Wow, the Pope is about to amend the Roman Catechism to include 'ecological sins'

Mankind has been extremely adept at not considering many things sin, which were and are sin. It is not a good argument to say that crimes against the planet, its life forms, its ecosystem, the atmosphere, the biosphere and the environment have until now not been considered to be sin. WE ARE NOT best judges of what is and is not sin. God is the judge of that and WE have idolatrously usurped God's preogative to decide what is and is not evil. We did that when we took the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and tasted of its forbidden fruit.

Ignorance and foolishness are both sins but frequently overlooked as such. Shitting in your own nest is foolishness and that is what the human race is doing all the time now on a planet wide expanse.

You speak as if the human race has been innocently despoiling God's creation up until now, when you then find excuses for doing so by quoting man's past sins as being "of little consequence". Destroying the planet on which God has allowed us to live, of no consequence? I don't think so. Do you? I can't believe you do.

I think such blazé indifference to man's ecological destruction will have profound consequences at the judgement seat of God. The Pharisees were experts at finding ways to circumvent 'sin' yet still do what they wanted and desired. Religious types still do. They want to itemise every 'spiritual' misdemenour, find ways of convincing themselves they have successfully avoided offence and then get on with what THEY consider is OK because they know so much about what God finds offensive.
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Quite so! I agree with him. There are those who seem to want to legalise or declare 'sinless', planet wide destruction of entire environments, such as continues to happen in various international Company owned mining operations and exploding chemical plants like Bophal, where the owners of the 'factory' have still not cleaned up the toxic mess polluting the surrounding acres of land nor compensated the thousands upon thousands of victims of their irresponsibility and wicked disposal of dangerous waste injurious to health. I wonder what their motives might be.

 

Please do not confuse my conviction with indifference toward ecological issues. Even though I see no good evidence that it is a sin against God, I agree that caring for our environment is important. As the population has increased, we have had to establish laws to protect some from the careless or even devil-may-care acts of others. And we are learning from past mistakes (for example, PFAS or polyfluoroalkyl substances were once believed harmless and were carelessly spread by industry and government alike in my birth state, Michigan, but now PFAS contaminates the lakes, soil, and groundwater and is causing notable health risks) and changing our practices for the better. However, not every wrong done in this world is a sin. Sin is something done (or left undone) which, in God's eyes, is evil. Many bad things can and do happen in this world that are pretty much outside of moral implications; we live in a fallen world, with imperfect knowledge and incomplete information, where accidents take place and where unforeseen results occur and where otherwise decent humans have bad things happen to them, but much of this cannot be directly attributed to a currently-committed moral failure.

Suppose you are driving, and you look both ways at the intersection before proceeding but you fail to see the car coming from one side. Your car and the oncoming car collide, and people sustain injuries. Have you sinned? No, of course not; it was an accident! You looked, but you have a physical shortcoming called a 'blind spot' in your vision (everyone has this defect but not all are aware of it) that caused you to not see the car. Yet a social ill has occurred, and you are held legally responsible. You may be ticketed, sued, perhaps even sent to prison if the other driver was killed. However, you have not sinned before God. This is just one simple example to show that not all societal wrongs can be equated with moral turpitude (sin).

Think of the living conditions in medieval cities. No sewer systems. Probably no running water, either. Every person has to 'do his business' in the chamber pot, and empty the pot somewhere. Disease is rampant. No one understands bacteria and viruses, let alone the importance of hygiene. The sewage winds up in the nearest river, flows downstream, and contaminates the people downstream. A social issue and a social wrong, to be sure. But a sin? Nonsense.

Now, if someone knows full well that they are doing something which is likely to harm others, and they continue doing it, there's a likely sin. Which sin it is will depend on their heart attitude and motivation. If they do it because they want to save money, they are guilty of the sin of greed. If they do it because they enjoy the thought of hurting other people, they sin by not loving their neighbor and for harboring a form of hatred. Or perhaps they know that harm is likely but they simply don't care, because they are selfish. The point is, their sin against God lies within their heart and thoughts; their outward act is sinful only because their motives or heart attitudes are sinful. If they did the same thing simply because they knew no better, the same exact act would not be indicative of a sin; any harm that act caused, though it may open them to potential liability, should not cause their act to be labeled a 'sin,' the reason being that it was a societal failure and not a moral failure.

