Abstrakt
The article examines where the modern concept of landscape came from and how it developed to bear both a physical and a symbolic meaning, associated in theology with the interrelationship between human beings, nature and God. Through close readings of the biblical and theological texts operating with the neighbouring images, such as the earth, the garden and the land, it examines various modes of human beings' relationship to their surrounding and through that to God, various interplays between nature, culture and eschatology.
It shows why speaking about landscape (both physical and symbolic) is outside of property relations and how it helps in addressing issues of human and ecological solidarity. While the article pleads for human responsibility in relation to other people, nature and God, it also shows that such responsibility is possible because the divine creative energies continue to flow to this world, because Messiah comes to restore the broken forms of communion among people, nature and God, and the Spirit transforms us and accompanies us as we cooperate with the messianic work.