Introduction: Travail of Nature -- Contemporary Ecological Critique of Christian Theology -- Uncertain Voice of Contemporary Christian Theology -- Need for Historical Study -- Ambiguous Ecological Promise of Christian Theology -- Approach: Discerning the Roots of Classical Christian Thought About Nature -- Aids for the Investigation: Metaphors and Motifs -- Experience of the Overwhelming Mountain: The Metaphors of Ascent and Fecundity -- Experience of the Promising Journey: The Metaphor of Migration to a Good Land -- Disjunction and Conjunction: The Three Metaphors and the Formation of the Spiritual and Ecological Motifs -- Historical Beginnings: Irenaeus and Origen -- Challenge of Gnosticism: The Message of an Alien God and an Evil Earth -- Irenaeus: The Dynamics of Creation History and the Affirmation of Nature -- Origen's Cultural Environment: Alienation from Nature in an Age of Anxiety -- Origen: The Dynamics of the Hierarchy of Being and the Degradation of Nature -- Flowering of the Promise: Augustine -- Augustine's Development: Beyond the Legacy of the Manichees -- Augustine's Mature Thought: Creation History and the Overflowing Goodness of God -- Heightening of the Ambiguity: The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century and the Theology of Thomas Aquinas -- Alienation from Nature in the Early Middle Ages -- Rebirth of Nature in the Twelfth Century -- Conceptual Resolutions of Thomas Aquinas: The Subordination of Nature -- Ascendancy of the Ambiguity and an Embodiment of the Promise: Bonaventure, Dante, and Francis of Assisi -- Cosmic Visions of Bonaventure and Dante: Nature as a Ladder to Heaven -- Life and Significance of Francis of Assisi: The Embrace of Nature -- . Liabilities of the Ambiguity: Reformation Theology and the Modern Secularization of Nature -- Luther and Calvin: The Anthropocentric Dynamics of Grace and the Wonders of Nature -- Reformation Tradition and the Modern Secularization of Nature -- Triumph of Personalism: Karl Barth and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin -- Karl Barth: The humanity of God -- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: A Personalistic Universe -- Barth and Teilhard: The Unspoken Ecological Promise -- Retrospect and Prospect: From Classical Christian Thought to the Bible -- Ambiguous Ecological Promise of Classical Christian Thought: The History of the Spiritual and Ecological Motifs -- Toward a New Reading of the Biblical Theology of Nature: Beyond the Claims of the Spiritual Motif -- New Option in Biblical Interpretation: An Ecological Reading of Biblical Theology -- Old Testament Themes: The Ecological Motif -- New Testament themes: The Ecological Motif -- Ambiguity in the New Testament Witness: The Influence of the Spiritual Motif -- Question for Interpreters: The Travail of Nature at the End of All Things.