The Spiritual Crisis Behind a Troubled Environment

Last updated on: November 30, 2009 at 12:36 pm by Henry Karlson

The Spiritual Crisis Behind a Troubled Environment 2009-11-30T12:36:19-05:00 Henry Karlson

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Whether or not we are currently suffering from human-made climate change, it has always struck me as odd that any Christian would outright deny we have the power to affect the earth in this fashion. While I believe, despite data being manipulated by all sides of the issue, that modern industrialization has had a significant impact on our climate, I also believe that the full story has yet to be told. Scientists observe the empirical data and give an adequate, but incomplete, analysis of the situation. Why incomplete? Because the hermeneutic used to interpret the data is metaphysically naïve, and ignores the spiritual crisis which has led to our ecological disaster.

The Holy Scriptures, in whatever fashion one wants to interpret them, presents to us the fact that humanity has a profound amount of power and influence over the earth and all that is on it. When humanity found itself in a state of purity, the world was paradise. When we fell into sin, the world became a world of conflict, a world filled with death. Indeed, we find in Scripture that there is a relationship between natural disasters and sin, and this was a fundamental point which the prophets used to understand human history.[1]

But there can be no greater scriptural example of this principle than that of original sin and the fall of humanity in Adam. We are told of the paradise he lived in before the fall; the world was in perfect harmony and order. He did not have to struggle for survival. The world was working for him even as he was working for the betterment of the world (exemplified by the notion that he was giving names to the animals of the world). After Adam sinned, the situation drastically changed. The world was no longer the utopian paradise he had first lived in. It stopped serving him and his every need. Through sin, the ecological system has been shown to be fundamentally changed. Indeed, the power of entropy entered into the ecosystem because humanity now was embraced by death. Life was to continue, but now humanity must struggle in order to survive; the world had become “cursed” due to human sin:

And to Adam he said, ‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, `You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return’ (Genesis 3:17 – 19).

What can we say about this original sin? If one looks closely, an argument could be made for each of the eight deadly sins to have been involved with its execution, showing how each of those sins can, in their own way, degrade the earth.[2] Each tempted Adam and can be seen as working together as Adam gave in to the serpent’s temptation and partook of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil – he gave in to his gluttonous appetite by eating it, an excess which was not his to eat; he gave in to his lust, his inordinate desire, and satisfied it with the fleeting pleasure of the fruit before he found himself in the bitter terror of sin; his greed led him to want what God possessed, thinking he could and should possess it as well; his anger at Eve made him too hot-headed to think about what it was that he was going to do when he took of the fruit himself; in despair, thinking he would never progress beyond the spiritual state he was created in, he took the short cut offered to him, thinking he could attain instant deification; this despair would not have been easily provoked if he did not have an element of sloth, where he wanted to achieve his goal simply and quickly without the right work and labor for it; his pride made him think he was worthy of the fruit he desired, and his taking of the fruit can be seen as a kind of boast, telling God “I am ready whether or not you think I am” when he was not.

Sin continues to interfere with the natural harmony of the world, creating the defiled conditions in which nature itself is perverted. It is easier to see the effects we have upon the world in some ways more than others, where the effect is far more obvious and direct, such as in a case when industrial waste is carelessly thrown into a lake leading to the destruction of all life in that lake. One might ask what kinds of sins could be involved with such an activity. Is it really an issue of sin? If we look to the root causes as to why someone would throw such toxins into a lake, usually we find elements of greed (it is cheaper to do this) and sloth (it is easier to do this) are involved. While we can show an immediate correlation here between the cause and the effect, we must not assume all causalities are so simple to ascertain.

All that exists in the world have various interdependent relationships with one another. The way things interact with each other are often not readily apparent. An individual action, however insignificant in and of itself, might combine with others, slowly leading to a great effect. Each cannot be said to directly lead to the effect, but without each of them, the effect would not exist. One sin might seem to do little harm to the world; but when that one sin is combined with a billion others doing the same thing, the impact will be quite different, and often not understood or rejected by those who want to excuse their sin. In this way, the argument “I’m not doing any harm” might appear to be correct, but it is only looking to immediate, direct harm one is doing, ignoring the long term consequences of one’s actions as they mix with the actions of others. Sin has a corrosive effect upon the people who sin and upon the world, and it is for this reason why no sin can be said to be “harmless” (though, to be sure, some sins are far graver than others, and the harm produced by one can be much greater than the harm of another).

