Will God Save Us from Ourselves?

A common argument that Christians advance to refute climate change is either that it is a politically fashionable dogma that remains unproven, or that climate change is real but unrelated to human activity. In any case, the argument goes, as Christians we believe in the word of God, and in Genesis, God promised to “never again curse the ground because of man.” (Genesis 8:21). God’s promise is that “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22), and that God will never again bring a flood to destroy the earth (Genesis 9:11).

This message has clearly resonated with many who profess to be disciples of Christ. A 2015 Pew Research Center study found that while 64% of the unchurched believed that climate change is  due to human activity, the proportions for white evangelicals and Catholics were 28% and 45% respectively. (The study was conducted shortly before the release of Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si.)

This argument in rejecting the dangers of climate change is itself inconsistent. If climate change is not real and therefore does not pose a dire threat to humanity, there’s no need to invoke God’s promise. After all, God’s promises are irrelevant in the face of something that isn’t really happening. But just in case, sort of as an insurance policy, it seems wise to throw God and the Word of God into the mix.

The evidence that human activity is leading to the destruction of our common home, however, is incontrovertible. Given that, invoking Genesis and God’s promise to not destroy the earth poses numerous theological problems.

The Israelites understood God’s gift of the land as a conditional one: while the Israelites were allowed to live in the land, God retained ownership. We must interpret God’s gift of dominion (Genesis 1:26,28) in the same light: it grants us not an absolute right of ownership and control, but rather places us in the role of steward or caretaker. To put it another way, despoiling our common home whose stewardship God has entrusted to us is a sin not to be taken lightly.

But the reasons that we are allowing our common home to die make this this sin even more serious. Much of the crisis facing our common home is caused by rampant consumerism: by an economic system that encourages ceaseless acquisition and views the products of human labor as disposable. When we participate in this culture of conspicuous consumption, convenience, and disposability, we dishonor God’s gift of stewardship at the same time as we devalue of the labor of those who produce the commodities we take so lightly. Although we may say, “Blessed be the Lord. I have become rich” (Zechariah 11:5), it is our possessions that we value; God is merely the first cause for our gratification. This is a form of idolatry, a still more serious sin.

And although our common home and all of its life is threatened by climate change, its primary impact is on the world’s poor. In other words, by denying and refusing to respond to the crisis facing our common home, we are contributing to the oppression of the world’s poor. This completely violates the Biblical mandate to love our neighbor and particularly to “seek justice and correct oppression” (Isaiah 1:17).

Denying climate change then involves serious sin, including contributing to the oppression of our brothers and sisters, casting God in the role of servant and devaluing God’s provision to us, and engaging in idolatry by living for our material possessions. How, then, is God likely to respond to such serious sin? Will God choose to overlook it and “recall” his promise to not destroy the earth?

For Catholics, there is a clear answer to this question: God will not save us from the consequences of our own sin. Many evangelical fundamentalists take the opposite view: our profession of faith in Jesus Christ “covers” our sins, so that when God looks at us, he sees only an image of His sinless son, and not us in our sinfulness. In Catholicism, however, our faith in Jesus Christ, as it interacts with God’s grace and our own good works, should result in greater holiness and righteousness. The sins we are describing – covetousness, oppression of the poor, and idolatry – are certainly not expressions of holiness.

In other words, God is not our security blanket. God will not save us from the consequences of our own sinful actions. God will not save us from ourselves. We must pray that God give us the grace both to recognize the ways in which we participate in this culture of consumption and to repent so that we can act in meaningful ways to save our common home.