What if our world were considered a gift? Extending postmodern gift theory to ecological and ecotheological concerns, Mark Manolopoulos explores how "creation"—the what-is—can be seen as a gift. Creation, when viewed in a radically egalitarian way, is the matrix of all material things—human, otherwise-than-human, or humanly manufactured. Utilizing and critiquing the work of Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Marion, Manolopoulos argues that the gift is an irresolvable paradox marked by the contradictory elements of excess (gratuity, linearity) and exchange (gratitude, return). Philosophical and theological reflections on the gift become entangled in its paradoxical tension, but ultimately both aspects must be respected and reflected. When it comes to the creation-gift, we should vacillate between responses like letting-be, enjoyment, utility, and return. Elegantly written and thought-provoking, If Creation Is a Gift both contributes to the ongoing debate on the gift and provides a fresh philosophical and theological consideration of the environmental crisis.

本書は世界を根源的な「贈り物」と捉え直す、知的興奮に満ちた哲学の書です。デリダらの贈与論を鮮やかに解体し、人間と自然、さらには人工物までもが等しく存在する「創造」の地平を提示します。恵みの過剰さと交換のジレンマが織りなすパラドックスは、環境危機に揺れる現代人に、共生への新たな倫理を痛烈に突きつけます。 映像版が「贈り物」としての世界の美しさを感性に訴えかけるのに対し、原作はその豊かさを享受しつつも「放っておく」という矛盾する応答の深淵を論理で貫きます。映像の直感的な感銘と、テキストがもたらす峻厳な思索。この双方向の体験こそが、読者を世界という驚異の当事者へと変貌させる至高のシナジーを生み出しています。