Jesus is God, as Paul makes clear

The topic of the divinity of Jesus is a favourite stomping ground for the kind of biblical scholars who think it their duty to dismiss the transcendent from the text. But such stalwarts of the academic critical form establishment leave a sterile legacy. Fortunately—shall we say providentially?—biblical scholarship does not begin and end at the doors of the institutions that follow reductionist scientism up the blind alley of their own making.

A rich vein of biblical scholarship that enjoys delving into the legacy of the Church can be found in study Bibles from reputable publishers, and in commentaries such as The International Bible Commentary (1998) and the New Jerome Biblical Commentary (1990).

Consider Romans 9:1-5. The final sentence is an important one as we seek clarity as to how the early Church grew in understanding of the width and length, height and depth, of the nature of the one who was man but not a human being, who had dwelt among them. Paul says with a swelling exultation:

I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying, as my conscience bears witness for me through the Holy Spirit  that I have great sorrow and unending anguish in my heart. I would even be willing to be accursed, cut off from Christ for the sake of my brethren who are my kinsmen according to the flesh. They are Israelites who have the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the Law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, came the Christ, God forever, who is over all. Amen.

Speaking of Christ’s origins and his relationship with the Father arising from the last sentence in the reading, the Jerusalem Bible comments: 

Both the context and the internal development of the sentence imply that this doxology is addressed to Christ. Paul rarely gives Jesus the title ‘God’, though cf. Titus 2:13, or addresses a doxology to him, cf. Hebrews 13:21, but this is because he usually keeps this title for the Father cf. Romans 15:6 etc., and considers the divine persons not so much with an abstract appreciation of their nature as with a concrete appreciation of their functions in the process of salvation. Moreover, he has always in mind the historical Christ in his concrete reality as God made man cf. Philippians 2:5+; Colossians 1:15+. For this reason he presents Christ, 1 Corinthians 3:23; 11:3, as subordinated to the Father, not only in the work of creation, 1 Corinthians 8:6, but also in that of eschatological renewal, 1 Corinthians 15:27f; cf. Romans 16:27 etc..

Nevertheless, the title ‘Lord’, Kyrios, received by Christ at his resurrection, is the title given by the Septuagint [the Greek translation of the Old Testament] to Yahweh in the Old Testament, Romans 10:9, 13; 1 Corinthians 2:16. For Paul, Jesus is essentially ‘the Son of God’, Romans 1:3-4, 9; 5:10; 8:29; 1 Corintinans 1:9;15:28; 2 Corinthians 1:19; Galatians 1:16; 2:20; 4:4-6; Ephesians 4:13; 1 Thessalonians 1:10; cf Hebrews 4:14, etc. his ‘own Son’, Romans 8:3, 32, ‘the son of his love’, Colossians 1:13, who belongs to the sphere of the divine by right, the sphere from which he came, 1 Corinthians 15:47, being sent by God, Romans 8:3; Galatians 4:4. The title ‘Son of God’ became his in a new way with the resurrection, Romans 1:4+; cf. Hebrews 1:5; 5:5, , but it was not then he received it since he pre-existed not only as prefigured in the Old Testament, 1 Corinthians 10:4, but ontologically, 2 Philippians 2:6; cf. 2 Corinthians 8:9. He is the Wisdom, 1 Corinthians 1:24, 30, and the Image, 2 Corinthians 4:4, by which and in which all things were created Colossians 1:15-17; cf. Hebrews 1:3; 1 Corinthians 8:6, and have been re-created, Romans 8:29; cf. Colossians 3:10; 1:18-20, because into his own person is gathered the fullness of the godhead and of the universe, Colossians 2:9+. In him God has devised the whole plan of salvation, Ephesians 1:3f, and he, no less than the Father, is its accomplishment (cf. Romans 11:36; 1 Corinthians 8:6 and Colossians 1:16-20). The Father raises to life and judges, so does the Son raise to life (cf. Romans 1:4+; 8:11+ and Philippians 3:21) and judge (cf. Romans 2:16 and 1 Corinthians 4:5; Romans 14:10 and 2 Corinthians 5:10). In short, he is one of the three Persons enumerated in the Trinitarian formulae, 2 Corinthians 13:13+.

The importance of scholarship in support of the truth has been witnessed by the Church's investment of resources, especially its human talent. In the case of the text above, scholars can tell us that it is less likely that Paul intended his final words to be:  “came the Christ. God who is over all be praised. Amen." All is well as long as scholars seek the truth, rather than playing rhetorical games to impress their academic peers. It's clear there is a delight in the exercise of form criticism but little interest in taking a critical stance to that particular form of critically studying a text of significance. 

One reviewer of Bart Ehrman's works has this to say:

This is just one example of Ehrman’s practice of either: (1) inaccurately conveying what the Bible says; (2) accurately conveying what the Bible says, then declaring it’s wrong; (3) arguing the text really doesn’t say what Christians believe it says (why does that matter if what it really says is also wrong?); and (4) citing Scripture in support of his contentions, even though he regularly dismisses Scripture’s validity. 

Another who finds modern reductionist text criticism a barren exterprise offers this thought:

Put simply, the skepticism of Bultmann, Borg, Crossan and Ehrman is out of date. New discoveries have pushed scholarship beyond their fanciful theories and dubious conclusions. The new wave of New Testament scholars readily accept the positive findings of a century’s worth of research, but in the spirit of true scholarship, they have also learned how to be critical of the critics. 

