An Artful Planet

Abstract

This chapter offers a constructive account of interpreting the Anthropocene and the imago Dei as corroborative symbols interpreted in an astrobiological context of engagement by weaving the crucial themes of intra-action, refraction, planetarity, and deep time together. It proposes that to be the imago Dei is not a property of individuals or even a species but describes a categorical shift in planetary flows of energy and matter. This is a shift from biogeochemical cycles to technobiogeochemical cycles. If human beings live into our shared responsibility for being the imago Dei, then the Earth should be understood as not only a living planet, but an artful one.