) and human beings. What will happen, it is asked, to the sun, the moon, the stars and the planet earth, and to the animals and the plants, and down to the indivisible particles of matter when history ends? The answer that is being sought here to this question is not a scientific one but one that is based on the witness of the Christian faith as found in the Hebrew-Christian scriptures and Christian theology, though it is hoped that the answer given by the Christian faith will at least not contradict the one given by scientific cosmology.

Before expounding the biblical and theological accounts of the end-time and the place of the cosmos within it, it would be helpful to give a brief summary of the current scientific hypotheses concerning the end-time. In general, a minority of cosmologists hold the view that the universe has always existed and will always exist, that is, it has no beginning and no end. Hence, in this scenario, the question of the final status of the cosmos apart from humanity does not even arise. The majority of cosmologists, however, theorize that the universe began with the Big Bang and that this cosmic expansion will not go on for ever. Some astrophysicists opine that this expansion will slow down, come to a standstill, and turn into a contraction that will end with another big bang, the Big Crunch (possibly some eighty billions years after the first Big Bang). Then perhaps another universe will come into existence with another explosion. Others believe that the expansion will go on without turning into a contraction; rather, the universe will finally die out in a general congealment and darkness when in the last stages of cosmic development, the sun goes out and the matter of stars will turn into "ashes."

Whether the universe will end in a big bang after a process of contraction or in a deathly silence and congealment without such a process, the theory that the universe has a beginning and an end (the Big Bang theory) contains an extremely important understanding of the relationship between humanity and the physical universe. This understanding is encapsulated in the phrase "common creation story." To grasp the features of this new way of viewing the relationship between humanity and the universe, it will be helpful to contrast it with what Sallie McFague calls the "classic organic model." This classic organic model, based on the human body, is, in McFague's judgment, hierarchical, anthropocentric, androcentric, and universalizing. Hierarchical, because it establishes a scale of ontological values, ranking the spiritual over the material; anthropocentric, because it regards humans as the center of all creation and their needs as determinative of the relative values of all other beings; androcentric, because among humans it upholds the male as normative and subjects women to men; and universalizing, because it underscores sameness rather difference. This model was reinforced in the seventeenth century by the model of the universe as a machine or a clock, propounded by Newtonian physics with the law of universal gravitation and the three laws of motion.

With the displacement of this mechanistic model in the twentieth century by the advent of quantum physics and the new field of chaos studies, it is now recognized that these laws as formulated by Newton do not always allow us to make certain predictions about the future. Further, due to recent discoveries in astrophysics, there is aborning a new way of looking at the universe called the "common creation story." This story emphasizes the one and common origin of all things, including humanity, in the one millionth of a gram of matter from which hundreds of billions of incredibly diverse galaxies, each with billions of stars and planets, have evolved. This new organic model, as opposed to the classic organic and mechanistic models, emphasizes interrelationships and interdependencies among all beings in their similarities as well as differences. As McFague summarizes:

The distinctive aspect of the common creation story pertinent to the formation of an organic model of reality is the particular way both unity and differentiation are understood. It is a form of unity based on a common beginning and history, but one that has resulted in highly complex networks of interrelationships and interdependences among all life-forms and supporting systems on this planet.

One important implication of this "common creation story" is a new anthropology which focuses on the place of humans as bodies in the universe. It rejects a purely instrumental view of the universe as a resource to be exploited to serve humanity's needs and a transworldly view of the physical environment as a temporary abode, a sort of roadside motel, for humans on their pilgrimage from history to eternity. Rather, the universe and the environment are seen as our home, our permanent address, which shelters us, with which we are in solidarity, and for which we must care. Humans then are seen not as historical beings in transit from earth toward heaven but as spatial bodies dwelling in planet earth as its permanent citizens. Again, McFague spells out well the consequences of this "common creation story" for ecological theology:

... a focus on gratitude for the gift of life rather than a longing for eternal life; an end to dualistic hierarchies, including human beings over nature; an appreciation for the individuality of all things rather than the glorification of human individualism; a sense of radical interrelatedness and interdependence with all that exists; the acceptance of responsibility for other forms of life and the ecosystem, as guardians and partners of the planet; the acknowledgment that salvation is physical as well as spiritual and hence, that sharing the basics of existence is a necessity; and, finally, the recognition that sin is the refusal to stay in our proper place -- sin is, as it always has been understood in the Jewish and Christian traditions, living a lie.

In light of this "common creation story" cosmology and its implications for a different understanding of the place of humans in planet earth, it is now possible to revisit Christian reflections on the status of the cosmos in the end-time. In general, these reflections can be divided into two main types according to the way in which the relation between humans and nature is viewed. Paul Santmire calls them "asymmetrical" and "symmetrical," corresponding to the two basic motifs and metaphors described above respectively, namely, the spiritual motif and the metaphor of ascent on the one hand and the ecological motif and the metaphor of migration to a good land on the other.