That alternative modus operandi in biblical scholarship is laid out here, describing a new wave of studies that seek the truth in all its dimensions. Go here for one source of balanced scholarship.

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Francis: rethink human power, its meaning and its limits

Photo from PxHere

Pope Francis will spend three days at the top-level COP28 climate conference at Dubai, which starts at the end of this month. His latest letter to the world on the climate crisis presents a bleak vision of planet earth as our home, and offers a depth of insight into how to regain the sensitivity to creation the industrialised world lost long ago. Francis titled this letter Laudate Deum, which means "Thanks be to God", and dates it October 4, the feast day of Francis of Assisi.

His first paragraph is this:

“Praise God for all his creatures”. This was the message that Saint Francis of Assisi proclaimed by his life, his canticles and all his actions. In this way, he accepted the invitation of the biblical Psalms and reflected the sensitivity of Jesus before the creatures of his Father: “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these” (Matthew 6:28-29). “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight” (Luke 12:6). How can we not admire this tenderness of Jesus for all the beings that accompany us along the way! 

Francis dwells on that need for a fresh set of eyes:

Eight years have passed since I published the Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’, when I wanted to share with all of you, my brothers and sisters of our suffering planet, my heartfelt concerns about the care of our common home. Yet, with the passage of time, I have realized that our responses have not been adequate, while the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point. In addition to this possibility, it is indubitable that the impact of climate change will increasingly prejudice the lives and families of many persons. We will feel its effects in the areas of healthcare, sources of employment, access to resources, housing, forced migrations, etc.

The hard-headed drive for a certain kind of development, that where the sole purpose is for the rich to become richer, has been a fundamental mistake in human history:

 In Laudato Si’, I offered a brief resumé of the technocratic paradigm underlying the current process of environmental decay. It is “a certain way of understanding human life and activity [that] has gone awry, to the serious detriment of the world around us”. Deep down, it consists in thinking “as if reality, goodness and truth automatically flow from technological and economic power as such”. As a logical consequence, it then becomes easy “to accept the idea of infinite or unlimited growth, which proves so attractive to economists, financiers and experts in technology”.

It is chilling to realize that the capacities expanded by technology “have given those with the knowledge and especially the economic resources to use them, an impressive dominance over the whole of humanity and the entire world. Never has humanity had such power over itself, yet nothing ensures that it will be used wisely, particularly when we consider how it is currently being used… In whose hands does all this power lie, or will it eventually end up? It is extremely risky for a small part of humanity to have it”.  

[...] a healthy ecology is also the result of interaction between human beings and the environment, as occurs in the indigenous cultures and has occurred for centuries in different regions of the earth. Human groupings have often “created” an environment, reshaping it in some way without destroying it or endangering it. The great present-day problem is that the technocratic paradigm has destroyed that healthy and harmonious relationship. In any event, the indispensable need to move beyond that paradigm, so damaging and destructive, will not be found in a denial of the human being, but include the interaction of natural systems “with social systems”. 

We need to rethink among other things the question of human power, its meaning and its limits. For our power has frenetically increased in a few decades. We have made impressive and awesome technological advances, and we have not realized that at the same time we have turned into highly dangerous beings, capable of threatening the lives of many beings and our own survival. Today it is worth repeating the ironic comment of Solovyov* about an “age which was so advanced as to be actually the last one”.  We need lucidity and honesty in order to recognize in time that our power and the progress we are producing are turning against us. 

Ultimately, we must set goals that rise above the human fault of seeking above all wealth, power and self-interest. Focusing on care for the earth and concern for its inhabitants requires deep change:

In conscience, and with an eye to the children who will pay for the harm done by their actions, the question of meaning inevitably arises: “What is the meaning of my life? What is the meaning of my time on this earth? And what is the ultimate meaning of all my work and effort?” 

The spiritual dimension of our existence on this planet also needs to be recognised:

The Bible tells us: “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good” (Gen 1:31). His is “the earth with all that is in it” (Deut 10:14). For this reason, he tells us that, “the land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants” (Lev 25:23). Hence, “responsibility for God’s earth means that human beings, endowed with intelligence, must respect the laws of nature and the delicate equilibria existing between the creatures of this world”. 

The Judaeo-Christian vision of the cosmos defends the unique and central value of the human being amid the marvellous concert of all God’s creatures, but today we see ourselves forced to realize that it is only possible to sustain a “situated anthropocentrism”. To recognize, in other words, that human life is incomprehensible and unsustainable without other creatures. For “as part of the universe… all of us are linked by unseen bonds and together form a kind of universal family, a sublime communion which fills us with a sacred, affectionate and humble respect.”

Francis has called on the powerful conglomerates and nations to cease and desist their present environmentally destructive and socially harmful roles and to start afresh to achieve a whole-world rescue effort as the impact of climate change bears down on us. But he also speaks of the individual person and the household as having central roles, There is, he says:

[...] the need to realize that there are no lasting changes without cultural changes, without a maturing of lifestyles and convictions within societies, and there are no cultural changes without personal changes.

