ABSTRACT
A significant reason for carrying on the dialogue between theology and the natural sciences is that it offers a coherent and responsible religious basis for ecological ethics. Finding such a basis is imperative. Robert John Russell, along with Ian Barbour, Holmes Rolston, Ted Peters, and others working in the religion and science field, has seen the importance of both a theology that is firmly planted in the world described by the natural sciences and an ecological ethic that can be supported by this type of theology. While many writers have attempted to show a theological basis for ecological ethics by way of the doctrine of creation, incarnation, or a sacramental view of nature, these have been only partially successful. The deeper problem – the history of splitting theology off from the physical world – remains. Therefore many of these attempts have not taken deep root.
