And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
(Gen 1:26)
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
(Gen 1:28)
Did the Dominion Mandate to subdue the earth survive humanity's fall into sin? There are those who claim the mandate died with Adam & Eve's innocence in the Garden. I would like to present evidence to the contrary.
As the verses above indicate, God gave man the assignment to subdue the earth, with particular reference to animal life. Because all earthly authority comes from the Creator, every exercise of authority also carries responsibility.
Let me put it another way: human authority is a responsibility that comes directly from God.
Adam failed to exercise his specific responsibility to safeguard the Garden from trespassers. (For an explanation of this, see my post "Origin of Man's Protective Sheepdog Function" over at the WARSKYL blog.) When the serpent entered the Garden to challenge God's rightful place over man, Adam should have ejected him.
Adam did not assert his authority over a beast that questioned the order of things. His failure was immanently related to responsibility to exercise authority over the beasts of the earth.
So, when Adam failed, did the Lord remove that responsibility from him? To answer that, let's look at the events leading up to the Great Flood.
And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make thee an ark . . . . And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die. But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee. And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.
(Gen 6:13-19, emphasis added)
God laid upon Noah the responsibility of seeing that the animals survived the deluge. In one sense, we could say that God saved Noah -- he found grace in the eyes of the LORD, Gen. 6:8 -- and Noah, in turn, saved the animals.
This is the same dominion responsibility that God gave to Adam & Eve in the Garden. It did not perish in the Fall. But there is another, even more explicit evidence for the survival of the Dominion Mandate.
Take a look at Psalm 8:
O LORD our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth! who hast set Thy glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast Thou ordained strength because of Thine enemies, that Thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.
When I consider Thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the Son of Man, that thou visitest Him?
For thou hast made Him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned Him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.
O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!
(emphasis added)
Some may object that this is a messianic Psalm (see Hebrews 2:6-8) and refers to Jesus alone. But this passage makes it clear that it applies to Him as the Son of Man. That is, he exercises dominion as the Representative Man (as the title Son of Man implies), as the Second Adam.
At the Triumphal Entry, Jesus demonstrated His rightful dominion by riding on an unbroken colt (Luke 19:30-33).
Thus, the Dominion Mandate survived the Fall, and we must make sure that it figures into our economic theory as well as our vocational practice.
Continued in "Foundations of the Free Market, 5"
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