Efforts by households to reduce pollution and waste, and to consume with prudence, are creating a new culture. The mere fact that personal, family and community habits are changing is contributing to greater concern about the unfulfilled responsibilities of the political sectors and indignation at the lack of interest shown by the powerful. Let us realize, then, that even though this does not immediately produce a notable effect from the quantitative standpoint, we are helping to bring about large processes of transformation rising from deep within society. 

In closing, Francis states that the criteria for decision-making at all levels must involve the exercise of the human family's spiritual capacity:

[...] we can state that a broad change in the irresponsible lifestyle connected with the Western model would have a significant long-term impact. As a result, along with indispensable political decisions, we would be making progress along the way to genuine care for one another. 

[...] when human beings claim to take God’s place, they become their own worst enemies.

Ω Whereas this post treats Francis's insights into the spiritual motivations we need to preserve our common home, an earlier post gives a general summary of this letter to all people of good will.   

*From The Pillar:

But perhaps the quirkiest reference is to the Russian writer Vladimir Solovyov’s apocalyptic A Short Story of the Anti-Christ. The story, published in 1900, imagines the emergence of an Antichrist who establishes himself as a global authority and seeks dominion over Christians worldwide, but faces heroic resistance from Church leaders and is ultimately vanquished by Christ. The pope doesn’t delve into the story’s plot in Laudate Deum, but limits himself to quoting Solovyov’s “ironic comment” about an “age which was so advanced as to be actually the last one.” 

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To be a Christian: human thriving

Photo by PxHere

To have committed oneself to Christ totally must result in an inner transformation which steers us in the direction of goodness and love. To be in Christ is to be free, not freedom to sin but freedom not to sin. True freedom is the ability to choose the good; sin, as a choice of evil, can never be an expression of true freedom, it is an abuse of freedom.

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Paul develops the biblical ideas of ‘redemption’ and of liberation from death, and in order to bring out their implication makes frequent use of a metaphor that his contemporaries would find impressive: the slave redeemed and set free who can be a slave no longer but must serve his new master freely and faithfully. Christ has paid for our redemption with his life; and he has made us permanently free. The Christian must be careful not to let himself be caught again by those who once owned him, i.e. by sin; the Law, with its ritual observance; the principles of the world; and corruption.

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The word ‘obedience’ contains the root of the verb ‘to hear’. To turn a deaf ear to goodness and submit to evil leads to sin and death. To listen to the voice of goodness and submit to it is the way to life. We have a striking example in Jesus who, in obedience to his Father, offered up his whole body in life and in death for our liberation. Jesus “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, becoming as human beings are… and he was humbler yet, even submitting to death, death on a cross” (Phil 2:7-8).

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“Once you were slaves of sin, but thank God you have given whole-hearted obedience to the pattern of teaching to which you were introduced; and so, being freed from serving sin, you took uprightness as your master.” To give ‘whole-hearted’ obedience implies willing submission and not an obedience that is forced, imposed or legalistic.

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Christians have changed masters. From being slaves to sin, they have become slaves to ‘righteousness’, to that inner goodness that results from opening oneself to the love of God that comes through ‘grace’.

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When we surrender to a life of sin, we are headed for death [of our spirit, our humanness]. When we surrender ourselves to God it leads to justice, to goodness. Paradoxically to become the slave of “justice”, or righteousness, is to become free. Freedom, as we said, is the ability to identify totally with the good. To use one’s freedom to sin is a contradiction. And that is what true freedom enables us to do – to choose the good and loving act at all times and in every situation.

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Although some may not see it that way, there is no one who enjoys more real freedom than the one who is totally committed to the Way of Jesus. Because it is the Way, it is the Vision of life, to which we are called by the deepest needs of our being.

By Father Frank Doyle SJ, from his commentary on Romans 6:12-23, which is:

12 Therefore, do not allow sin to reign over your mortal body and make you obey its desires. 13 Nor should you present any part of your body as an instrument for wickedness leading to sin. Rather, present yourselves to God as having been raised from death to life and the parts of your body to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin is no longer to have any power over you, since you are not under the Law but under grace.

15 What then? Should we sin because we are not under the Law but under grace? Of course not! 16 Do you not know that if you offer yourself as an obedient slave, you are the slave of the one you obey—either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?

17 Once you were slaves of sin, but, thanks be to God, you have become obedient in your heart to that pattern of teaching to which you have been delivered. 18 Now, having been set free from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness.

19 I am speaking in human terms because you are still weak human beings. For just as you once offered your bodies as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to greater iniquity, so now present them as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.

20 When you were slaves of sin, you were free from the restraints of righteousness. 21 But what advantage did you get then from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 However, now that you have been freed from sin and bound to the service of God, the benefit you receive is sanctification, and the end is eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift freely given by God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Access the original here - Living Space

Also see Doyle’s commentary on Luke 12:39-48. He writes:

We as Christians, with the guidance of the Scriptures and the teaching of the Church, bear far greater responsibilities for the wrongs we do than others, such as non-Christians or non-religious people, who have less guidance.

Within the Church, there are people who are better formed and better informed and they too bear greater responsibility before God. At the same time, it might be worth pointing out that those who could avail themselves of such formation and information and fail to do so may be also liable to greater accountability. We need to distinguish between nescience and ignorance. Nescience is simply not knowing or not being aware of some truth or value. Ignorance is not knowing what I ought to know and have every opportunity of coming to know.

