Abstract:
John Calvin has been largely studied given his influential role in the Reformation. I
come from a Church with strong Calvinist traditions. During catechisms, we were
mainly taught about Calvin’s theology in areas such as predestination, redemption,
Christology, power, and sacramental theology. Little has been said regarding the
ecological dimensions of his thoughts. It is only recently that the Presbyterian Church
has issued the devotional study guide in response to the United Nations Sustainable
Development Goals (2015). But the manual is more a report than a systematic ecological
teaching based on Calvin. The question is how far Calvin’s cosmology can contribute
to shape Christian attitudes toward nature. This article tries to answer this question
by retrieving the ecological implications of Calvin’s comments on different aspects of
Genesis 1.
