All that is living has a soul, the difference between man and that of the rest of creation is that man has been set over all of creation as it’s steward and therefore is the only created creature with the ability to work for the good of all of God’s creation. This seperation of man from the rest of creation is seen in the profound difference of a spiritual soul that does not act for self, but rather for all of creation. Man has the choice to refuse self and act for Love of God and all of creation.
This does not mean that creation cannot be eternal. God can, if He wills, allow any creature to be eternal. This is an issue or ‘theological point’ that presently has not been set in dogma or doctrine. If we consider Sacred Scripture we can see that all manner of creatures are used to show God’s Nature and Goodness, for example the Holy Spirit descended as a Dove, Jesus repeatedly uses nature to explain His Divine Revelation.
It strikes me that if all of creation reveals something of the Creator then it would be reasonable to consider that that which reveals Him is in some part of Him and nothing can live and move and have being unless it is upheld in Him and therefore may not be brushed aside as dust and forgotten when nature has not fractured the world’s relationship with God, but was infact the fault of man.
We do not pay close enough attention to our duty to the world, but this is hardly surprising when we do not pay close attention to our duty to God and to each other.
When Christ was born slipping into this world in silence and obscurity, He was born in and amongst the animals, those of which represent creation and of course also present rich and poor human witnesses of the Incarnate God. This is a strong indicator that Christ came for the entire world and to redeem all of creation God came as a man ‘The Life, the Truth and the Way’ to show man how to live and die, to show the path, the way. Through man’s co-operation or ‘fiat’ with the Way it can be considered that united to Christ’s Eternal Sacrifice upon the Cross that man becomes co-redeemer and thus as steward of the world partakes in it’s redemption also, just as Christ died for men, is the Good Shepherd, is God we too must be the Good Shepherd of creation. We owe creation a great debt, we owe each other a great debt, we owe God a great debt and all these three things must be in place before we can attempt to settle that debt in the Cross of Christ. We must not forget our smaller brothers and sisters.
St Paul states that all of creation groans in labour.
If creation did not partake in this labour, it would not suffer, for the greatest labour is to suffer as this is truly a labour of Love though nature makes no choice in suffering, man has the choice to unite all sufferings to Christ whatever that suffering may be and nowhere is this more clearly seen than Our Lord upon the Blessed Cross.
Sometimes I think the creatures please God better than we humans, every soaring bird a hymn of praise to God and we humans wilfully rejecting and refusing to love God and refusing to love each other and take care of all creation that is set in our care.
We must most of all pray for creation aside from actively caring for it. We know Christ multiplied the fish in the sea and filled the Apostles nets, this is of course symbolic of their future evangelism, but also shows that God will recreate over and over again and whatever we ask will be granted if we ask for God’s will. Our world need not de-create, but with love and prayer will recreate by God’s grace.