Ignorance may sometimes be bliss, but not where knowing Jesus and the Gospel is concerned. And wisdom, far from being folly, is a gift to be treasured.

The urgency in Fr Doyle's words arises from his wish that all may have the fulness of life promised in meeting Jesus on our journey to human integrity, that is, wholeness. 

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Chastity as a remedy for soul-pain

Diana, the goddess of chastity, yet 'sovereign and free'

Erik Varden* has a new book out this month on chastity, once a central virtue upheld within society generally, and promoted within Christian circles as a value that safeguarded good order, the moral life. But times have changed. 

Given the spoilation of social mores as the sexual revolution enveloped the West, Varden observes that "we have lost the vocabulary, grammar, and syntax required to speak intelligibly about chastity, and have thereby lost sight of a crucial dimension of human flourishing". 

He continues:

Hearing the word spoken today, we are more likely to think of thwarted sexuality than of dew-besprinkled strength of virtue...

Chastity is the virtue which excludes or moderates the indulgence of the sexual appetite. It is a form of the virtue of temperance, which controls according to right reason the desire for and use of those things which afford the greatest sensual pleasures. (Source) 

Chastity involves the unmarried, the married, each having a different manner of exercising that virtue. For the unmarried, that is the single person, abstinence from sexual activity is necessary for personal growth. For married couples, control of each person's impulses is required for the sake of the welfare of the couple. 

 A virtue, by the way, is a state of excellence in the person. Greek moral thought, which has at its centre the notion of the ideal human life, characterised in terms of eudaimonia or human flourishing, understands the virtues as the building blocks of the edifice that is the human person striving to fulfil their potential.

Celibacy is the state of abstinence from sexual relations. In the religious context, celibacy can describe the life decision of all or most monks and nuns of the Buddhist, Hindu and Christian faiths. Catholic religious brothers and nuns take vows of poverty, obedience and chastity, the last signifying their celibacy. Catholic clergy promise to adhere to the historic discipline of celibacy. Exceptions include where men accepted for the priesthood are already married.

Richer than mere mortification of the senses

Varden: 

...To tie chastity down to erotic abstinence, to mere mortification of the senses is to make of it potentially a tool to sabotage the flourishing of character.

...It is a matter of overcoming inward fragmentation, to find wholeness, and thereby freedom. 

...This kind of purity is reached by passing through the mess, owning it.

This is the register of experience for which Latin authors adopted the terminology of chastity. Lewis and Short, in their Latin Dictionary, explain that the adjective castus in Antiquity was synonymous with integer. The term was generally used ‘in respect to the person himself ’, not so much ‘in respect to others’. Chastity, in other words, was a marker of integrity, of a personality whose parts are assembled in harmonious completeness. 

Now, who wouldn’t want a bit more of that for him or herself, or for the societies in which we move? 

From the ancient Greek philosophers such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, and such Romans as Cicero, the concept of a disposition toward a disciplined life, with a goal of excellence and the fulfillment of potential, was readily taken up by Christian thinkers, though the habitus was already well described in the Old Testament.

Varden continues:

Setting out from the aspiration to wholeness — biblically expressed in God’s call to Abraham: ‘Walk before me and be entire’ (hyeh tamim, Genesis 17.1) — I attempt to evidence the dynamics of ‘chastity’ in relational and sexual life, discourse about which has formed the term’s main habitat since the Middle Ages. I consider the challenge of maturing to chastity through the prism of multiple tensions. Few find their way to integrity without a sense of being pulled in different directions. The experience may recur at different times of life in different ways. There can be joy in it. There can also be a sense of agonising conflict. 

How do we deal with the fact of being at once matter and spirit, two experiential dimensions requiring different kinds of nourishment and direction? How do we position ourselves within the complementarity of male and female? Can a possibly unified path be found between the yearning to be free and the call to ascesis, that is, the conscious education of our passionate lives? 

Given the odium and derision surrounding chastity—and its complement, modesty—efforts to reinstate what is a deeply embedded human experience, both personally and socially, will be difficult. Varden proposes certain steps:

We need pondered, careful, prayerful thought rooted in the Word of God, which alone can explain ourselves to ourselves. 

A longing for the life-giving Logos is implicit in much contemporary sexual confusion, even when it finds expression in terms that seem to have gone off the rails. In a post-secular world, the claims of the soul are as evident as ever they were, for being often expressed negatively, a function of pain, and bodily. Moderns are loath to speak of God, yet readily admit to feeling trapped in creaturely limitation. While giving no explicit credence to doctrines of the afterlife, they are consumed with a yearning for more. While determined to assume their incarnate humanity, they vaguely know that our body points beyond itself, since every apparent satisfaction is but achingly provisional. 

As Christians we have words today’s men and women need to understand themselves at this level. We have no right not to share them. 

Engagement with passions that injure us

More will be provided on that topic later but Varden offers rich pickings in several directions and further clarification as to how chastity fits into the human puzzle is of some urgency as the West increasingly bears the weight of "a two-dimensional account of life and love". 

He states that as a young man "it did not occur to me to see chastity as possessing an intrinsic [and] life-giving attraction". He had not learnt of Cicero's depiction of Diana, the goddess of chastity, as "light-bearing", "roaming everywhere", "sovereign and free". 

