Sustainability as Centering: a biblical-theological reading of space-time

Sustainability involves all areas of human life with the declared aim of improving the future quality of life itself. The more the contemporary discussion about sustainability increases its pervasive contribution, the more it needs to be funded on clear and strong basis and roots, both of meaning and of ethics. It certainly opens the door to new creative involvements of technology, science, humanities, economics, and ethics, to grow up in relations and peace. However, the possibility also emerges that this concept, thanks to its appeal, could be used to cover unclear operations in globalized confusion. For this reason, we propose a small, but hopefully useful, perspective on the opportunity that an expanded concept of Sustainability opens up, fixing our gaze on the term itself and its foundations. In order to suggest an investigation about the possible depths and foundations of Sustainability, I specifically propose three objectives: (1) trying to re-read the biblical text of the Creation of the Cosmos (in particular Gen 1:1 and Gen 2:9) to highlight the features of a new “centring” for the space-time as an Environment, to have a solid reference on which to build an ethically-based Sustainability; (2) offering a reading of the Canticle of the Creatures of St. Francis that evidences how this centring can be understood as a clear reference to the Creator and to our vital relationship with the Creator God; (3) defining a “Centred Sustainability.”