Religious teachings on stewardship and dominion, the use of animals for food and experiments, and the duty to care for the environment and natural resources.

What this dot point is asking

AQA wants you to explain religious teachings on stewardship and dominion, the use of animals for food and experiments, and the duty to care for the environment and natural resources. Keep stewardship and dominion distinct, and cover both animals and the wider environment.

Stewardship and dominion

These ideas can pull in different directions: dominion can be read as a licence to use creation freely, but most believers read it together with stewardship, so authority comes with responsibility. The dominant religious view is that humans may use the natural world but must not waste or ruin it.

Use of animals

Christian teaching points to God's care for all creatures ("not one sparrow is forgotten by God", Luke 12:6) and to figures such as Saint Francis of Assisi, who treated animals as fellow creatures. Views on vegetarianism vary: most Christians and Muslims eat meat, but some choose not to out of compassion or concern for the environment.

Caring for the environment

Religious believers increasingly see protecting the environment as a serious duty flowing from stewardship. They oppose pollution, support action on climate change, encourage conservation and recycling, and condemn the waste of natural resources, because the earth is God's creation entrusted to humanity. Many churches and Muslim organisations run environmental campaigns, and damaging the planet is treated as failing in the duty owed to God and to future generations.

For the exam, the sharpest tool is the contrast between stewardship and dominion, because the evaluation questions often test whether religion encourages care for or exploitation of the natural world. A critic might say that "rule over... every living creature" (Genesis 1:28) gives humans licence to use creation as they wish; the religious reply is that dominion is held under God as stewards (or, in Islam, Khalifah), so authority always comes with accountability. Link this dot point back to origins: because both faiths teach that God deliberately created a good world, that world has value and is not merely a resource. A strong answer also gives concrete, current examples, such as reducing waste, recycling, supporting renewable energy, opposing factory farming and choosing humane or halal sources of food, to show how the belief in stewardship translates into action today.