This Planet Is N0T Full

A couple with one son in Ho Chi Minh City.
Photo Nghia Pham/ Thanh Nien

A lot of people are scared that the growing world population is about to overwhelm us. These people are typically of two kinds: the first are older people of the Population Bomb era (published in 1968), and typically in developed countries; the second group are those in developing countries where the population is still growing and who see the difficulties of poor countries trying to accommodate millions moving from farms to cities.

From the views expressed in both parts of the world it is clear that there is widespread ignorance about what world and local statistics are showing us about what is really happening with regards population. It may seem amazing to many that in a highly populated (and still growing) country like Vietnam, government officials are calling on couples to have more children because the birth rate in major cities is as low as 1.3 children per woman, far below the  2.1 replacement rate, and they fear adverse economic consequences in the decades ahead.
Similarly, in Bangladesh, which has repeatedly been used as an example of a population basket case, the total fertility rate is near the simple replacement level, but lower in better-off areas. The drop in births has come despite big gaps in the use of contraception, especially with low use among the higher-income groups.

A rigorous view of how the world’s population, food supplies, and quality of life stack up is given in a book edited by Ian Goldin of Oxford University called Is The Planet Full? The collegial assessment by the scholars included in that text is that the expected peak population of about 10 billion people should be able to “equitably exist on a finite planet”. There are conditions to this optimism, however, conditions that have been the focus of those who have engaged on the world debate in previous decades to oppose the panic-stricken calls of “abort (or contracept) the savages”!
Those who have tried to defend human dignity have argued in the same way that Goldin and his colleagues do when they conclude that, given the finite planet, there must be a  deliberate redistribution of resources. Further, optimism is possible “only if our exploitative relationships between population, consumption and the environment are simultaneously addressed”, as Rebecca Jarvis observes in a London School of Economics Review of Books blog. 

God is God - I'm not!

Incorporating a religious, especially a Christian, dimension in our life is of immense value. Taking on board the spirit of the Bible, and that of Jesus, sets us free of all the distortions in our view of what is true and good and noble, and enables us to make decisions that, in reality, make our life satisfying. Here is a valuable insight into this predicament that confronts the well-being of Western society in particular:

Society, more and more, gives us license to be grandiose, to set ourselves up as the center and proudly announce that

publicly. Not only are we allowed today to get too big for our britches, we aren’t culturally admired unless we do assert ourselves in that way. And that’s a formula for jealousy, bitterness, and violence. Grandiosity and restlessness need healthy guidance both from the culture and from religion.

Today, we generally do not see that guidance. We are dangerously weak in inculcating into the consciousness of society, especially into the consciousness of the young, a number of vital human and religious truths: To God alone belongs the glory! In this life ultimately all symphonies remain unfinished. You are not the center of the earth. There is real sin! Selfishness is not a virtue! Humility is a virtue! You will only find life by giving it away! Other lives are as real as your own!

We have failed our youth by giving them unrealistic expectations, even as we are depriving them of the tools with which to handle those expectations.

[]  See also The Mess of the Post-Christian Age

A problem with science

       Detail from Salvador Dali's      
 Enigma Without End

An up-and-coming German philosopher has some critical words about the way  many in his own field and in the scientific world think about what we can know as real. Markus Gabriel, a professor of philosophy and chair of epistemology at the University of Bonn, Germany, highlights what has been been described as "the cavernous gap separating sophisticated professionals from healthy common sense".  The English translation of his book, Why the World Does Not Exist, has just been published by Polity Press.

In a review, New York academic Richard Wolin points out that Gabriel identifies particular branches of study as "inherently flawed, because their scientism — the conviction that science alone represents the royal road to truth — leaves no room for phenomena like poetry, reverie, or human intimacy, experiences that prove refractory to laws of causal determination".

"More seriously, the epistemological dogmatism of such approaches risks codifying a new species of metaphysical intolerance, since they condescendingly stigmatize competing claims as "unscientific." As Gabriel pointedly remarked in a 2014 article in Die Zeit: "At an earlier point, God and fate were invoked in order to deprive us of our freedom; today, it is ‘nature,’ ‘the universe,’ ‘the brain,’ ‘the egoistic gene’ or ‘evolution.’"

