Connecting the Dots: The Religious Challenge Submerged in Global Climate Change
Posted On December 4, 2015
“Everything is related, and we human beings are united as brothers and sisters in a wonderful pilgrimage, woven together by the love God has for each…and which also unites us in fond affection with brother sun, sister moon, brother river and mother earth. Pope Francis,” Laudato Si (2015)
Where is God?
This is the question I ask as millions across the globe raise their voices in the disastrous effects of climate change on those who have no recourse on adjusting to climate change. I worked in the Philippines for 13 years and saw first hand how warming oceans create bigger storms, acidified oceans curtail fishing, air pollution that kills many asthma sufferers, rising oceans that displace those with little place else to go. We are connecting the dots from climate change to exasperated poverty and even war and terrorism is fostered through these forces which show no sign of let up.
Pope Francis is also helping us connect the dots between the faith, the presence of God, our role in salvation, and the complexities of ecological crisis. As important as science is in this great challenge, it is not the only way to interpret this crisis. Pope Francis speaks of the role of faith, the cultural richness of humanity, art, poetry, the interior life, and spirituality. The conversation of faith and reason, science and theology bring new vigor to the answers we all seek. Pope Francis says that the Church wants this to occur.
An extraordinary book by Diana Butler Bass called Grounded: Finding God in the World, has been my companion this Advent. The rising hope of the prophets in these weeks of Advent, and the birth of the Savior in the nitty gritty of life is all about finding the mysterious and ineffable power of God in the world, the stuff of life we live and breath everyday.
The Breath of God
The very creation of the world that evolved over billions of years is about the Creator that continues to create through the movement of stars, planets, and tectonic plates in the earth. The science that helps us understand the evolution over billions of years is the very hand of God.
Diana emphasizes this point in her sense of the breath of God. “After 2.3 billion years ago, ancient organisms called cyanobacteria appeared on the earth. They survived on photosynthesis, using energy from the sun to produce oxygen. Oceans became saturated with this oxygen and escaped into the atmosphere, and thus the air we breath today came into being. Scientists call this the Great Oxygenation Event. We call it “the breath of God.”
In the second verse of the book of Genesis it reads,”The earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.”At each stage of creation, God breathes new life in the world. God is literally the air by which all human life depends. (Bass, Chapter 3)
Diana emphasizes this point in her sense of the breath of God. “After 2.3 billion years ago, ancient organisms called cyanobacteria appeared on the earth. They survived on photosynthesis, using energy from the sun to produce oxygen. Oceans became saturated with this oxygen and escaped into the atmosphere, and thus the air we breath today came into being. Scientists call this the Great Oxygenation Event. We call it “the breath of God.”
In the second verse of the book of Genesis it reads,”The earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.”At each stage of creation, God breathes new life in the world. God is literally the air by which all human life depends. (Bass, Chapter 3)
Connecting the Dots between Faith and Science
On November 28-29, 2015 in Coatbridge, Scotland, we gathered with the Xaverian Missionaries at Conforti Institute in a project we are both working on called Common Ground. We began this program in November 2013 where we gathered with religious believers of different traditions, and atheists and humanists interested in dialogue in order to find the common ground we all stand on. In this past conference in Coatbridge, our common ground was global climate change, or what Pope Francis called care for our common home.
Although humanists see the reasons for the evolution of life to be different from those of religious believers, what we do hold in common is the science we rely on today to understand creation. Catholics, for example, are at liberty to believe that creation took a few days or a much longer period, according to how they see the evidence, and subject to any future judgment of the Church (Pius XII’s 1950 encyclical Humani Generis 36–37). They need not be hostile to modern cosmology. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “[M]any scientific studies . . . have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development of life forms, and the appearance of man. These studies invite us to even greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator” (CCC 283)
During the conference we shared from Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, and Humanist perspectives why we need to strengthen our resolve to reverse ecological disaster for the sake of humanity and the planet we share. What we attempted to show is what Pope Francis shared, it takes all of us, religious and non-religious neighbors to halt the tide of destruction. The encyclical of Pope Francis on care for our common home was written for a worldwide audience, not merely Catholic or religious in order to underline that point.
Science and faith can help each other root ourselves in a new way we envision the world, humanity, and our vital link to the Lord of Creation. A great cultural, spiritual, and educational stands before us as we look toward a new lifestyle, a more profound and honest relationship between humanity and the environment, and an ecological conversion. (Pope Francis, Laudato Si 201-204)
Science and faith can help each other root ourselves in a new way we envision the world, humanity, and our vital link to the Lord of Creation. A great cultural, spiritual, and educational stands before us as we look toward a new lifestyle, a more profound and honest relationship between humanity and the environment, and an ecological conversion. (Pope Francis, Laudato Si 201-204)
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