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Ecological Debt in Theological Perspective
By KIM YONG-BOCK
2009 SEPTEMBER 8
Advanced Institute for Integral Study of Life
Jrisan, South Korea
God’s Covenant (justice and compassion)
with the All Living Beings and with the Earth
In the Bible God not only created the living beings on earth and the cosmic order of life but also liberated the whole creation from the destructive forces. God recreates the new heaven and new earth. This is the new creation—the new order of life for all living beings. This is the process of God’s creative covenant with all living beings on earth, God’s renewed covenant and God’s fulfillment of the covenant with the living beings on earth.
God's covenant is God’s promise that God will not allow any powers that be to destroy the life of all beings and the order of life, that is, the earth. This is the basis of God’s cosmic liberation, in which the Christ and the Spirit are working. God’s created beings are co-workers in this creative process the whole life of all living beings.
Some believe that the order of creation is disturbed by the natural causes, earthquakes, storms, flood and Tsunami etc. But it is a naturalistic thinking, reducing them to the natural process. This thinking is giving damages to the living beings on earth and to the order of life. But the order of life of all living beings are not merely a natural order. Therefore, natural calamites are not natural by themselves. They are part of process of the cosmic and ecological process of destruction where the forces of destruction is at work. This is not the will of God who is the creator of the very order of the common life of all living beings.
It is the Biblical teaching that all “natural” disasters have human consequences and spiritual implications, for the cosmos is the household of life. Humans are to care for the created order as the garden of life of all living beings. Furthermore, the humans are the chief agent of violation of the order of life by their greed and hubris. Thus, the so-called natural disasters have human dimensions, often caused by humans. There are not mere natural disasters, unrelated to humans. This is the teaching of the Bible. It is to be understood as a theological question, not merely religious and anthropolitcal question.
This teaching is also confirmed by all cultural, religious and spiritual traditions.
In violation of this wisdom the modern civilization regarded the natural disasters are merely natural, nothing to do with humans. Naturalistic or reductionist understanding on the disturbance of the order of life is manifested in the current industrial civilization more clearly than ever. This opened a door of human mind to conquer the forces of the nature to overcome their destructive power and even to harness the nature to human use and even to human greed and hubris. We see the root cause of the ecological destruction that the modern industrial civilization, especially symbiosis of the structural greed in the market regime and with messianic technocracy.
Covenant of God with all living beings and the earth is broken on the three integral dimensions.
- Violating the order of creation is human rebellion of systemic domination and monopoly over the nature against God’s sovereignty.
- Violating the just order of the creation for all living beings is social rebellion against God’s justice in the political economy of life.
- Violating the convivial order of the creation is cosmic and ecological rebellion against God’s care for all living beings and for the earth as the household of life. It is violation of cultural and moral order of the earth as well.
God’s Oikonomia of Life
Ecological destruction, therefore, needs to be understood in terms of theological understanding of the order of life of all living beings, that is, the order of creation. God’s act of creation is a political economy of life which is therefore the “management” of the created of order of life for all living beings. All living beings are called to participate in the creative work of God in the cosmos for their convivial life. Such theological foundation of political economy of life provides a perspective to understand the political economy of world and ecological issues. Furthermore, there is no separation between political economy and ecology.
Global Commons are of all living beings in Theological Perspective
The order of creation for the life of all living beings is God’s gift of love of life; and all the resources therein are gifts of God for the fullness of life on earth. Therefore, Turning all things into the private property of humans is the fundamental problem. But it is also problematic to turn all things into collective common possession of humans. The created order of life is God’s gift to all living beings for their conviviality. It is not merely for common life of humans but also for all living beings on earth. The created order of life is the community of conviviality of all living beings. One can say that the divine, the human and the ecological constitute the integral order of life. There cannot be any separation and disconnection among them. The separation and disconnections is open to the most serious problematic in our political economy, in which human greed and hubris become so destructive of the life of all living beings.
If one accepts that every individual has an inherently equal share of (or stake in) the global atmosphere, people in wealthy nations are using up far more than their fair share of the global atmospheric carbon budget. In doing so, and by not paying for the consequences of global warming, rich countries are running up huge ecological debts to the poor, majority world and to the all living beings on earth.
In addition, the ecological injury and destruction cause the socio-economic damages as well as physical injury, ecological disasters and cultural erosion of ethical and aesthetic.
Debt in Theological Perspective
In the Biblical understanding of the debt is primarily (2) a socio-economic order of injustice. It is also (2) a violation of borders or the order of land (a bode of life). That is trespassing. Furthermore, it is (3) a sin against God the creator. In Asian translation of the Lord’s prayer, the debt is a moral injury and violation of moral order, caused by the self-centered self-interests..