While the ordinary person welcomes Gabriel's highlighting of the intolerance of scientism, his inclusion of imagined creatures like elves or the unicorn as having the same ranking as the concrete reality around us posits little obvious change from "the ludicrousness of the cul-de-sac in which much of academic philosophy finds itself today", as Wolin puts it.
[] See also: The scourge of lying and cheating in science

Justification for Catholics and Protestants

Though the issue at the root of the Reformation was the ultimate authority in the Christian Church, whether scripture or the office of the pope as the locus of tradition, which is the content of belief in God and His church, the heart of the theological conflict was justification. The Protestants denied the value of good works in the matter of salvation, linking eternity with God after death solely to the will of God, or predestination. The Catholic response at the Council of Trent (1545-1563) was like this, as one historian describes it:

[All people] … stood condemned because of Original Sin and were saved only by the sacrifice of Christ. They had to respond freely to the offer of salvation, but the response was made possible only by “predisposing grace” that was offered to all, without any merit on their part, since God desired that all should be saved. Once accepted, such grace rendered human works meritorious in God’s sight, so that, contrary to the Lutherans, justification was not merely “imputed” to [the individual] by a merciful God, but [all people] were actually made righteous by Christ’s sacrifice.
[Everyone] could overcome sin, because concupiscence, though an ineradicable part of human nature, was merely a disposition to sin, not sin itself. As often as [people] fell, they could be raised up again, especially through the sacrament of penance, because even mortal sin caused the loss only of grace, not of faith.
Although faith was received as a gift, by cooperating with grace and performing good works, believers could grow in hope and charity and be made capable of obeying the Law. But they should also not have ‘vain confidence” that they would never lose the gift of salvation, as the Protestant doctrine of predestination implied, since, because of their free will, [all people] could either grow in righteousness or lose grace through their own fault.

James Hitchcock, 2012, History of the Catholic Church, Ignatius Press, San Francisco

Lutheran Bishop Christian Krause and Cardinal Edward Cassidy sign The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification on October 31, 1999, in Augsburg, Germany

After a long period of study and dialogue, the Lutheran World Federation and a pontifical body of the Catholic Church in 1999 presented The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, which carried these statements: 

40.The understanding of the doctrine of justification set forth in this Declaration shows that a consensus in basic truths of the doctrine of justification exists between Lutherans and Catholics. In light of this consensus the remaining differences of language, theological elaboration, and emphasis in the understanding of justification described in paras. 18 to 39 are acceptable. Therefore the Lutheran and the Catholic explications of justification are in their difference open to one another and do not destroy the consensus regarding the basic truths.
41.Thus the doctrinal condemnations of the 16th century, in so far as they relate to the doctrine of justification, appear in a new light: The teaching of the Lutheran churches presented in this Declaration does not fall under the condemnations from the Council of Trent. The condemnations in the Lutheran Confessions do not apply to the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church presented in this Declaration.

Though the Lutheran World Federation did not accept the declaration without some adverse votes, the World Methodist Council unanimously adopted the document in 2006. On the Catholic side, the response had a wary tone. As the Catholic negotiating party, the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity had accepted the value of the consensus achieved, but the official Catholic position was that the areas of agreement were not "such as would eliminate every difference between Catholics and Lutherans in the understanding of justification". The Catholic response expressed the hope that dialogue would continue.

Predestination properly understood

http://pushpublishing.co.uk/predestination-whats-fuss/

Though the issue at the root of the Reformation was the ultimate authority in the Christian Church, that is, scripture or the office of the pope as the final arbiter of  the content of belief in God and His church (tradition), the heart of the theological conflict was justification and with it predestination. The Protestants denied the value of good works in the matter of salvation, linking our eternity with God after death solely to the will of God.  You were saved or you weren't! The Catholic response at the Council of Trent (1545-1563) is interpreted here by James Hitchcock (2012):

[Trent declared that all people] … stood condemned because of Original Sin and were saved only by the sacrifice of Christ. They had to respond freely to the offer of salvation, but the response was made possible only by “predisposing grace” that was offered to all, without any merit on their part, since God desired that all should be saved. Once accepted, such grace rendered human works meritorious in God’s sight, so that, contrary to the Lutherans, justification was not merely “imputed” to [the individual] by a merciful God, but [all people] were actually made righteous by Christ’s sacrifice.

[Everyone] could overcome sin, because concupiscence, though an ineradicable part of human nature, was merely a disposition to sin, not sin itself. As often as [people] fell, they could be raised up again, especially through the sacrament of penance, because even mortal sin caused the loss only of grace, not of faith.

Although faith was received as a gift, by cooperating with grace and performing good works, believers could grow in hope and charity and be made capable of obeying the Law. But they should also not have ‘vain confidence” that they would never lose the gift of salvation, as the Protestant doctrine of predestination implied, since, because of their free will, [all people] could either grow in righteousness or lose grace through their own fault.

James Hitchcock, 2012, History of the Catholic Church, Ignatius Press, San Francisco

Death is beautiful though dreaded

American blogger Rod Dreher has reported to the world the last days of his father, Ray, who died aged 80. "It was a beautiful death", he stated. But Dreher later reviewed the nature of that event, which is so climactic for every person, young or old. Many people do not know what a "good death" looks like. Dreher's willingness to share what he witnessed and felt deserves our gratitude.

Ray Dreher near death

That first reaction was a delight almost in the way family and friends supported his father as best they could. "He was not useless to the rest of us. His utility was in giving us a chance to serve him." The love shown by family, friends and members of the community had a richness that could only draw forth a fullness of gratitude that this man had made possible by choosing to follow the path of his life to the end, rather than cutting it short in a mess of conceit.

