Natural Philosophy of Creation

Course Description

The alarm has sounded ever since Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring dropped in 1962. What was once a movement about the harmful effects of synthetic chemicals has warped into a narrative which claims that we are destroying the environment through climate change, desertification, the sixth great mass extinction, and famine for the entire human race. It makes one wonder, are we truly headed for such peril? As Christians, we should be guided by principle rather than alarmism and fear mongering. This course aims to equip our next generation of Christian thinkers to sift through the lies of the secular eschatology, called climate catastrophism, and become biblically based Christian environmentalists. 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.

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 will survey western civilizations' understanding of nature from the Ancient Greeks to Modernity. 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. 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 concerned with creation in a robust proper way and this course is dedicated to doing just that.

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.

Objectives

• Explain what it means for God to give the command to “work and keep” the Garden of Eden and to have dominion over the whole earth
• Learn how creation symbolically points to divine truth
• Survey Western Civilization’s conception of creation from the ancient Greeks to Modernity.
• Explore a biblical philosophy for protecting the environment as piety. Compare and contrast with modern conceptions of environmental protection
• Discuss Neo-Malthusianism juxtaposed with the superabundance from the image of God
• Consider arguments for and against climate change catastrophism and the economic impacts of proposed solutions
• Define ecology and apply these principles as an image bearer
• Discuss Permaculture as a tool for soil restoration, reversal of desertification, conservation biology, greater agricultural productivity, and land management
• Discuss and understand all of the major nutrient cycles in creation.
• Apply environmental health to human health

Texts

• The Holy Bible
• Selected readings of Parva Naturalia and Physics by Aristotle
• Timaeus by Plato
• Selected readings from Naturalis historia (Book 8-11) by Pliny the Elder
• Selected readings from St. Augustine On Genesis
• Quotes from St. Anthony of the Desert
• Quotes from St. Evagrius of Pontus
• Selected Readings from Summa Theologiae by St. Thomas Aquinas
• Hexaemeron by St. Basil
• St. Francis of Assisi by G.K. Chesterton
• Canticle of the Creatures
• Wolf of Gubbio
• Selected readings from Hexaemeron by Robert Grossteste
• Selected readings from The Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin
• On Christian Love by Martin Bucer
• Walden by Henry David Thoreau
• Selected readings of The Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien
• An Essay on the Principle of Population by Thomas Malthus
• Superabundance by Gale Pooley et al
• Pollution and the Death of Man by Francis Shaeffer
• The Historical Roots of the Ecological Crisis by Lynn White
• Why Worry About Nature? By Richard Means
• The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs: Respecting and Caring for All God's Creation by Joel Salatin
• The Unsettling of America by Wendell Berry
• Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
• Introduction to Permaculture by Andrew Millison
• Environmental Biology by Matthew R. Fisher
• The Tables Turned and I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth
• OPTIONAL SUPPLEMENTARY CONTENT
• Nausicaa of the valley of the wind, a film by Studio Ghibli
• In the House of Tom Bombadil by C.R. Wiley
• The Blue Sapphire of the Mind : Notes for a Contemplative Ecology by Douglas E. Christie
• A Different Shade of Green by Gordon Wilson
• The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
• The Harvester by Gene Stratton Porter
• The World According to Monsanto by Marie-Monique Robin
• Toxic Legacy by Stephanie Seneff
• Fossil Future and The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels by Alex Epstein