The alarm has sounded ever since Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was published in 1962. What was once a movement about the harmful effects of synthetic chemicals has warped into a narrative claiming that humans are destroying the environment through climate change, desertification, mass extinction of species, and famine for the entire human race. It makes one wonder, are we truly headed for such peril? The narrative tells us humanity is a blight on the earth; Scripture tells us mankind is God’s image-bearer, charged to “work and keep” creation. Christians should resist fear-mongering and instead respond with clarity and hope. Building a biblical philosophy of environmental stewardship rooted in piety rather than panic, students will be trained to think critically about environmental claims and to understand the created order as a gift entrusted to humanity. Lies such as, “humans are a blight on the earth”, will be explored, debunked, and responded to in a biblical way. Questions surrounding climate change and loss of biodiversity will also be discussed.

Course Overview

Part 1: Foundations

The first half of this course will equip students to stand on the Bible and glean the vocabulary needed to define the environment. Students will analyze how the Bible speaks about nature and how we ought to approach nature as God's creation. After laying a biblical foundation, students trace Western civilization’s changing relationship with nature from ancient Greece to today. The course is then designed to expand on the many nuances and intricacies of the modern environmental movement: analyzing aesthetics, environmental issues, approaches to protecting the environment, population dynamics, climate change, environmental legislation, and economic impacts of proposed environmental solutions.

Part 2: Practical Application

The second half of this course will teach the practical art of agriculture and land management from an alternative perspective called “permaculture". Topics in permaculture include all the traditional topics covered in an AP environmental science course at a public school, but from a radically different, and markedly holistic, perspective. Rather than looking at the environment fragmentally, as many of our environmental textbooks do today, we will discuss ecology in accordance with God’s design for his world. Applying these principles of permaculture will help students think through topics such as conservation biology, land management, resource management, and waste management. For example, ecology and conservation biology will be taught under the paradigm that God has given mankind dominion over the earth (Gen 2).

The world needs more Christians who care deeply and thoughtfully about creation. This course prepares students to become exactly that kind of environmental steward.

Note: In this course, students will be equipped with the ability to pass the AP Environmental Science course if so desired
Disclaimer: Permaculture is wrought with new-age thinkers, however, we will be “plundering the Egyptians” as we would do with Plato or Aristotle. There are many Christians in the field seeking to reform permaculture. For example, Gordon Wilson’s book, A Different Shade of Green, mentions permaculture as a land management tool.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

1. Examine the divine mandate to "work and keep" the Garden of Eden and to exercise dominion over the earth, exploring its theological and ethical implications.
2. Discover how the created world symbolically reveals divine truths and reflects the nature of God.
3. Trace the development of Western thought on creation, from ancient Greek philosophy through to modern scientific and secular worldviews.
4. Explore a biblical philosophy of environmental stewardship as an expression of piety. Contrast this with contemporary secular approaches to environmentalism.
5. Analyze the tension between Neo-Malthusian pessimism and the biblical vision of superabundance rooted in the imago Dei (image of God).
6. Evaluate competing perspectives on climate change catastrophism, and assess the potential economic and social impacts of proposed environmental policies.
7. Define the principles of ecology and consider how these can be faithfully applied by those who bear God’s image.
8. Investigate Permaculture as a regenerative design system for restoring soil, reversing desertification, enhancing biodiversity, increasing agricultural productivity, and improving land management.
9. Identify and understand the major nutrient cycles within creation, such as the carbon, nitrogen, and water cycles, and their roles in sustaining life.
10. Connect environmental health with human well-being, exploring how ecological balance contributes to physical, emotional, and spiritual flourishing.

FIRST SEMESTER TEXTS (~700 pages)

The Holy Bible (~5 pages)
Selected readings of Physics by Aristotle (~50 pages)
Timaeus by Plato (~50 pages)
Selected readings from Naturalis historia (Book 8-11) by Pliny the Elder (~5 pages)
Selected readings from St. Augustine On Genesis (~5 pages)
Quotes from St. Anthony of the Desert (~1 page)
Quotes from St. Evagrius of Pontus (~1 page)
Selected Readings from Summa Theologiae by St. Thomas Aquinas (~25 pages)
Selected Readings from St. Thomas Aquinas’ Commentary on Physics (~25 pages)
Hexaemeron by St. Basil (~50 pages)
Selected Readings from St. Francis of Assisi by G.K. Chesterton (~10 pages)

• Canticle of the Creatures (~1 page poem)
• Wolf of Gubbio (~1 page)

Selected readings from The Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin (~25 pages)
On Christian Love by Martin Bucer (~10 pages)
Walden by Henry David Thoreau (~25 pages)
Selected readings from The Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold (~25 pages)
Selected readings from Baruch Spinoza (~10 pages)
Selected readings from David Hume (~10 pages)
Selected readings from Charles Darwin (~10 pages)
Selected readings from An Essay on the Principle of Population by Thomas Malthus (~50 pages)
Pollution and the Death of Man by Francis Shaeffer (~100 pages)

• The Historical Roots of the Ecological Crisis by Lynn White (~10 pages)
• Why Worry About Nature? By Richard Means (~10 pages)

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (~150 pages)
The Tables Turned and I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth (~1 page poem)
Various articles and essays (~25 pages)

SECOND SEMESTER TEXTS (~550 pages)

The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs: Respecting and Caring for All God's Creation by Joel Salatin (~250 pages)
The Unsettling of America by Wendell Berry (~250 pages)
Introduction to Permaculture by Andrew Millison (~25 pages)
Environmental Biology by Matthew R. Fisher (~25 pages)