Looking into Western consumerism, it has, like all cultures, some good associated with it, the kind which is used to justify its existence (for example, the concepts of freedom and tolerance which has formed in Western culture), while it also has various sins which it tempts of its people more than others (such as gluttony greed, lust, and pride). Looking at the kinds of sins associated with consumerism, it is easy to see they are the kinds which will slowly have an effect on the world at large. It is because they are not easily satisfied, and so consumerism finds new ways to appeal to them, with new resources being used in each occasion. These sins when brought into the consumer world require excessive resources to be met. They also encourage, through lust, the disregard to moral concerns. It is not just sexuality that lust affects, but the whole person, and the way in which they deal with the passions. Consumerism entices us through lust, and it tells us to give in to the demands of our desires; morality is determined not according to goodness, but pleasure.

While using up one of the things of the earth might not have any immediate adverse effects, the constant use of goods by a multitude of people will have a different result. The world changes one abuse at a time. Let us look, for example, at deforestation. If the trees in a forest are used one by one, the slow destruction of the forest will produce a slow change in the local environment. For example, when the trees are no longer there, erosion becomes a major concern. When the forest itself is gone, more than the trees will be gone; trees help keep in the water; without them, the place can easily dry up. And if one area, once rich with water, has dried up, the effect this will have on bordering areas should be obvious – it is easy to see how this can create a region-wide drought. More importantly, the forest and its immediate environs might slowly change from the fertile, rich land, to a desert, unless something is done to help bring back the water.

The problem of deforestation is, of course, merely one example of how humanity can wreck havoc on the environment, and it is an example which can be readily verified. It shows us how consumption can have a tremendous impact on a region, leading to great negative changes. The problem with the exploration of the world and its overall climate change, however, is that we are not dealing merely with the question of forestation, but in the combined effects of human consumption and the changes it produces on the earth. People who deny this change look to short term, immediate consequences, thinking it proves there is no harm being done; but we should be stewards of the earth and examine the potential long term impact our activity has not just for ourselves, but upon the future of humanity. There is, of course, a difference between use and abuse, but one must be careful not to assume an action is not an abuse because there is no immediately noticeable effect from that action. Consumerism encourages one to consume – to keep using what is available, and it continues only as long as people want to consume and have things to consume. If people are able to live simpler lives without the need for constant consumption, our culture will be changed. As it stands, our culture encourages people to give in to their desires; is there any wonder as to why people sin? If people learn to deny themselves, they will slowly stop being consumers. But this is exactly what we must do. Christians are called to deny themselves, to overcome the passions. In this way, we can not accept the foundations of a consumer mindset.

However, if someone really questions the effect of our sins upon the world, and its ability to transform it, to make it worse, all they need to do is explore traditional worldly eschatology: the world is said to end in the time of humanity’s greatest era of sin. Sin is seen to increase in the world, causing more and more harm to the world, until at last it is so great, the world itself can no longer last.

Now, this is not to say that any era in which there is great sin and great destruction that we have reached the end of time: history shows that people often became aware of the relationship between their actions and sin, and repented, turning back the doomsday clock. Indeed, this should give us hope that we can fix things. If the cause of the devastation is our sinful use of the earth, then if we change our ways, the earth can be healed. But to do so we must repent and reject those lines of thought which promote sin. There must be no question here. When the environment is out of balance, the Christian response should not be to deny human responsibility, but to proclaim it and use it as cause for social metanoia. We must see it as a warning to us and to the world: repent. If we do not, then we must accept, with shame, that the judgment of God is at hand.

Footnotes

[1] Thus we find Scripture showing us God’s judgment is expressed through natural disasters. Cf., for example, Gen 6-9; Isaiah 8:7; Ezek 13:13 14. Paul follows through with this idea by saying the world has been subjected to futility because of sin. Rom 8:20. Now we do not have to think of this as though God is directly intervening through natural disasters (but he can if he so desires); rather, the point is that the natural system itself is affected by our sin, and the natural harmony, being disrupted by sin, slowly reveals that disturbance through such disasters. Spirit and matter are interdependent realities, and what happens in one will have an effect in the other.

[2] The Western tradition has seven deadly sins, the Eastern eight, but this is because the West has merged two (vainglory and pride) together as one. They are: gluttony, lust, avarice, anger, despair, sloth, vainglory and pride. Cf. St John Cassian, The Conferences. Trans. Boniface Ramsey, O.P. (New York: Paulist Press, 1997), 183.

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