In the asymmetrical vision, only humans are called to share in the final beatitude with God through redemption; nature, which is good only insofar as it serves humanity, is not in any sense predestined to beatitude in the beginning nor is it called to the final perfection at the end. According to Origen, for instance, the material world was not intended by God in his original creative plan; it was subsequently made as the place into which souls are consigned as a punishment for their pre-temporal fall and from which they are to escape on their way back to the spiritual realm. In the end-time the world will not share in eternal beatitude and will presumably fall back into nothingness; even the resurrected bodies will be so spiritualized that it is difficult to see how they can be bodily at all.

Even for Thomas, who is much less otherworldly than Origen and who does speak of the renewal of the whole world at the end-time, this renewal is only necessitated by the fact that the transformed human dwellers need an appropriately transformed abode and by the fact that non-rational creatures must be rewarded by the services they have rendered to rational creatures. But in the end, purely material beings such as animals, plants, minerals, and all mixed bodies will cease to exist because the purpose for which they exist, namely, to serve the physical needs of humans, has been fulfilled. In other words, Thomas's vision of the end-time is irremediably anthropocentric.

From another perspective, on the basis of a literalist reading of biblical texts that speak of universal destruction and cosmic calamities and are interpreted to refer to the end-time rather than to the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE (e.g, Mark 13; Matthew 24-25; Luke 21; 17:20-37) and of biblical texts that speak of a thousand-year reign of the elect with Christ (Revelation 20), fundamentalist Christians envisage a total annihilation of this wicked world, nature included, after the faithful's rapture and reign with Christ for a thousand years (pre-millenarianism) or before such a reign (post-millenarianism). To predict the end of the world and the second coming of Christ, frequent invocation is made of the apocalyptic imagery of the end-time such as the appearance of false prophets and messiahs, famines and earthquakes, persecution of the faithful, the darkening of the sun and the moon, the fall of the stars, and the shaking of the heavenly powers. Appeal is also regularly made to 2 Peter 3:10 where it is said that "the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a mighty roar and the elements will be dissolved by fire, and the earth and everything done on it will be found out." In this fundamentalist eschatology, then, nature has no place and is destined for total destruction.

In the symmetrical vision, on the other hand, not only humanity but also the whole cosmos, of which humanity is but a part, are destined by God to eternal beatitude. In this view, nature is intrinsically and not merely instrumentally good; its value is not derived from its service to humans but from its very own being and beauty bestowed upon it by the Creator. Consequently, in the end-time, nature will not vanish into nothingness in a universal conflagration because it does not exist simply to serve human needs which will then have been satisfied, as if the tools can be discarded once the work has been done. On the contrary, it will perdure, and as humanity as a whole will be redeemed and transformed, nature too, symmetrically, will be brought to an end-fulfillment (not only finis but also telos).

Among proponents of the symmetrical vision, Irenaeus, for instance, holds that in the end-time "neither the substance nor the matter of the creation will be annihilated... but the form of this world passes away, that is, in those things in which transgression was committed." Irenaeus rejects the Gnostic notion of a cosmic fall which entails that matter is inherently evil and therefore needs redemption. Whereas humans need redemption because of their sins, unfallen nature (though it suffers from the evil consequences of human sins) requires only salvation, that is, it needs to be brought to perfection by Christ at the end of history. Hence, God is not alien to matter but dwells in it and blesses and renews it abundantly; and humans feel at home in the physical world in general and in their bodies in particular. Consequently, in the end-time matter and bodies will not disappear but will assume a more glorious form.

For the later Augustine, too, the earth is unfallen. He explicitly maintains that the curse mentioned in Genesis 3:17 affects only human life and not the whole cosmos; similarly, he interprets the creation (ktisis), which Paul describes as subject to futility by human sins yet groaning in travail and yearning to share in the glorious freedom of the children of God (Romans 8:19-22), to refer to the human creature and not the physical world. Again, he holds that Satan is not the lord of the physical world or of any part of it, but only of the "world" of sinful and unbelieving humanity. Augustine looks forward to the eschatological transformation of the physical world at the end-time in which "it may very well be, and it is thoroughly credible that we shall... see the material forms of the new heavens and the new earth in such a way that we shall most distinctly recognize God everywhere and governing all things, material as well as spiritual," visibly, with bodily eyes. Moreover, contrary to Origen, Augustine does not spiritualize human resurrected bodies; rather he insists strongly on the identity between the earthly body and the risen one, the latter retaining all its organs, even those which have no functions in eternal life, such as the sex organs, and acquiring a great beauty. In the end-time, for Augustine, the body is a home, a friend, and a spouse to the human soul.