He also found Aristotle talking of the process of "purification" leading to an"equilibrium regained by means of engagement with passions which run wild, to bring these back like rebellious horses under reason's sway".

And that's the crux of the matter—the person under the control of reason. Varden puts it this way:

[Chastity is a] term that, at heart, signifies the conscious education of the sexual drive as physical passion, as capacity for tenderness, as the will to live fully, envisaging the gradual attuning of the body, mind and soul.

[It is not] the suppression or oppression of sex, but its maturing, with a view to flourishing and fruitfulness.

Chastity stands for equilibrium. It stands, too, for fearlessness as we find our homecoming to ourselves, which is what chastity amounts to, is not so much an anxious manoeuvring between [...] menaces about us, as the progressive integration of possibilities within.

We are in conflict with ourselves to the extent "Paul bravely confessed to the Romans 'I do not understand my own actions' (Rm 7:15)". We need a lot of markers to resolve the puzzle we encounter within, regarding the affections, the animal impulses, the attractions inspired by cultural standards. However, we need to remember, as Varden writes:

The essence of becoming chaste is not a putting-to-death of our nature, but its orientation, enacted through integral reconciliation, toward fulness of life.

Called to reveal the wealth of our patrimony

Therefore, those who have the welfare of society at heart, both its older generations as well as its young, have a clear commission. Varden explains:

Given the amnesia to which the West has succumbed regarding its Christian patrimony, a chasm extends between ‘secular’ society and the Church’s shore. When attempts are made to holler across, we risk misunderstanding: even when the same words are used on either side, they may have acquired different meanings. Bridges are needed to enable encounter. Christians must present their faith integrally, without temporising compromise; at the same time, they must express it in ways comprehensible to those ill-informed about formal dogma. 

They will often do this most effectively by appealing to universal experience, then trying to read such experience in the light of revelation, weighing their words.

That is how the Fathers preached. That is why their proclamation rings still with such engaging clarity. We must learn to speak likewise, grateful for riches passed down from of old and respectful, at the same time, of our own strange times. No life-giving word was ever uttered with scorn. 

The language with which we proclaim the mystery of faith as it touches the depth of our humanity, our flesh, must be balanced and purified, freed of self-righteousness, anger, and fear — that is, it must itself become chaste.

🞷 ERIK VARDEN is a monk and bishop. Norwegian by birth, he was, before entering the Cistercian Mount Saint Bernard Abbey in England, a Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge. He has published several translations and scholarly monographs and is much in demand as a preacher, spiritual director and lecturer. In 2019 Pope Francis appointed him to the see of Trondheim, Norway. He is the author of The Shattering of Loneliness (2018) and Entering the Twofold Mystery: On Christian Conversion (2022).

Ω See also access to excerpts of Chastity here

Ω Varden discusses this subject here, and here

Ω For Varden's blog, go here

Ω Leave a comment and, if you like this blog, go to my Peace and Truth newsletter on Substack, where you can subscribe for free and be notified by email when a new post is published.

Humanity not just one organism among many

How to resolve the dramatic challenge facing humanity in global warming and climate change? Control the population? Punish polluters? Return to nature? Explore outer space as a step to abandon Earth?

As we saw in my previous post, Pope Francis lays out a plan for action in his letter to all people of goodwill, Laudate Deum, prepared as a motivational resource for participants in the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) at the end of next month.

As we approach this conference it becomes obvious some perspectives on humanity's relationship with Nature miss the mark.

One such is that of  scientific researcher Neil Theise, whose new book presents a theory of complexity that comes down to a Buddhism-inspired pantheism. He also states his ideas clearly here:

So we don’t live in the universe. The universe isn’t an empty box; it’s not a place in which we reside. We are, in fact, the universe: emanating from its substance, within itself.

...because everything is just you. We’re nothing but walking and talking Earth.

Such a thesis is a materialist's attempt to wrap the order and beauty of creation in a thin garment woven from a Buddhist spirituality. But why is the nature of things such that he feels compelled to argue for the inherent compassion of a self-organising universe? In particular, why is the universe self-organising and not utter chaos? Why does the complex entity of the universe seem to display a self-healing compassion rather than a complexity that is totally red in tooth and claw? 

Theise is pursuing in another form the line taken by stalwarts of the Gaia era of late last century who presented the entire planet as more than a symbiotic system, as one behaving as a unified organism.

But from a Catholic perspective, he is singing "Laudato si'"—"Praise be"—to the proofs for the existence of God from order and beauty, describing but failing to define the essential character of this complex system, our common home.

For sure, the relationship between human beings and nature is a close one. But humankind, in reality, has a role as the "summit of the Creator’s work".

In 2019, the Catholic Church in Singapore responded to the confusion surrounding solutions to the unravelling of the relationship between humans and nature.  

The Singaporean reflection states that is essential to distinguish between metaphysical appraches or ideologies that miss the mark and those beliefs accurately identifying humanity’s relationship to the natural world because the stance taken will affect the solutions we propose. The statement continues:

Nature (or the Universe) is not God

One popular idea is that God and Nature are one and the same: that to be “close to nature” or “in union with the cosmos” is to be holy.

