Human intervention in the created order

7. To begin with, we would like to deal briefly with a fundamental question that, generally, is posed by the different religious traditions, albeit with different accents:  this concerns the possibility itself that man may licitly intervene in the realities that exist in the universe in general and, more particularly, in those things that concern animals.

In view of the more specifically theological nature of such a question, we deem it useful to offer a short summary of the Catholic position on this question, applying the language and the methods proper to theological anthropology.

By what right can humans, whom God created as female and male, and whose full human dignity must be recognized at every stage of life, intervene in the created order, perhaps even modifying some of its aspects? What criteria must be adopted and what limitations must be introduced?
From imagery of the account of creation "in six days",(⁵⁰) it is evident that God established a hierarchy of values among the various creatures. Moreover, this hierarchy also emerges from a rational consideration of the transcendent richness and dignity of the human person.

Man, created "in the image and likeness of God", is placed at the centre and at the summit of the created order, not only because everything that exists is intended for him, but also because woman and man have the task of co-operating with the Creator in leading creation to its final perfection. "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it" (Gen 1: 28):  this is the mandate that God gives to human beings, "dominion" over the created order, in his name. In this regard, Pope John Paul II writes in his encyclical "Laborem Exercens": "Man is the image of God partly through the mandate received from his Creator to subdue, to dominate, the earth. In carrying out this mandate, man, every human being, reflects the very action of the Creator of the universe".(⁵¹)

This, therefore, is the deepest meaning of the action of man in relation to the created universe:  certainly not that of arbitrarily "lording it over" the other creatures, reducing them to humiliating and destructive slavery in order to satisfy any whim that he may have, but to guide, through his responsible work, the life of the creation towards the authentic and integral good of man (the whole man and every man).

Certain documents of the Second Vatican Council had already affirmed this truth. In "Lumen Gentium", for example, we read: "Therefore, by their competence in secular disciplines and by their activity, interiorly raised up by grace, they (the laity) must work earnestly in order that created goods through human labour, technical skill and civil culture may serve the utility of all men according to the plan of the Creator and the light of his Word. May these goods be more suitably distributed among all men and in their own way may they be conducive to universal progress, in human and Christian liberty".(⁵²) Also the decree of the Second Vatican Council on the apostolate of the laity takes up this idea when it asserts that "this natural goodness of theirs (of the realities that make up the temporal order) receives an added dignity from their relation with the human person, for whose use they have been created".(⁵³)

In summary, therefore, there should be a reaffirmation of the right and duty of man, according to the mandate from his Creator and never against the natural order established by him, to act within the created order and on the created order, making use as well, of other creatures, in order to achieve the final goal of all creation:  the glory of God and the full and definitive bringing about of His Kingdom, through the promotion of man. The words of St. Irenaeus of Lyons still ring out with all their truth: "Living man is the glory of God and man's life is the vision of God".(⁵⁴)