The Recapture of Creation Ethics

May 26, 1963
Rochester

Just because a religious myth has no foundation in scientific fact is no reason why that myth cannot be of great help to us. Therefore, I would like to speak about one of the Judeo-Christian creation myths of the old book of Genesis. In particular I would like to deal with its ethical implication today for two reasons: First, the Sunday closest to Memorial Day is always an appropriate occasion to think on those things for which men have sacrificed their lives on the altar of patriotism and idealism. Second, what I express today is also a preface to next Sunday – Children’s Sunday, when the theme is understanding and brotherhood. Taking seriously the kind of world we live in, the religious education planners are working out a service which will express the need to understand all peoples. They asked me to relate the sermon that day and today to these realities of our anxious world. I am happy to do my best to comply. But also, their effort to make Children’s Day a comprehensive grasp of our world, leads me to urge those who feel no real pull to attend Children’s Day, that no one is being omitted from the message of the day. All concerned with the reach of our faith should be here next Sunday.

When I refer to the recapture of creation ethics, I allude to the attitude which permeated the first creation myth in the old scripture of Genesis. You will find Genesis much more stimulating reading if you will distinguish between the separate creation stories. Beginning at the latter part of the 4th verse of the second chapter and continuing through the [25th] verse is the epic J.E. account, drawn together by the ancients of Judah and Israel from folklore, folk history, chronicles, legend and myth.

The story of the creation as told from the first verse of the first chapter through the first half of the 4th verse of the second chapter is the creation story as gathered by the priesthood of the Hebrews. Sometime in the fourth century before the time of Jesus, the priesthood gathered together their ancient traditions about the creation of the world, man and the covenant people.

While all the ancient traditions of the first 11 chapters of Genesis deal with creation and man as a whole, universal lore, drawing upon, refining and molding ancient materials from the entire Near East, no the specific emergence of the Hebrews, the Priestly account has a certain creative emphasis which when neglected, always results in damage to high human goals and injury to the essential dignity of human persons. That emphasis is one that must be recaptured and maintained or our world is sure to experience terrible times. What is it? The explicit assurance that the world and life are good.

“’Let there be light,’ and there was light. and God saw that the light was good; ....

“And God said, ’Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.’ And it was so ... and God saw that it was good.”

So that creation story goes – the earth, its seed and vegetation – these were good. The day and the night, the light and dark, the great lights and the lesser lights, these were good. The sea teemed with fish and the land with animals and these were good. Then after man and woman have been created and given dominion over the earth, the myth affirms, (1/31) “And God saw everything that he had made and behold, it was very good.”

It would be easy to slide into captious criticisms at this point. The my th can be demonstrated to be contrary to the best thought of science. Of course, Genesis is not authentic biology or geology. The myth can be argued as illustrating not the mind and acts of God but rather what ancient myth conceived God to be as the creator of the universe. The myth is man’s dream, not God’s precise autobiographical notes. The myth can be criticized because it asserts a central place for man in the universe that man really does not have except in his own egoistic fixation. All of these critiques of the ancient strand of Genesis can be supported by fact, reason, and human experience.

But what is also there and, moreover, of far greater importance, this ancient and lovely myth challenges us with human values we too frequently disavow or ignore. The world and all that is therein is good; man and woman, responsible for leadership are intrinsically good in themselves. In popular usage the myth has become personified in Adam and Eve as individuals, but the words originally referred to mankind and womankind collectively. Man and woman, the human species were entrusted with leadership of the good earth, the good seas, and the good creatures. The creation ethic looked upon life as an experience of universal goodness and we need desperately to recapture that creation ethic.

That creation ethic [makes] goodness dependent on immortal life or future judgment. The world and all life therein are good now. The creation ethic, or thereafter held the foremost value of life and the experience of it. What was meant by “good?” Word studies indicate that the meaning intended was that the sea, the sky, and organic life “corresponded to the intent of the creator, and fulfilled their function and destiny.”

The creation ethic was an ancient preface to and foundation for human brotherhood for which the succeeding chapters never fulfilled – and its high time we recapture that character and ethic. Pressing the symbolism one more step, I mentioned that the first eleven chapters of Genesis were universal legends and myths, but beginning with the 12th chapter the scripture deals with the wanderings, weaknesses and strengths of particular people.

If the ethic of the creation math was basic and universal, what happened? In the second verse of his poem “London,” William Blake wrote,

“In every cry of every man,
In every infant’s cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles, I hear.”

The flaws that weaken the creation ethic are not fore-ordained by the energy and spirit which created the universe but chains forged by the mind of man. The muse Ben Sirach, Jewish sage of the first century before the common era began, seized upon the same analysis when he pointed out in majestic lines (15 14/15)

“The Lord hates anything abominable ...
It was he who made man in the beginning,
And left them in the hands of his own decision;
If you will, you can keep the commandments,
And acting faithfully rests on your own good pleasures.”

