Nature is angry…!?!
So, the UN Secretary–General , Antonio Guterres, speaking at the UN Climate Summit in support of urgent climate action, went so far as to say, “nature is angry”. Seeing that reported in the newspaper reminded me of a Facebook video clip featuring some extreme weather situations. The title of the clip was ‘Nature Is Angry’. Later I discovered that there were a series of video clips with that title.
What on earth gets into sensible people that make them assert that nature is angry? Since when did nature have personality… or emotions?
It brought to mind an experiment that was done many years ago at a University in the US. Students were asked whether they thought the ocean was sad because of the pollution that is fouling up much of the world’s seas. I don’t recall the exact outcome of that experiment except that at the time it struck me how many students agreed that pollution made the oceans sad. Again it raises the questions. Since when do we talk about an ocean as if it had personality and emotions?
Perhaps for people who accept the Bible as the Word of God these things are not all that strange. Psalm 98 speaks of the rivers clapping their hands and the mountains singing together for joy. Isaiah 55 speaks of the trees of the field clapping their hands in joy. So if the Bible can attribute personality and emotions to nature why can’t the Secretary-General of the UN?
Well, there is a difference. The Bible is using figurative language to show that creation shares in the curse of man’s sin – in this fallen world we are watching the labour pains of creation, says Paul in Romans 8. The Bible uses similar figurative language to show that creation will also share in the glorious liberty of the children of God (Rom.8:21).
Ascribing personality and emotions to nature is often associated with a world-and-life-view called Pantheism. It’s the view that God is in everything and everything is God. This blending of the Creator with His creation is common in Eastern religions and in New Age mysticism. Pantheism was the world-and-life-view that dominated the movie Avatar. If God is in nature and nature is God then it makes sense to speak of nature being angry.
The problem is that the UN Secretary-General is not a Pantheist. Apparently he admits to being a practicing Roman Catholic. So where does this idea come from that nature has personality and even emotions?
I have a theory. For generations our Western Society has uncritically swallowed the theory of evolution with its doctrines of adaptation and the survival of the fittest. In evolutionary thought it is not at all uncommon to attribute personality to nature. Often that’s referred to as Mother Nature (of course with a capital ‘M’ and a capital ‘N’). When something is difficult to explain or if there is no real explanation, commentators often resort to claiming that Mother Nature produced this or that adaptation. When Mother Nature in this way takes on God-like attributes then it’s only short step from there to claiming that nature is angry.
Those of us who believe that we should always worship the Creator and never the created, need to oppose this kind of thinking because at the end of the day it undermines the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. If nature is angry then the only solution is that we have to do something about it. If God is angry because of human sinfulness then something has already been done about it in Jesus and we just need to own that and live it out in our daily life.
John Westendorp