Forgiving of debts means the restoration of just relations, overcoming to the possessive boundaries, and recovery of moral integrity in relations. It is liberaton of injured life from the forces of injustice, occupation and immorality. Debt should be understood in terms of these multidimensional whole.
Sabbath and Jubilee
Ecological debt is to be released for justice, for the convivial order of life and for the integrity of all living beings.
Ecological debt in terms of political economy of life as well as in terms of cosmic terms should be understood for liberation of victimized life of the people and living beings from the destructive regime of the greed and hegemonic domination.
Sabbath and Jubilee connects the economics and ecology; in terms of debts and their release. In this context, for the restoration of justice, ecological debt payment of the perpetrators to the ecologically damaged and ecologically indebted is demanded. The global implication is that the people in the wealthy nations should bear their share of the global cost of the ecological damage.
Ecology is Matter of Culture and Spirituality. Ecological household is a home of whole life. It is not merely soci-economic and biological physical issue. Ecological destruction is a matter of the spiritual erosion, cultural corrosion, and ethical foundations. Creation order of life is a garden in which the spirit and creativity, the covenant of love and justice are embodied for conviviality, the fiesta of life Ecological debt must account the spiritual and cultural and ethical deficits.
We can connect this understanding with the jubilee movements as the financial debt.
Ecological Debt in Eschatological Cosmo-vision
The God’s created order is not a static state of affairs, or a dynamic process or evolution, but it is a fulfillment of the created order as envisioned in the Messianic Reign of New Cosmos for New Life.
This means that the ecological debt is not merely calculated in the present and future time of the world. It has to be an estimation of the eschatological deficit. This means that the ecological debt is not merely of that of the past and present, but of the future to the Omega point of time.
The ecological deficit is the whole of the future, the present and the past. Humans are ecological debtors until the end of times, when there is a fulfillment of the whole life of all living beings. It is not only be compensated of the past debt, but also of the future.
Resolving the ecological debt in an eschatological perspective should mean the moder than the restoration of the original cosmic order, but it should mean the fulfillment of the new cosmic garden of life for all living beings in terms of new political economy of life, new sustainable eco-system, a new culture of life.
In this context the payment of the debt should be a sort of the tithing, which is means that all things belong to God, that tithing is to be paid for the liberation of the weak and dispossesed, and that tithing is the saving for the future fulfillment. This should be done through recognition of the debt, responsible reparation, metanoia and forgiveness (transformation and new relationship), restoration of just relations and the fulfillment of the new order of life. One could advocate for “ecumenical tithing movement in this sense.”
Appendix
God’s Created Order and the Sustaining the Ecosystem
Ecological debt is the term used to describe the consumption of resources from within an ecosystem that exceeds the system's regenerative capacity.[1] This is seen in particular in non-renewable resources wherein consumption outstrips production. In a general sense, it can be used refer to the overall depletion of global resources beyond the earth's ability to regenerate them. The concept is based on the bio-physical carrying capacity of an ecosystem; through measuring ecological footprints human society can determine the rate at which it is depleting natural resources. Ultimately, the imperative of sustainability requires human society to live within the means of the ecological system to support life over the long term. Ecological debt is a feature of unsustainable economic systems.
The concept of ecological debt is the basis for Ecological Debt Day (Earth Overshoot Day), the date upon which the sum of global annually renewable resources has been consumed for the year. This is calculated using the global ecological footprint (the total area required to sustainably feed consumption), divided the global bio-capacity (the amount of area available to feed that consumption), multiplied by 365 (the number of days in a year). The first Ecological Debt Day occurred in 1987, and has steadily been moving earlier into the year, being October 9th in 2006, and September 23rd in 2008.
A more specific concept developed in the context of global warming is greenhouse debt.
Ecological Debt has also been applied to highlight the disparity between industrialized nations, which consume a greater share of the global resource pool, and developing nations, who despite their greater share of the global population, consume less.
Ecological debt is the debt accumulated by Northern, industrial countries towards Third World countries on account of resource plundering, unfair trade, environmental damage and the free occupation of environmental space to deposit waste. A particular and interesting aspect of it is carbon debt, as a consequence of greenhouse gas emissions.
These mechanisms are promoted by international organisations such as the IMF, the World Bank and the recently created World Trade Organisation (WTO) which seek to dictate world economic policy in order to maintain this system of dominance. However, hope for a dignified life for all is renewed when resistance movements with their varied proposals call into question the dominant homogenising model, and demonstrate that there is an alternative: the Zapatista movement in Mexico, the claims of the Sem Terra movement in Brazil, the force of the indigenous movement in Ecuador (for instance the proposal for the intangibility of the territories of the amazon peoples, the Shuar, Achuar, Kichwas, Cofanes, Siona, Secoya, Záparas, Huaorani), the resistance of the U´wa people of Colombia to oil activity in their territory because their territory is Sacred....
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_debt#cite_note-0
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