© 1992 William Wentworth
© 1992 ANZURA, Australia & New Zealand Urantia Association
William Wentworth, Towamba, New South Wales
The absence of religious belief among so many of today’s youth has all sorts of results. One of them seems to be the adoption of Environmentalism as a philosophy of life.
It is beginning to look as if Environmentalism will be playing an important part in the philosophy of the twenty-first century, and from some points of view, this is not such a bad thing. It makes sense, after all, to pay attention to the state of our surroundings. Our physical and mental health, our appreciation of beauty, our work and recreational activities, and our material standard of living generally, are dependent on those surroundings.
There are some traps however.
Like the rest of us, environmentalists need meaning and purpose in their lives, and crave some phenomenon, above and beyond themselves, worthy of their devotion. But because they do not accept God as the source of what they need, they have adopted “The Environment” as the ultimate ideal.
There seems to be a couple of main strands here. One group, the secularists, work on the assumption that there is no supermaterial reality, and therefore the well-being of humanity is entirely bound up with that of the planet. The planet, they argue, is a complex balance of natural forces and elements only partially understood, and that mankind is just one among a number of species of living things which contribute to this balance. Man, to them, is entirely an evolutionary product of nature, and his spiritual aspirations are an egotistical delusion. Mankind’s egotism has led to its dominance of nature. It is now in plague proportions and must therefore collectively modify its behavior so as to conform with the aim of maintaining the correct balance among the species. This may well involve a drastic reduction in population as well as the dismantling of much of modern civilization, which is the vehicle for extending mankind’s dominance. If this domination is allowed to continue, mankind will eventually become so numerous, and so destructive that he will obliterate nature and, in the process, himself.
Another group, the pantheists, see God and nature as being the same thing. God expresses himself as a perfect planetary natural balance. Nature is therefore perfect, and the only source of imperfection and error (self-evident in our world) is the wilful wickedness of men, who, through their civilization, have set themselves outside of nature and departed from the divine order of things. Because men have attempted to dominate and control nature, they have lost the ability to cooperate and work within nature. This departure on the part of mankind from the divinely ordained ways of nature has resulted in worldwide confusion and chaos. Only when men accept their place in nature, and cease trying to improve on God’s perfection, will the perfect balance be restored.
There are, no doubt, many other strands in Environmentalism but these two suffice to illustrate my basic theme.
It is interesting to note that both of the above strands owe something to both the Christian tradition and to the humanist revolt against Christianity. Both strands seem influenced by the concept of the Fall of Man. The balance of nature has been upset by man’s behaviour, in one instance through success in gaining short term ends, in the other through his wilful wickedness. In both instances, man has brought disaster on himself and his planet in a fashion reminiscent of the Fall of Man depicted in Christianity.
Similarly, both strands exhibit the influence of the humanist revolt. Only a philosophy which holds up man as “the measure of all things” can give rise to the conviction that man’s activities are destroying nature. Only a humanistic age could so exaggerate the significance of human activities that they can be considered a threat to nature itself. God knowing people tend to have a more modest view of the power of humanity and show more confidence in the ability of nature to withstand humanity’s puny assaults. Nature has, after all, withstood a multitude of cataclysms in the past. Modern humanists tend to be both entranced and terrified by man’s technical achievements. They probably overrate them.
But whichever way we choose to look at it, Environmentalism promises to be with us for quite a while yet. As The URANTIA Book (UB 85:0.4) points out,
“mortal man has worshipped everything on the face of the earth, including himself.” UB 85:0.4
Nature worship is not new. The resurgence of such a philosophy in western civilization, if it is as extensive as I think it is, may well have quite wide effects. And unless Western youth chooses once again to worship God, Environmentalism may well continue to appeal to them as an alternative.