The OLD Philosopher – John M. Miller
Many people have an unnatural conviction in the power of nature to repair itself. There definitely are times when, left to its own devices, nature does overcome the slings and arrows we humans fling at it. There is much scientific documentation to support that.
However, both the natural world and the vast universe beyond our planet have always been plagued with “natural disasters” that nature cannot heal. Millions of animal and plant species have gone extinct long before humans ever set foot on the Earth. Volcanic eruptions forever change landscapes. Earthquakes obliterate whole chunks of the Earth’s land surface. Asteroids collide with planets or moons, causing them to fall out of orbit and thus to spin into oblivion throughout ever-expanding space. Our planet was nearly knocked out of orbit sixty-some million years ago when a huge asteroid crashed into Earth on the western edge of the Caribbean Sea and what is now the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. If that enormous piece of space-rock had been bigger, Earth might have ceased to exist soon after the impact.
Those who are panentheists see God primarily or exclusively manifesting Him/Her/-Itself through nature. Thus to many of them, God is nature, and nature is God.
I believe that the two accounts of creation in Genesis 1-3 are correct in saying that it is God who created nature and everything in the natural universe. It is also correct in its supposition that it was God, and not nature, who made humanity as the primary caretakers of the natural order. Thus mankind has now entered into the Anthropocene Era, the period in which human beings are the main force in determining the geologic future of Planet Earth. (Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson may think they are taking control of space, but even with their extra-planetary-size egos, they delude themselves.)
Humans have far more power than nature to change the future of Earth for the better or the worse. Rapidly advancing climate change should convince us that currently we are killing the world far faster than nature can heal it. Mounds of scientific evidence illustrate that alarming fact. The problem is that humanity is not sufficiently alarmed to take the enormous and expensive measures necessary to halt the destruction of all life upon the planet. We have the power to make the Earth like the other seven (or eight) lifeless planets in our solar system, but we clearly lack the collective will to halt our inexorable selfish slide into annihilation.
Why have we not united to put an end to human-caused climate change? It is because we are essentially me-centered rather than us-centered. By nature, we are more concerned with saving ourselves than with saving everyone together. To state it in traditional theological terms, the original sin in each of us is killing the world. Too few of us have been able to convince everyone else that for our survival, we have no choice other than collectively to take the steps and pay the price necessary to reverse anthropocentric climate change. Stated differently, we alone have the capacity to save the world. Neither God nor nature will do it.
Human beings are the only animals who can make the constant collective choices necessary to keep themselves alive in perpetuity. All the other earthly species are governed by nature to prolong the existence only of their species. Humans are therefore supra-natural but not supernatural. God alone is supernatural.
Because we have thus far refused to save Homo sapiens together, individually we are consigning our species and perhaps every other one to a fairly imminent extinction. Therefore the sapiens half of our self-selected name for our species hasn’t shown itself to be very wise. Do you suppose God is beside Him/Her/Itself with both angst and anger?
John Miller is Pastor of The Chapel Without Walls on Hilton Head Island, SC. More of his writings may be viewed at www.chapelwithoutwalls.org.