Composition

Beginning

The beginning of the text presents Pack’s main thesis. He believes that, when God created nature and mankind, he gave people two commandments which turned out to be contradictory:

The initial account is followed by God’s first commandment, ‘Be fruitful and multiply,’ but this imperative is succeeded by a second one – ‘subdue [the earth], and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air (…) – which will prove to be antithetical to the first. (ll. 2-7)

Middle

In the middle section, Pack explains his thesis using the examples taken from the Bible. He states that the “human wish to possess and master” (l. 9) clashes with the “spirit of celebration and appreciation” (l. 11) found in God’s first commandment to mankind. This is because human beings are approaching a limit to the level of dominion they can have over the earth.

End

The text concludes with Pack’s explanations and predictions. Pack explains that nature is not infinite, but finite and vulnerable (l. 13) and that humans need to be aware of this to avoid destroying it. In the end, Pack raises awareness about the danger of replacing nature with human-made things: “Taking dominion over nature, finally, means that we will have nothing left but our species-centered self-idolatry to be inspired by and to worship.” (ll. 18-20).

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