In due course, Dreher describes the fight against the darkness* that his father had to wage alone, while those around him remained the supporting cast. These are some excerpts from several days' blog entries:

Daddy was one of the most intelligent men I’ve ever known, but he distrusted contemplation. He was a man of action. His entire sense of self depended on his ability to do things. Ray Dreher house-bound and bedridden was not Ray Dreher at all, in his mind. His greatest suffering, I think, was his loss of identity.

Daddy felt useless, and in a different culture, this would have tempted him to euthanasia. Nearly everything that gave his life meaning had been taken from him. He could not stand to be dependent on anybody, for anything, but in the last period of his life, he could not do anything on his own. Why did he not kill himself? Perhaps it was out of Christian conviction, but I think it’s closer to the truth to say that he thought it would be the coward’s way out. Better to bear it till the end. And that he did.

If anyone thinks of the sick, the elderly, or the infirm as useless — or if they think of themselves as useless — send them to me. They are gifts to the rest of us to make us more compassionate, and more Christ-like, therefore more human. It was hard to look upon the wreckage of my once-handsome, once-strong father’s body as he lay dying this past week, but it was also a lesson in humanity, and a lesson in divinity. And it was a lesson that my action-hero daddy taught me about the value of not simply thinking about things, but acting on those thoughts.

Death humbles us all.

 There is something uplifting in the character of Ray Dreher. His son portrays it this way:

As a philosophical and theological matter, I didn’t quite agree with Daddy about the role of suffering, and how to meet it, but it was impossible not to admire — mostly — the moral courage with which he endured. I posted a photo yesterday of him as a boy; you can see in those eyes an intense determination to seize life, and wrestle it to the ground.

That's the type of person I hope will (or does) make up the great majority of every society. People who are determined to go all the way, no matter what, even if there is no other reason than "it's there!" That's where the dignity of the human lies, not in closing their life down before they have experienced it all, though hard and humbling.

* Dylan Thomas expresses the need to see strength rather than the debasement of the man when he calls on his father: "Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray." Thomas's father was a learned man, but could be fierce with it. Thomas does not care what his father does toward him but he wants to see a sign of the old man's former strength. The son needed the father even as the father approached death. Listen to Thomas read his own poem, with that particularly emotional last stanza, here.

The mess of a post-Christian age

It does make a difference to the quality of life for everyone if a critical mass of the people in any country discard or fail to appreciate - and therefore do not accept - a set of principles that has guided relationships and behaviour for hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of years. It's the older generation that has seen a change of this sort in our own era, though it is becoming obvious many more that the lack of acknowledged standards of behaviour does impact the quality of life generally.

The latest evidence of this finding is the column by Will  Hutton, the  principal of Hertford College at Oxford University, and chair of the Big Innovation Centre there. He has been commenting on society and politics for 15 years in The Guardian and Observer. His August 16, 2015, piece expresses his dismay at how many more people are ignoring “the inner voice of restraint”. In Hutton's words: "already coarse times are becoming dramatically coarser" and  there is  "a widespread feeling that everywhere – from sport through business to journalism and politics – the boundaries of acceptability are being stretched". He gives evidence of specifics but in general terms he observes:

In sport there does seem to be a decline of respect for opponents, a rise in gamesmanship and a growth of the sheer pursuit of material ends. Competition in football, cricket, tennis, cycling or athletics for too many is not for the love of the game or for joy in your prowess, but for money, with ever less shame in pursuing that goal.

Nor is this confined to sport. You only need look at the vitriol and spite among bloggers, the incredible aggression in many emails even between colleagues in the same office or the vicious misogyny emerging online to worry that the terms of social interaction are being degraded.

 Similarly, the decline in ethics in finance and business, the manipulation of the prices of financial assets, balance sheets and obligations to pay tax are part of the same phenomenon.

As to reasons why the West, in particular, has been infected by the type of conduct that appalls him, Hutton points out that "the internal voice that checks any of us in our naked pursuit of what we want seems ever weaker". Further,

The shared social and cultural capital that used to generate a sense of shared duty to the game is in retreat. Respect withers. Self-interest rules. There is a surrender to me-first, trash-your-opponent values[...]

Part of the reason is that an all-encompassing big-tent culture to which we all belong and which has the power to stigmatise and make individuals shamed is fragmenting into mini subcultures, defining themselves by loyalty to their own and opposition and hatred of the other. 

Hutton's fear is that thought "capitalism can be driven by a moral purpose; ICT and the internet can be forces for good", the  pervasive "libertarian" society will increasingly focus solely on "personal enrichment", where "it is everyone for themselves".

 And the brutal culture on a tennis court or trading room naturally follows. We need a better public space, and philosophy, than this. 

 Read the whole thing here.