My goodness, we certainly have enough and plenty clear-cut, well-enumerated sins taught to us in the Bible and the early fathers, without adopting new ones that neither Christ nor His church ever taught or even considered prior to the 20th Century.

 

Your concluding sentence holds the key to unlocking this issue.

 

I am not sure that this is a sufficient definition of sin. The historic understanding always embraced not simply individual culpability, but also understood that the repercussions may well reflect on the whole community, and these matters were seen in terms of the interdependence of the community. If we continue to allow others to do bad things without where we have the capacity alerting them to the problem, are we perhaps not in some way aligned with the act.

 

The motive behind most of the 'ecological crime' which takes place is $$$$$$$$$$$$$+££££££££££+€€€€€€€€€€ etc. etc. etc. That is sinful. Cleaning up polution produced during manufacture is expensive. Shareholders and company directors do not like expense. They like profit and dislike loss. That is the main motivating factor behind polution and ecological crime.
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I don't believe so. What historic works of theology are you referencing here? In all the ones that I've read, even the sins which deal with other people such as adultery, ground the sinfulness in individual culpability, and never with repercussions against some sort of wider community.

In addition we must add that the Church is completely powerless to create new sins. We are NOT the Roman Catholic Church which claims capacity to create new sacraments, add new books to the Bible, develop 'new' theologies of Mary, and more generally has this nebulous concept of "Sacred Tradition" which is an additional source for revelation added to the Scriptures. We literally allow nothing new that didn't exist in 100 AD, or 300 AD, until the close of the patristic age. That's literally the defining trait of the Anglican Church.

What this means is that the Anglican Church is unable to conclude that there exist 'new' sins. We have "nothing new under the sun." If for some reason, somehow, the ecological sins were listed among the Ten Commandments, or at the very least in the Old Law as something God would deem a personally sinful transgression, then sure, but God literally has never cared about ecological crime. People peed into rivers, made a desert out of fertile fields, salted the earth and created wastelands, and this was never considered a sin in and of itself (unless conducted against some other person/people). The idea of sinning against the earth was always, and shall ever remain to be seen as paganism.

Yup. We all believe that caring for our environment is important, and even a characteristic of God's people. That's not the issue here.

 

There is a real sense in which ecocide and ecological sins are taking from the dignity of the whole creation which we have a sacred duty to preserve for a generation yet unborn, so in that sense they represent theft from the future generations.

There is a real sense in which ecocide and ecological sins are dishonouring our forebears and not treated with reverence what they have passed on to us, and as such represents a dishonouring of our forebears.

And I don't see how we can be being seen to love the Lord our God if we are to trash hos very gift, the ecosystem that sustains us.

As such I don't see them as new sins but rather old sins understood more clearly in our own context.

 

My friend, this cannot be. For by the very same line of reasoning, all of humanity may be seen as a blight upon the earth and a parasite. And indeed some extremists see it that way. Man changes landscapes. Man clears areas for planting. He builds things using the raw materials at hand. He treads down plants, kills animals for food, kills predators who would eat him, inadvertently steps upon ants, excretes waste products to the earth, builds fires for cooking and heat, and on and on. How many species did humanity extinguish even in his earliest years upon this planet? We know not. The very presence of mankind is a detriment to the planet. Why, if "ecological sin" were a reality, then surely God would have been sinning when He placed us here while holding full knowledge of the havoc we would both willingly and inadvertently wreak upon earth. No! Impossible. God had a greater purpose than the glorification of a planet.

"Ecological sin" is the sort of concept that causes the Jains to sweep the ground in front of them before proceeding so as to avoid killing any insects. Should we become like them? After all, we never know if the bug we crush today results in the decimation of a species. Should we stop traveling over grass and cease taking walks through vegetation because the plant we accidentally stifle today might be the one which held the key ingredient for a cancer cure? Where do we draw the line?