But it is wrong.

St. Francis, the patron saint of ecology, differentiated between God and Nature clearly: “His response to nature was to praise its Creator and love the creatures… they are not, as is the Eucharist, identified with God himself” (Francis of Assisi: A New Biography by Fr. Augustine Thompson OP).

It is tempting to praise the Earth as “sacred”, since it nurtures our bodies and – unlike the God of Christianity – makes no uncomfortable moral demands of us. But this ideology, called pantheism, can result in a rejection of human activity and the benefits of science and technology, which include the ability to sustain far more people than if the Earth reverted to an idealised “natural state”.

Humanity is not just one organism amongst many

A secular version of pantheism is deep ecology, the idea that the natural world exists in perfect balance and that humanity has “no right” to interfere with it. We are simply one species out of millions, no more special than birds or bacteria. Deep ecologists reject the Church’s teaching that there is a hierarchy of Creation and that “Man is the summit of the Creator’s work” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 343) with stewardship over all.

Since humanity has no intrinsic right to exist, their solution to the ecological crisis is to curb the human population. Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess has proposed reducing the population to 100 million people, while militant environmentalist David Foreman has said that people in the Third World should just be left to starve to death.

The idea that some should die or be stopped from reproducing so others can maintain their standard of living barely cloaks a racist or eugenic mentality, as the peoples of the developing world – who consume the fewest resources and are most vulnerable to climate change – are most often fingered for reduction.

As Pope Francis pointed out in Laudato Si’, “To blame population growth instead of extreme and selective consumerism on the part of some, is one way of refusing to face the issues.” Decisions about family size must be left to married couples themselves. The implementation of coercive national strategies in this regard is a fundamental affront to human dignity. (Populorum Progressio, 37)

“Natural” is not always good; “Artificial” is not always bad

Deep ecology has led to “deep green environmentalism”, the idea that human activity is bad because it disturbs the balance of an otherwise perfectly harmonious world. Its proponents reject urbanisation, industrialisation and even agriculture, which they believe damage and exploit the Earth.

But the Catholic Church recognises that human activity is good! It is a collaboration with God in perfecting the visible Creation (Catechism, 378). Jesus himself never shunned technology. He worked with carpentry tools and sailed in boats (though he could walk on water!). He told his disciples to follow God by “keeping My word” (John 14:23), not by going back to Nature.

The Second Vatican Council reminds us that “far from thinking that works produced by man’s own talent and energy are in opposition to God’s power, and that the rational creature exists as a kind of rival to the Creator, Christians are convinced that the triumphs of the human race are a sign of God’s grace and the flowering of His own mysterious design” (Gaudium et Spes, 34).

It is morally right, then, to use our God-given abilities to develop technologies to ameliorate the effects of climate change, to curb our reliance on fossil fuels, and recycle better. This is just as we have devised technology over the centuries to feed and to heal, to build and to educate, and to enable people with disabilities to live with dignity.

Technology is not our saviour

It is tempting to hold out technological progress as a silver bullet which can save us from the effects of man-made climate change. But even though new technologies may be under development – and it will be years, if ever, before solutions can be mass-produced and rolled out on a global scale – we must consciously choose more environmentally-friendly ways of living lest we squander any benefits that new technology might bring.

And as stewards of Creation, we bear in mind that “the natural environment is more than raw material to be manipulated at our pleasure” (Pope Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate, 48). Technological improvements must respect the “grammar” that God has made evident in Creation, and not treat it as an obstacle to be overcome.

The fallen state of Creation means that every possible solution comes with pros and cons. We must use our prudential judgement to evaluate the likely effects – not just on the natural environment, but on the economy and on human societies, especially the poorest and most vulnerable.

Just as Moses reminded the Israelites to “Choose life; that you and your descendants may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19), the current ecological crisis is an invitation “to a serious review of [our] lifestyle, which, in many parts of the world, is prone to hedonism and consumerism... What is needed is an effective shift in mentality which can lead to the adoption of new lifestyles in which the quest for truth, beauty, goodness and communion with others for the sake of common growth are the factors which determine consumer choices” (Caritas in Veritate, 51).

Solutions to the environmental crisis

Authentic solutions to the environmental crisis must proceed can only come from the correct understanding of our relationship to God, humanity, and nature. Over-spiritualising Creation can result in measures which devalue the human person and the person's integral development. On the flip side, reliance on technological solutions in place of social and ethical change is a missed opportunity for us to grow in love of neighbour and of God’s Creation.

Let's see what world leaders at COP28 come up with as a pathway toward resolution of the challenges facing our suffering planet.  Also, let's pray that ordinary people around the world will accept the need to adopt new lifestyles, and that the business giants, especially those producing fossil fuels, will rein in their impulse to secure maximum profits, and instead foster the common good of all people and planet. By applying the principle of subsidiarity, each of us can exercise stewardship of our common home in our own way, "since every family ought to realize that the future of their children is at stake". 

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COP28 and Francis's plea for our suffering planet

Trying to make a living, Mekong Delta, Vietnam, 2023

The Vatican released the new apostolic exhortation by Pope Francis, Laudate Deum, to all people of good will on the climate crisis, on 4 October. It is a document intended to follow up on his 2015 encyclical, Laudato Si’, On Care for Our Common Home.

