Indivisible and not absolutized

THESE were two ideas that got stuck in my mind as I read Pope Benedict’s advanced message for the 2010 World Day of Peace, to be given on New Year’s Day.

It’s a message dedicated to our duty to protect the whole of creation, and not just our physical or climatic environment. The title of the message is precisely, “If you want to cultivate peace, protect creation.”

I think the distinction between creation and environment is worth noting. Precisely these two ideas spring from such distinction and clarify it.

The first idea is when the Pope said: “The quest for peace by people of good will surely would become easier if all acknowledge the indivisible relationship between God, human beings and the whole of creation.”

This is a crucial point. Without this, our basic attitude toward any talk about environmental issues would be congenitally flawed and compromised.

The second is when he said: “A correct understanding of the relationship between man and the environment will not end by absolutizing nature or by considering it more important than the human person.”

With all these talks about global warming, climate change, some impending global disaster, etc., these words of the Holy Father give us some comfort amid the increasingly alarmist tone of this issue.

The problem with much of the arguments put forward so far is that God is put out of the picture. And there’s almost an exclusive focus on the material (mainly economic and financial) and the technical aspects of the issue. The ethical and moral aspects are considered taboo.

It’s as if we would just be concerned about the material environment, without considering the whole of creation in its integrity that would intrinsically involve God, the Creator, man as its chief steward, and the rest of the world.

We seem to be framed and corralled within a Godless system when we talk about global warming and climate change. We dare to tackle these issues through pure reason alone, as if they are just a matter of human and natural sciences.

No matter how important and indispensable these sciences are in knowing more about our climatic conditions, they cannot go far and deep enough without the light of faith.

More than that, the sciences alone cannot claim to have all the means to resolve the problem. Faith and religion play a prominent role here, since this problem definitely needs spiritual and supernatural solutions as well.

We need to overcome that bias that cuts a split between reason and faith, science and theology, in talking about such big issues as global warming or climate change. The Pope reminds us that there is an indivisible unity between our earthly affairs and God.

Obviously, we have to respect the distinctive natures of reason and faith. But we also have to learn how to relate them to each other. This is now an urgent need as we begin to grapple with big issues, and they surely will become bigger as we get into a more complicated world.

Besides, now the debate is entering a very disturbing stage since there are well-grounded claims that many of the data presented to support the alarming view of global warming are not exactly accurate. They have been tweaked and massaged, and have ceased to be factual. They are tendentious.

Because of this basic handicap, nature is reduced now to its climatic dimension and seems to be made absolute or more important than the human person. It’s seen more as mere physical environment whose innate relationship to God and to us is ignored if not practically denied.

Thus nature is now given a more independent status, it has become God-like, to which we have to be subordinated. It’s the new God, the new religion, a recycling of an old heresy. Science is its theology and there is no other.

It’s precisely this attitude that generates a kind of tyrannical, authoritarian approach in imposing its position. They are ironically falling into holy war tactics in dealing with skeptics and unbelievers.

The requirements of charity, understanding, patience, prudence, the effort to explain and clarify things without recourse to threats and violence, all necessary in our human dealings, are ignored.

It’s because of this that whatever goodness and truth they have can get in the end distorted and nullified. This would be a pity, since in issues like global warming, it is imperative that we listen to all sides.