Man’s ethical decisions are the areas of conflict between the good and evil, the right and wrong, the universal and the partial.

No generation has ever needed more than our own a knowledge of the “mind-forged manacles” which hobble us from the stride and reach necessary to recapture the creation ethic.

We are hobbled by our prejudices; our seeming inability to accept and incorporate change, to give the Negro his rights [is] not enough; to encounter and accept the realities of cold war and the threat of hot weapons.

The mythological pristine creation ethic seems weaker than those angry forced deep within people – forces which supply the raw stuff from which the mind forges manacles.

There is the suspicion which [the] in-group directs against the outsider. One fears, then hates the stranger; he may be no threat to our life, fortune, or honor, but deep within us lurks the irrational fear that he may be a peril. And a manacle is forged.

When there are deeply hurt feelings within us – anxieties, guilt, hostility – the member of the minority group may become a handy and defenseless object for venting these ugly feelings. The hostility is projected on an innocent; the consequences of such irrational and baseless prejudice represent an awful toll in Birmingham and elsewhere. Most vital is the injury committed against the worth and dignity of human beings. Secondarily, this world hears the news and sees the pictures of violence and speculates that the democracy we profess may only be a cruel pretense. And another mind-forged manacle handicaps the recapture of the creation ethic.

People scare easily and seem willing to yield to a pecking-order of things. The big chickens peck the medium size, which in turn peck the next smaller. At the bottom of the pecking order, the weakest receives the accumulated abuse. When the pecking order, feeling a need to be superior to or more powerful than your weaker companion to compensate for your being becked at by the next stronger one in the social or economic order – this too is a mind-forged manacle which rubs raw the whole body of the human order.

Are the selfish, hostile impulses of man unconquerable? Must we be resigned to be permanently chained by mind-forged manacles? The option before the world in general and America in particular is illustrated by a story told by Andrew Wordier, for years a high administrator in the United Nations. (JC Record April 63, p. 556):

“Two shoe salesmen – one American, one British – traveled to Africa together to make their fortunes. They explored a village, found that everybody went barefoot and quickly reported to their home offices. The Britisher cabled, ’Arrived safely, have explored situation. No market here. Everybody goes barefoot. Will return next ship.’ The American cabled, ’Arrived safely, have explored situation. Everybody goes barefoot. Market wide open. Send 10,000 pairs of shoes at once.’”

The capture of the creation ethic when all of us in American can look at all people and see them as good, with all that implies, is not an impossibility. It represents an opportunity with the market wide open for brotherhood. Freeing ourselves of the mind-forged manacles of prejudice and assumed superiority is not a lost cause, although it may not be done in time. It is opportunity and not inevitability.

The perceptive philosopher of the Italian Renaissance, Pico della Mirandola said, “Thou shalt have the power, out of thy soul and judgment, to be reborn into the higher forms, which are divine.”

How do we do this? How [do we] recapture the creation ethic? How [can we] alter the patterns in time? In the old book of Leviticus, in a time when in-group feeling was very strong and narrow, [with] tribalism dominant, we find a new injunction (XIX-34), “The stranger who sojourns with you shall be as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt, I am the Lord your God.”

Translated to modern times and needs, is this not the signpost for the creation ethic?

You shall love others as yourself – in your neighborhood when the stranger whatever his color or name moves into a house on your street. Other considerations of societal status, or property-value anxieties or irrational fears are mind-forged manacles.

You shall love others as yourself when someone in your company erupts his hostility in prejudice against a minority group .... Other considerations, artificial politeness, a timid reluctance to cause trouble, and inhibitions against offending someone – these are all mind-forged manacles.

When you are tempted to sputter that the Negro wants too much too soon, look at your own self to see whether you are burdened by mind-forged manacles. The Negro was victim of terrible slavery for centuries and for 100 years he has been technically free but socially chained. Yesterday was too late, let alone today. When the Negro claims freedom and equal opportunity now, of course he’s right.

Emmanuel Kant may be somewhat dated for many philosophical minds these modern days, yet I believe his moral imperatives are tuned to a recapture of the creation ethic

1.“So act as if you would be willing for everyone in the world to act in the same circumstances.
2.Act so as to treat humanity always as an end, never as a means.”

The created world and the created beings in [it] are good; we should look upon it as good; and we should behave as though we really believed our ancient guidelines to a high faith for all humans.

If you wish you can call the creation ethic moral universalism. Moral universalism is achieved not only by an occasional glimpse at its promise but also by the experience of living it in the situations you will encounter. You will encounter the situations today, tomorrow, but surely soon, when your by voice or by your silence you will know whether you really want to capture the creation ethic; by your actions or by your inertia whether you really want to shake off the mind-forged manacles of prejudice and the pecking order. No one else may ever know on which side you cast your strengths – but you will know.

Is there time? Will anybody’s voice be enough? Who can ferret out the experiences not yet born ... in imagination ....