Dominium terrae

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Dominium terrae ( Latin for “rule over the earth”) is a theological technical term for a historically significant motive from the Old Testament , namely God's commission to man, ( Genesis 1.28  EU : “Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdues it and rules over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky and over all animals that crawl on the earth! ”).

Source text

In Psalm 8,7  EU it says: "You have appointed him [man] as ruler over the work of your hands; you have laid everything at his feet."

Hebrew exegesis has only found more appropriate translations in recent years. The Hebrew verb kabash (previously translated as “to subdue”) also has the meaning “to take possession as cultivated land ”, “to serve, to make arable ”, as comparisons with verb translations in other biblical books ( Num 32  EU and Jos 18  EU ) show . The verb radah (previously translated as "royal or stately appearances") is used in Mari texts for a shepherd's dealings with his herd of cattle and "should express the responsible, caring connotation."

History of ideas

The idea of ​​the Dominium terrae was passed on in late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Laktanz wrote about:

“When God created man, as it were as the image of God and the crown of the divine work of creation, he alone breathed wisdom into him so that he could submit everything to his rule and subordination ( ut omnia imperio ac ditioni suae subiugaret ) and enjoy all the comforts of the world. "

- De ira dei 13, translated by A. Hartl

In the modern era it became more concrete in the sense of a comprehensive instrumental mastery of nature . Descartes wrote in the Discours de la méthode published in 1637 that people were "rulers and owners of nature " ( maîtres et possesseurs de la nature ). Francis Bacon made a similar statement . In this context, there have been various attempts to hold Christianity responsible for the ecological crisis, for example the technology historian Lynn White . This not only in the sense of the mandate to rule, but also with regard to the “de-godification” of nature that has consistently taken place in Christianity, as it is expressed, for example, in the fight against the gods of nature in other religious traditions (Schiller: “One had to enrich one among all this world of gods pass away. " The gods of Greece )

An interpretation that increasingly emerged in the 20th century understands the mandate to rule in the sense of a fiduciary , as it were guarding task. Above all, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople under Patriarch Bartholomeos I launched various environmental initiatives as early as the 1980s, for example at the III. Pan-Orthodox pre-conciliar conference in Chambésy near Geneva in 1986, which was groundbreaking for the Orthodox and later Latin Christianity, who aim to deal carefully and carefully with nature given by God, so that important private and public organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund , the European Commission or the UN joined the initiatives. In his encyclical Laudato si ' , Pope Francis highlighted Patriarch Bartholomew as a role model.

literature

  • Udo Rüterswörden: Dominium terrae: Studies on the genesis of an Old Testament idea . (Supplements to the Journal for Old Testament Science 215), Berlin / New York 1993.
  • Udo Krolzik: Environmental Crisis - Consequence of Christianity? . 2nd edition, Kreuz Verlag, Stuttgart 1980.
  • Udo Krolzik: " Subdue the earth ...!" And the Christian work ethic . In: Klaus M. Meyer-Abich (Hrsg.): Peace with nature . Herder Verlag, Freiburg / Basel / Vienna 1979, pp. 174–195.
  • Udo Krolzik: The history of the impact of Genesis 1.28 . In: Günter Altner (Ed.): Handbook of ecological theology . Kreuz Verlag, Stuttgart / Berlin 1989, pp. 149–163.
  • Simone Rappel: Subdue the earth: the ecological crisis as a result of Christianity? Treatises on social ethics . Paderborn 1996.
  • Manfred Weippert: Animals and humans in a human-poor world. To the so-called dominium terrae in Genesis 1 . In: Hans-Peter Mathys (ed.): Image of God - ruler over the world. Studies on human dignity and mandate (= Biblical-theological studies 33). Neukirchen-Vluyn 1998, pp. 35-55.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Matthias Schlicht: Genetic engineering from a theological perspective. Lecture in the series of the St. Nikolai Talks 1999, Lutherhaus Alfeld, October 14, 1999
  2. ↑ René Descartes: Œuvres , Vol. VI: Discours de la méthode et Essais. Charles Adam and Paul Tannery (eds.), Léopold Cerf, Paris 1902, p. 62.
  3. ↑ John Chryssavgis: The green patriarch Bartholomew. In: RGOW , No. 11, 2015, pp. 6-7