An apostolic exhortation is a teaching document from the pope, which often aims to encourage a particular virtue or activity. Like many papal encyclicals, apostolic exhortations have often developed themes of the Church’s social teaching.

Pope Francis states specifically that the title of this letter is “Praise God” because “when human beings claim to take God’s place, they become their own worst enemies” (#73). By this he means that when we seek power for its own sake we damage both ourselves and the planet.

“Eight years have passed since I published Laudato si’, when I wanted to share with all of you, my brothers and sisters of our suffering planet, my heartfelt concerns about the care of our common home. Yet, with the passage of time, I have realized that our responses have not been adequate, while the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point. In addition to this possibility, it is not to be doubted that the impact of climate change will increasingly prejudice the lives and families of many. We will feel its effects in the areas of healthcare, sources of employment, access to resources, housing, forced migrations, etc.” (2).

I live in Vietnam, which has a population close to 100 million. According to the International Monetary Fund, "... by 2100, climate change could impact more than 12 percent of the Vietnamese population and reduce growth by 10 percent".

Already Ho Chi Minh City, the nation's commercial hub, suffers from flooding in central streets as well as residential areas because it has little elevation above its many tidal rivers and canals. Any rise in sea level will compound what is a dire predicament, not only for this city, but also for the rich agricultural delta regions, where increasingly, sea water intrusion is confounding efforts of farmers to maintain their means of livelihood.  

The IMF study offers a bleak outlook for Vietnam, which is struggling to raise its people from poverty:

Climate change will likely exacerbate pressure on the environment: more frequent and more intense storms could affect crop yields and production, impacting rural incomes, food security, and commodity exports. Increased rainfall intensity will damage roads and railroad networks. Higher temperatures will raise demand for electricity. Risks will weigh disproportionally on the poor who could be forced to migrate inland or towards large cities.

The pope's exhortation uses intense phrasing in striving to move world powers to fulfill the  commitments made at COP21 in Paris in 2015, the last climate conference to have a positive result, which, observers say, flowed from the motivation provided by Francis's Laudato si'. 

In Laudate Deum, Francis points to people choosing to "deride" facts and "ridicule those who speak of global warming," and inertia or indifference by "the great economic powers [business conglomerates], whose concern is with the greatest profit possible at minimal cost and in the shortest amount of time."

A helpful summary develops this line of thought:

Consequently, the pope wrote, "a broader perspective is urgently needed, one that can enable us to esteem the marvels of progress, but also to pay serious attention to other effects that were probably unimaginable a century ago."

People need to assume "responsibility for the legacy we will leave behind" and let go of this "technocratic paradigm" that believes "goodness and truth automatically flow from technological and economic power" and pursues "infinite or unlimited growth."

The great problem, he wrote, is an "ideology underlying an obsession: to increase human power beyond anything imaginable, before which nonhuman reality is a mere resource at its disposal.

"Everything that exists ceases to be a gift for which we should be thankful, esteem and cherish, and instead becomes a slave, prey to any whim of the human mind and its capacities.

"Never has humanity had such power over itself, yet nothing ensures that it will be used wisely, particularly when we consider how it is currently being used." 

Pope Francis called for "rethinking our use of power," which requires an increased sense of responsibility, values and conscience with "sound ethics, a culture and spirituality genuinely capable of setting limits and teaching clear-minded self-restraint."

Also, unhealthy notions about hard work, talent and "meritocracy" without "a genuine equality of opportunity" can easily become "a screen that further consolidates the privileges of a few with great power," he wrote. "In this perverse logic, why should they care about the damage done to our common home, if they feel securely shielded by the financial resources that they have earned by their abilities and effort?"

Francis encouraged people, especially those with an "irresponsible lifestyle connected with the Western model," to reduce pollution and waste, and "consume with prudence." Even though these everyday actions will not produce an immediate, notable effect on climate change, "we are helping to bring about large processes of transformation" and a new culture of care. 

To employ a buzzword, we have to become more "intentional" in simplifying our lifestyle, controlling our wants, and giving far greater respect to the natural order of the world we find ourselves in. Urgency is essential in toning down the customary stance of human domination of Earth, turning instead to the principle of stewardship. We have to learn humility all round.

Ω See also: Resources on the theology and practice of environmental stewardship.

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Artificialism expresses a rejection of Man

From Neanderthal to Homo Sapiens to Techno-Human: The digital person

A new reason to be countercultural—to avoid the wasteland that promoters of the full-blown deployment of artificial intelligence are driving us toward.

Our scrutiny of AI comes as Oppenheimer has been a media talking point both as a film and as the focus of a troubling issue—was it morally right to develop the nuclear bomb? Nuclear energy—of benefit to humankind, generally speaking; nuclear weaponry—still a danger to nations and, in extremis, to the continued existence of humanity on this planet.

We are at a similar point on our journey with regard use of AI. From Scientific American:

A 2023 survey of AI experts found that 36 percent fear that AI development may result in a “nuclear-level catastrophe.” Almost 28,000 people have signed on to an open letter written by the Future of Life Institute, including Steve Wozniak, Elon Musk, the CEOs of several AI companies and many other prominent technologists, asking for a six-month pause or a moratorium on new advanced AI development.

