ABSTRACT
Patterns of excessive consumption and the pressure of increasing human numbers are making these problems even worse in many areas. The notion of nature as promise brings together into a coherent vision the three domains of ecology, evolution, and eschatology. Construing nature's evolution in terms of the biblical theme of promise has two additional implications for ecological theology and ethics. Unlike the previous static views of the world, evolution invites the reader to picture nature as the unfolding of a promise, a promise that has been internal to the universe from its very inception. But evolution and ecology together now make possible other ways of understanding our personal participation in the liberation promised by Christian faith. It is no longer as difficult as it used to be to picture the entire universe as sharing in the “redemption of the children of God.”.