Just as the metaphor of migration to a good land and the ecological motif were not theorized but lived out by Francis of Assisi, so was the symmetrical vision. His life was a life of the "Last Things," of realized eschatology. Despite, or more exactly, because of his intensely eschatological consciousness, the Poverello loved the animals, from the wolf to the worm to the birds and the bees, and nature as such, including what he called brother sun and sister moon and the stars in his Canticle of the Sun. Even death itself, which Francis called his sister, was not feared but welcomed as a natural part of life. In a real sense, Francis anticipated in his own life the fulfillment of the end-time in which nature -- with its flowers, corn fields, vineyards, stones, meadows, brooks, gardens, earth, fire, air and wind -- is exhorted to praise God. It is impossible to imagine Saint Francis in his eternal glory without being surrounded by all the creatures, big and small, of this earth whom he loved and cared for and conversed with during his life.

In sum, there are two conflicting traditions in Christian theology concerning the status of nature in the end-time which are called, in Santmire's terminology, asymmetrical and symmetrical. In the one, more widespread tradition, nature is not created for its own sake but to serve the needs of humans and hence does not possess an intrinsic goodness and is not destined to share in eternal beatitude. It is fated to disappear or at best to perdure simply as an external environment for glorified humanity. In the other tradition, a "minority report" as it were, but no less legitimate, nature has not only an instrumental but intrinsic value, and hence is destined to participate, in its own right and in its own way, together with humanity, in the final transformation granted by God at the end-time.

This ambiguity in Christian theology regarding ecology and in particular regarding the condition of the cosmos in the end-time is rooted in the biblical heritage itself. In general, there are two series of texts, both in the Hebrew Scriptures and in the New Testament, which expound two conflicting concepts. The first series of texts privilege the acts of God in history in favor of the Hebrews and humanity; their dominant doctrines and theological language are sin, grace, and redemption. Their understanding of nature is quintessentially anthropocentric, insofar as they regard nature as a resource to be exploited for the service of humans and view the lordship of God on nature merely as the by-product of God's lordship on history. In the New Testament, this disparagement of nature is particularly evident in the gospel of John and the letter to the Hebrews.

The second series of texts emphasize the promised land as one of God's gracious blessings and its centrality for God's covenant with Israel. They also highlight the faith in God the creator, the "Lord of heaven and earth." The Priestly account of creation in Genesis 1, Psalms 29; 47; 97; 104; and 148, Isaiah 40; 65:17-25, and Job 38-41 eloquently celebrate God's creative power and dominion over the whole cosmos. In the synoptic gospels, Jesus is presented not only as the eschatological prophet announcing and inaugurating the rule of God but also as the ecological master conquering the forces of nature and healing bodily diseases by means of miraculous deeds. Pauline texts such as Romans 8:19-25 and Deutero-Pauline letters such as those to the Colossians and to the Ephesians affirm the consummation of all things, visible and invisible, material and spiritual, in Christ the head of the new creation. The Book of Revelation offers a vision of "new heavens and a new earth" and a "new Jerusalem" at the end of time (Revelation 21:1-2).

III. THE ESCHATOLOGICAL COSMOS AND THE PRESENT COSMOS

But what is the nature of this "new heavens and a new earth"? And how is it related to this present cosmos? Is it a totally new creation by God, ex nihilo? In astrophysical terms, is it a new universe, coming from another Big Bang, after this universe has come to an end in a deathly silence and congealment, with or without a process of contraction? Even though the Bible and Christian Tradition shy away from a detailed description of how this new heaven and new earth will look like, it is possible to take the following statement of the Second Vatican Council as a helpful starting point for a speculation on the state of nature in the end-time:

We know neither the moment of the consummation of the earth and of humanity nor the way the universe will be transformed. The form of this world, distorted by sin, is passing away, and we are taught that God is preparing a new dwelling and a new earth in which righteousness dwells, whose happiness will fill and surpass all the desires of peace arising in the human hearts. Then with death conquered, the children of God will be raised in Christ, and what was sown in weakness and dishonor will put on the imperishable: charity and its work will remain, and all creation, which God made for humanity, will be set free from its bondage to decay....

When we have spread on earth the fruits of our nature and our enterprise -- human dignity, brotherly communion, and freedom -- according to the command of the Lord and in his Spirit, we will find them once again, cleansed this time from the stain of sin, illuminated and transfigured, when Christ presents to his Father an eternal and universal kingdom "of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love, and peace." Here on earth the kingdom is mysteriously present; when the Lord comes, it will enter into its perfection.