God created man to take dominion over the earth, and God created earth (with all of the plants, animals, minerals, etc.) to be of service to man. The idea of "ecological sins" is a road paved with good intentions, but at the road's end man becomes (unscripturally) subject and subservient to the earth, because all that he does must be for the good of the environment. "Ecological sin" elevates the inanimate and the insensible above those whom God created in His image: human beings. No dirt, no amoeba, no fern, no marmot has an eternal spirit from God; only man was given this precious gift.

Besides, treating ecological harm as intrinsic sin is somewhat akin to treating a sick person's symptoms rather than his illness. If one's leg hurts badly when placing any weight upon it, should one expect a pain killer to heal what is most likely a broken leg? Likewise, the harms to nature which so incense many of us are mere symptoms of some other root causes: greed, carelessness, lack of knowledge, or whatever. Ecological injury may be a symptom of a particular sin being committed, or it might not be indicative of any particular sin at all (other than the Original Sin and its consequences).

Now, here likes the reason why we should be discerning of this vital distinction. For if we merely swallow the idea being put forth by the MSM that all such harm to the planet is intrinsically evil, then we must accept the idea that mankind must be controlled and forced (for the good of the collective) to accept servitude to the planet and to whatever governance gives us the promise of preserving and cleansing it. We align ourselves with a falsehood that is even now being utilized to manipulate the populace into surrendering basic individual liberties endowed by God, for the sake of allowing some governing body to decide for us (presumably in our best interest, until they inevitably turn despotic) what is truly best for the earth and for us. Ecology and climate are being championed for the express purpose of attempting to usher in a one-world government, and if Revelation is to be believed, this future government will be headed by an Antichrist assisted by his false prophet. And when I see Bergoglio issuing statements such as the one in question, I begin to think about Rev. 17. I think about a harlot seated upon seven hills, clothed in purple and scarlet, with a golden chalice in her hand, and drunk with the blood of the martyrs. I think about the name of "the great city" which in John's day reigned over the known kingdoms of the earth. And I wonder what sort of prophet this man could be?

 

Even if you were right, you can't help but ask why this was not understood by God's people for 3-4000 years, and even more so, wasn't understood by God himself, at least in the testimony of his revelation that was left by his Spirit.

You, and Tiffy, and Pope Francis, are left trying to create ex nihilo a category which has never had a place, no, not even when the earth was salted, and wastelands were created, and countless fields were made into deserts. Men have poisoned and peed into rivers since time began. While God has taught us to be stewarts of creation, and we understand it's a vital endeavor, it has never played a role in moral theology.

If it wasn't in our moral theology now, but is claimed to be so now, you have to ask, you have to wonder, whether the powers that be are not trying to co-opt Christians into adopting a virulent secular agenda, such as the UN 2030 "Sustainable Development Agenda" (and everything that's in it)?

 

For what reason would God make a new heaven and new Earth?

What kind of theological reasoning is it that figures that God decides to destroy the creation he declared 'Good' in the first place?

Surely it is MANKIND that is despoiling and destroying the Earth, through his sinful and disobedient, God opposing ignorance and rebellion.

Surely that ignorance and rebelliousness were characteristically displayed when we crucified The Son of God and He prayed for our ignorance to be forgiven. It seems our ignorance, though presumably forgiven, still has not discontinued. In fact it continues in full spate to despoil and destroy God's Creation, His creatures and His environment.

It is not OURS to dispose of ignorantly. Subdue does not mean subjugate and destroy.

It is our responsibility to tend and till it, not despoil and destroy it, rape, expoit and pillage it.

If God has to make New Heavens and a New Earth it will be because WE had stupidly and ignorantly ruined His first handywork.

And you still think that is not sinful.

Typical. Neither did those who legally crucified Him.
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Friend, have you heard of Adam? THAT WAS the reason for why God would make a new heaven and a new earth. It was because of Adam's sin, and only because of his sin; God cared more about his transgression than all the ecological devastations put together; but to you his Sin appears to be far less material and relevant than ecology.