And significantly, (from here and here), concerning the "Godfather of AI": 

Geoffrey Hinton, perhaps the world’s most celebrated artificial intelligence researcher, made a big splash a few months ago when he publicly revealed that he’d left Google so he could speak frankly about the dangers of the technology he helped develop.  

[...] Hinton’s basic message was that AI could potentially get out of control, to the detriment of humanity. In the first few weeks after he went public, about those fears, which he had come to feel only relatively recently, after seeing the power of large language models like that behind OpenAI’s ChatGPT. 

[...] Now consider the combined possibilities that machines can truly understand the world, can learn deceit and other bad habits from humans, and that giant AI systems can process zillions of times more information that brains can possibly deal with. Maybe you, like Hinton, now have a more fraughtful view of future AI outcomes.

Some are not worried. Advances in technology must take their own course, they say. We should go wherever science and technology takes us, even if it is to our detriment. We are just "star dust"; and if humans disappear from this planet, so be it. 

As I write I'm thinking of the likes of Yuval Noah Harari, with his work, Homo Deus: "... humans have completed their cosmic task and should now pass the torch to entirely new kinds of entities", among which are techno-humans, part of the brave new world of transhumanism. The frightening self-invention lauded under gender ideology gives us an inkling of what awaits us as mere creations of genetic engineering and brain-computer interfaces.

However, there is another perspective on our management of the human future:

I believe the third millennium is so far best understood as the dawning awareness of the Crisis of Man. It is a crisis involving every person on earth, and mankind’s relationships to earth; and to animals, to plants, to the sky, to the waters, to the weather, to the atoms, to the heavens.

What reality is (1), who we are (2), and what is the basis for understanding the relationship between them (3), are the foundational questions which are under dispute.

This is from writer and parent Tara Thieke, who identifies the culprit in the upheaval of WEIRD society as Artificialism:

The pain of the Crisis is that many people adhering to old answers are only beginning to realize they live in a society shaped at every level by new answers, answers which communicate a profound rejection of Man and interpret reality as a place devoid of limits.

Artificialism is the common ideology bonding the New Answers. It begins in ancient Greece with the theory of atomism; it lurked in the background as the nominalists and realists quarreled in the medieval universities; it spurred the great consciousness shift of the Scientific and Industrial revolutions which produced scientism and reductionist materialism.

With the reach of contemporary technology, Artificialism builds on its past gains by prompting a new (ancient) rejection of reality, Man, and communion-based knowledge. Artificialism is no longer a denier of essences, but a promoter of self-created fantasies [...]. It used the blank slate when it was suitable; today it uses gnostic gender ideology when that is appropriate. 

All that the Artificialist ideology wants is to replace Creation and Man. It will use anything to get there, and we have allowed it. Our engagement with its incessant temptations atrophies our memories, our skills, our hands, our bodies. It really only leaves us with feelings of addiction and rage, feelings so exhausting that we numb them by rushing back to the Artificial virtual domain to get another rush of dopamine. Increasingly the Artificialist institutions program us to fit their desires via their algorithms.

A crucial point in answer to the questions, Is it inevitable? and Is it right?:

It’s understandable to feel a surge of doubt and helplessness when one suspects one is surrounded. But not one of the futures proposed by the Artificialists is truly inevitable, and they are all dependent upon enormous amounts of deceit and manipulation. What makes Man so interesting, his ability to make choices, is something the Artificialists abhor. They do not want Man to be More Man; they want us to be something distinctly less.

A unit, not a face. A quantity, not a quality. Matter and Man must be deprived of their meaning and Man convinced it could not be otherwise. God and reality had to be deprived of truth claims so the institutions could replace them with gods they crafted to serve their own desires.

How do we respond to the brave new world? 

Thieke quotes approvingly the insight that: 

"... industrial society [is] ‘a world above the given world of nature,’ where I came to see how the ‘above’ was brought about through ‘artificial synthesis,’ as in the isolation of active ingredients and their synthetic counterparts." 

She writes:

We are told to dwell in fear about a climate change crisis, and we experience troubling shifts in our environment. What makes all the difference, though, is how and who we allow to interpret this information for us.

Is the remedy to our ills a yet further plastic-ification of the world, to give greater power to the same technocrats who have most notoriously rejected respecting Nature’s limits? Is it to consider how Artificialism is warping our food, has poisoned the water, tortured and manipulated animals, and at every moment showed a determination to replace what is given with a synthetic, controlled option?

Her conclusion is a sweet one for the worried and the weary, though I doubt its simplicity of expression excludes a radical countercultural stance, and a willingness to enter the battle to reshape society in order to be able to celebrate the natural and the human, limitations and all. Thieke puts it this way:

You do not have to craft an entire worldview on your own to resist Artificialism. You do not have to fight Goliath at every moment, all on your own, forever:

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” Matthew 11:28-29

The work was done long ago on the Cross. We do not need to fight the new System with yet another new System. It is the prayer of the heart softened by metanoia, not Systems, which fully answers the triad of the questions under dispute. It is our relationship with the Holy Spirit which is the summum bonum of Man and Creation. 

Ω See also: Why science needs to break the spell of reductive materialism 

Ω Leave a comment and, if you like this blog, go to my Peace and Truth newsletter on Substack, where you can subscribe for free and be notified by email when a new post is published.