The vision of the end-time proffered here is one that presupposes both the identity and transformation of the cosmos. The new heaven and earth, the new dwelling that God is preparing is not purely spiritual and transworldly, as Origen imagined; on the contrary, it is material and spatial, especially in view of the doctrine of bodily resurrection affirmed in the text. Not only our work, especially our work of love, will remain, but also "all creation," hence material beings included, is set to be freed from bondage to decay; it will not be destroyed nor will it disappear. "All creation" certainly comprises more than humans; minerals, plants, animals, mountains and rivers, the heavenly bodies, the sun, the moon, and the stars, from the microcosm to the macrocosm, are included in this process of liberation. In terms of St. Francis' Canticle of the Sun, should we not think that in this "new heavens and a new earth" there will be the same brother sun, the same sister moon, the same water and and the same air? And will there not be the birds and fishes the Poverello preached to, the bees the Saint fed with the finest sugar, the wolf he tamed, and the worms upon which he poured out the tenderest love, all of them freed from decay and sharing in eternal beatitude?

Furthermore, "the fruits of our nature and our enterprise" will be found again, "cleansed this time from the stain of sin, illuminated and transfigured." These fruits are said to include human dignity, brotherly love, and freedom, but the list is certainly not meant to be exhaustive. Nothing prevents us from including among "the fruits of our nature and our enterprise" also the achievements of technology, economy, politics, art, literature, music, culture and myriad other forms of human creativity. If human dignity, love, and freedom remain eternally, why should not knowledge and beauty and the things in which beauty and knowledge are enfleshed, since there is no knowledge and beauty in the abstract? Why should the architecture of Taj Mahal or Saint Peter's basilica, the music of Beethoven and Mozart, the tragedies of Sophocles and Shakespeare, the sculptures of Michelangelo and Rodin, the philosophies of Confucius and Plato, and the scientific discoveries of Galileo and Einstein, just to cite a few things at random, not perdure forever?

The Council carefully distinguishes these human achievements from the kingdom of God (which is by definition God's doing and gift); but it categorically affirms that they are "of vital concern to the kingdom of God" and that they must be pursued all the more vigorously because "it is here that the body of a new human family grows, foreshadowing in some way the age which is to come."

As to the moment and the manner of the eschatological transformation of the cosmos, the Council wisely professes ignorance. With this caveat, the vision of the end-time projected by the Council seems to differ somewhat from, though by no means contradict, the predominant hypothesis among astrophysicists which holds either that the cosmic expansion after the Big Bang will eventuallly slow down, come to a standstill, and will turn into a contraction that will end in another big bang (possibly with a new universe emerging) or that the universe will die out, without incurring a contraction, in a general congealment and darkness. The dialectic of identity-in-difference which the Council adopts in expounding the status of the cosmos in the end-time does not seem to favor a radical destruction of the universe and a totally new creation, though in principle it is not impossible for God to create something "new" (a "new heaven and a new earth") out of the "stuff" constituted by human achievements and the old cosmos.

Of course, it is not in the competence of science to say anything about what will happen after the universe or the cosmic expansion comes to an end; at best it can speculate about the possibility of another Big Bang ushering in another universe. What Vatican II affirms is derived not from astrophysics but from the Christian faith in God the creator, redeemer, and transformer of all things. On the other hand, what it says about the destiny of the cosmos in the end-time, based as it is on faith, accords well with the scientific "common creation story" expounded above. For, as Sallie McFague has well argued, this common creation story and its attendant organic model have "decentered" and "recentered" human beings: we are both less important and more important in the new eschatological vision. Decentered and less important, because humans are no longer placed at the summit of creation in a hierarchical, anthropocentric, dualistic, and consumer-oriented fashion and because other non-human creatures are no longer viewed as instruments to serve human needs. Recentered and more important, because humans now must live in solidarity with and care for the planet which is now and will ever be their permanent home. In this sense, the ecological sin is the refusal to accept and live out a relationship of solidarity and sharing with other human beings, other animals, and nature and to want everything for oneself and one's species.

Vatican II is the first official attempt of the Roman Catholic Church to retrieve the "ecological motif" and the metaphors of "fecundity" and "migration to a good land." Of course, traces of the "spiritual motif" and a certain anthropocentrism can still be found here and there (as when Vatican II qualifies, in the above quotation, "all creation" with the clause "which God made for humanity"). However, it can no longer be said that nature is regarded exclusively or even predominantly in an instrumental way. In its eschatology, Vatican II has given ecology an irreplaceable and independent function; nature will endure permanently as the home for the transformed humanity and participate, by its own right and in its own way, in the glorious transformation in the end-time.

Theologians may be reluctant to describe in detail how the material cosmos and everything in it will endure and be transformed less they may be accused of indulging in fanciful ruminations. But it is high time, given the current ecological crisis, to underscore as forcefully as possible the symbiotic relationship between humanity and the environment and to affirm unambiguously that without the permanence of the physical cosmos, on which they depend for their material and spiritual survival and for which they must care by means of ecologically responsible actions, humans cannot achieve that eternal happiness for which their hearts long.