Creation or Nature? A Manner of Speaking

Robert Quam

Article Type: Article

Publication Date: 4/1/1991

Issue: The Environment (Vol. 11, No 2, Spring, 1991)

What difference does it make to speak of “creation” rather than “nature”? As designations for “the environment,” the words are often used interchangeably, as though each had reference to the same essential reality. Yet the freight of meaning each word carries takes its own distinctive shape and may have, in fact, a quite different destination from the other. But the use of the terms “nature” and “creation” suggest differing assumptions about both environment and humans. They also point in differing directions for the ways those assumptions may be worked out.

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