The theme of this issue of The Catholic Telegraph is “Care for Creation.” For this column, however, I’m changing the preposition and writing about “Care of Creation” to preserve the notion that we are mandated to care for creation—to cultivate, judiciously utilize and preserve natural resources. But by changing the preposition, I add another angle— to look more closely at why we should care for creation, namely, because creation cares for us. The genitive-case phrase “care of creation” captures both of these ideas. First, creation cares for us. Thus, we have an obligation to care for creation.

Catholic theological tradition has developed a robust theory of what we call “natural law,” which is often associated with fundamental moral truths accessible by reason alone that compel us toward some moral choices and away from others. In overly simple terms, natural law might be considered an innate general sense of right and wrong. One author summed up natural law as describing “what you can’t not know.” As far as it goes, this is an adequate description of natural law.

But, at least as introduced by St. Thomas Aquinas, natural law has broader implications than simply an innate moral code for human beings. In the Summa Theologiae, St. Thomas describes two “precepts” of natural law that introduce a deeper consideration of the care of creation.

One precept is the natural tendency toward self-preservation, which the human person shares with all living things. In other words, creation cares for its living creatures by compelling them toward actions that protect them against destruction. We see common examples of this in the natural defense mechanisms of some animals; and even in our instinctively raising our arms when objects hurtle toward us. While we take these instinctive and reflexive actions for granted, St. Thomas understood that they are rooted in the very nature of creation. While it is difficult to imagine a different kind of creation—one that does not include these natural precepts—it is certainly not impossible.

A second, closely related precept is the natural tendency to reproduce. Again, this is an innate predisposition in all living creatures. We are intended to cocreate—to propagate ourselves in cooperation with God who is Creator of all things. To artificially and deliberately interfere with this natural inclination is to frustrate the very care for creation to which we are naturally ordered.

These twin precepts of natural law are consistent with— indeed derived from—God’s admonition to His creatures to both cultivate and add to creation. Thus, we come to the second meaning of the genitive phrase “care of creation.” Because creation cares for us, we are charged to care for creation.

“Be fertile and multiply,” God commands man in Genesis 1:28; “fill the earth and subdue it.” And in the second creation account, God put the man and woman in the Garden of Eden “to cultivate and care for it” (Gen 2:15). Put another way, God created our world with these natural tendencies toward preservation and procreation inherent in it. Thus, He calls us to conform to it.

Because creation suggests this two-fold tendency of preservation and propagation, we are commanded to form our lives to be consistent with it. This is not for God’s pleasure, but rather for our good. Thus, God’s instructions to care and create are not foreign impositions upon us. Rather, they are the ordinary implications of beings for whom preservation and propagation are the natural state. Willful obstruction of this two-fold inclination to care and create are contrary to our very nature and, thus, our good. When we deviate from that good, it is only “natural” that things should go awry.

As Father Joseph Ratzinger put it in a 1981 homily on Genesis (published as ‘In the Beginning…’ A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall), “The Creator’s direction to humankind means that it is supposed to look after the world as God’s creation, and to do so in accordance with the rhythm and logic of creation” (p. 34). This implies “that the world is to be used for what it is capable of and for what it is called to, but not for what goes against it” (p. 34). The Catholic moral life is so much richer and deeper than lists of commands, rules or obligations. Moral theology is the contemplation of the nature of the good and, thus, the articulation of those habits and practices that incline us toward that good.

Ultimately, the highest good is rest in God’s love, toward which care of creation is finally intended. Creation’s care for us and our care for creation are for the purpose of enjoying the sabbath rest toward which all things are ultimately ordered. As Father Ratzinger said, this is a “new world … in which humans and animals and the earth itself will share together as kin in God’s peace and freedom.” This is what “care of creation” means to the Christian.

Dr. Kenneth Craycraft holds the James J. Gardner Chair of Moral Theology at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary & School of Theology. He is the author of Citizens Yet Strangers: Living Authentically Catholic in a Divided America (OSV 2024).

This article appeared in the September 2024 edition of The Catholic Telegraph Magazine. For your complimentary subscription, click here.