If You think . . . (2)
Earth is Just Our Temporary Home
It’s
Plato’s Fault
If you think that earth is just our temporary home and we
have something better, much better, awaiting us with God in heaven, well . . .
whether you know it or not you have Plato to thank for it. Yes, Plato. The
ancient Greek philosopher. He’s the one that taught us to divide the world into
two realms. A material one, inferior, constraining and keeping us from realizing
our true selves. Those true selves are spiritual and really belong to a
spiritual realm which, inward and immaterial, is superior to the material realm
and to be preferred in every way. He envisioned the body as the prison of the
soul which our true selves can finally flee at death and return to their true
home.
This idea of the two realms, the material and the
spiritual, called dualism, has become so ingrained in our cultural tradition that
we seldom think about it. We just assume it and act as if it is true. We
believe we have an inner spiritual self, a soul, that is separable from our
bodies and is the part of us we believe connects with the real or higher
spiritual source of the universe. We too believe this soul leaves our bodies at
death and “goes to heaven.” And we believe we will spend eternity there with
God.
A counterpart to this view is a diminishment of our life on
earth. It is merely a prelude to the real thing, that “better place” we hope to
go to after our time here is over. And we believe that God is going to judge
this earth and burn it up and throw it away when the day of judgment comes. We
don’t harbor any hope that this world, this earth, will be our home beyond our “threescore
years and ten.”
This kind of thinking interpreted in light of the
mechanistic view of the universe that arose through Isaac Newton’s work turned
creation into nature. Now seen as a huge machine working according to its own
laws, God was distanced from creation, not needed for more than the initial
construction and start-up of this vast machinery. Creation morphed into nature,
a rich quarry of resources from which humans, who saw themselves as not really
belonging to this nature, could use (and abuse) as much as it suited them. Thus
was birthed the Industrial and Technological revolutions of 19th and
20th centuries.
Even Christians bought into this dualistic view of things. They
were enthusiastic supporters of this mechanistic view of nature and joined in
the raiding of its resources with as much gusto as everyone else. In fact, in
1967, historian Lynn White, Jr. published a landmark article “The Historical Roots
of Our Ecologic Crisis” in which he blamed the “Christian” understanding of
creation for giving humanity the permission to plunder the earth. Christians
had made it all too easy for observers like White to think this way. Lacking a
robust and authentic understanding of creation as God’s handiwork with a life
and integrity its own and our home and the habitat whose ecology we depend on
for our lives, we are culpable in its present distress.
Matter
Matters (1)
An authentic Christian view of creation never lapses into
mere nature. Creation is always God’s handiwork, divine artistry, bearing the order
and potency of God’s own life-giving Spirit, a beloved by its Creator. It is
the habitation God prepared for his children to live and flourish in. And for
God himself to call home when he became one of us as Jesus of Nazareth and
throughout eternity with all his creatures. You see, simply put and in contrast
to the dualistic view we have grown up with, matter matters!
And it matters eternally. Yes, God gives us the vision in
Revelation 21-22 of the new creation and of his people, the bride of Christ,
coming down out of heaven to the new earth to live with God forever. Hear that?
Not in heaven instead of earth but from heaven to earth. This planet renewed
and restored to be as God intended it, a temple fit for the Holy One and his beloved
family throughout the ages. God is not going to trash his creation, even though
his creatures have faithlessly damaged and diminished it as we try to live out
our own agendas and plans on our own apart from. He will be faithful to his
promises to it to fulfill them and bring it to full flourishing. As the saying
goes, “God don’t make no junk and he don’t throw away what he has made!”
Creation care, or Earth-keeping, then, ought to mark the
lives of those who claim allegiance to the Creator. To share God’s heart for
his own handiwork, as well as the ecology we depend on to keep breathing, is a
mark of our love for him. That’s why he put us here, to “till and keep” the
garden in Eden (Genesis 2:15). Our vocation is to be stewards of this wondrous
creation in anticipation of our life with God here in the age to come. God asks
us to join him (for God never ceases his creative work) in sustaining and
nurturing his good earth. That’s why we’re here. Not to wait for the next life
but to start living out that life here and now. And among other things that
means creation care.
Matter
Matters (2)
John Calvin called creation “the theater of God’s glory.”
The metaphor of drama is a good one, I think. God has given us all roles to
play in his drama of redemption. And just as a play’s sets are necessary and
vital to a theater production, so is creation vital to God’s drama. How we live
here on and as part of this matter matters!
You see, we don’t have a soul. That’s right, hard though
that might be to accept. Better to say we are a soul. And our bodies are the
face of our soul that the world can see. Or we can say we are embodied souls or
ensouled bodies. All these are ways to say and insist that God did not make us
of separable parts. We are integrated wholes. Body/souls rather than body and
soul.
Even in death we remain whole beings. Either we “sleep” in
death till Christ raises us and gives us new resurrection “bodies.” And like
his own resurrection body, these will apparently be continuous with the bodies we
now have but “glorified” (and we can scarcely imagine what that will be like!)
Or some part of us will be kept in fellowship with God after death till we are
raised and given our new bodies. Either way, full embodiment is our final destiny.
No immaterial, angel-like eternity for us. Rather, new creation and new bodies
for an eternity of life on this earth with God as it should always have been!
But back to life now and the matters we deal with in
dealing with matter. If we can’t split the world or ourselves into two
separable parts, the material and spiritual, and treat one as more important
than the other, then, well . . . then we can experience God and share in his
work through the material order. And the way we treat matter matters!
That’s why God’s seems so obsessed with justice! How we
order our lives together and allocate necessary goods and services, establish and
protect rights, enforce accountability, and care above all for the poor and
needy, in short, politics, is about how closely our communities reflect God’s
design for human life. That’s justice. And it’s one of God’s great passions!
So matter matters. It matters eternally. What we do with
matter matters. Matter matters to God. And that should be what matters to us!
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