You have collapsed the eschaton, trying to bring man's fall into the present, and also to bring man's salvation into the present.

You have just committed the central mistake of all totalitarian secular regimes, such as the Soviets and Communists who also thought they fought for ideals of honesty, fairness. That's the basic reason why liberal Christianity is the same thing as militant atheism; liberal Christians, communists, socialists, despite different theological convictions, have exactly the same aim: to accuse man of material original sin (gender, ecology, race, 'class'); then, based on this accusation to alter man's nature; and using this newly made nature, to bring man into a material salvation, the ideal (nightmarish) uniform egalitarian world "without any distinctions," where each person will "give according to his ability, and receive according to his need."

 

So you imagine that would not be a 'Kindom of God' principle then?

And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. Acts 2:42-47.

And don't bother quoting Article 38 to me. I already know what that says, like all good Anglicans do.

Such a pity that the Lord seems to have eased off a bit on 'adding to our number day by day those who are being saved', though. Ever wonder why?

Enough of Pilate like hand washing, I say.
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Yes, a group of Christians decided (perhaps in anticipation that Jesus would return in a matter days) and took it upon themselves to sell their stuff and donate it into a 'common pot' of funds for use by any and all. Tell me, Tiffy, have you done this yourself? If you really believe that this is the proper and best way for Christians to handle their property and goods (sell all and give to the common good), please tell us what date you did this so we may be encouraged by your example. I hope you aren't waiting for Parliament or the Queen herself to command all in Britain to divest themselves for the good of all people in the Isles, because this is not likely, nor would the citizenry stand for it. And anyhow, nothing in Acts 2 suggests that either the Sanhedrin or the Roman governor or King Herod had commanded such an act of the early Christians; it was entirely voluntary as well as unusual and, so far as we can discern, pretty much a one-time event. However, too many people today have a socialist (or still further left) idea that if some governing body were to force this share-and-share-alike practice upon the populace it would cure numerous ills and somehow transform the people into generous, kindly, and sweet members of a wondrous society in which no pantry shall ever stand empty and no cup may ever run dry. (Actually many leftists don't believe any such nonsense; they who see themselves as having little only want those with more to be forced to share with them, and thus be enriched without working for it.)

Adam Clarke, an early 19th Century Methodist theologian, wrote in his commentary:

That an absolute community of goods never obtained in the Church at Jerusalem, unless for a very short time, is evident from the apostolical precept, 1Co_16:1, etc., by which collections were ordered to be made for the poor; but, if there had been a community of goods in the Church, there could have been no ground for such recommendations as these, as there could have been no such distinction as rich and poor, if every one, on entering the Church, gave up all his goods to a common stock. Besides, while this sort of community lasted at Jerusalem, it does not appear to have been imperious upon any; persons might or might not thus dispose of their goods, as we learn front the case of Ananias, Act_5:4. Nor does it appear that what was done at Jerusalem at this time obtained in any other branch of the Christian Church; and in this, and in the fifth chap., where it is mentioned, it is neither praised nor blamed. We may therefore safely infer, it was something that was done at this time, on this occasion, through some local necessity, which the circumstances of the infant Church at Jerusalem might render expedient for that place and on that occasion only.​

The only way and the only time in which we will ever have a perfectly functioning society with no poor, no lack, and no shed tears will be when we live under the perfect Theocracy of Jesus Christ after the Second Advent. Until then, it cannot and will not happen because mankind is nowhere near good enough to make it work.

Tiffy, I believe you are a kind and compassionate person, and I congratulate you for that. Should we ever meet I'd be delighted to buy you a round or two.

 

That was pecisely the point I was trying to make. The reason that mankind is not 'good enough' is because the human race is irredeemably irresponsible. That is why we had to have one person, the only person, in fact God Himself to redeem us from the just penalty for our own God murdering wickedness. And it is no good supposedly 'righteous religious bigots' kidding themselves that they are not culpable before God, because, by a shere fluke of time, they were not there to shout "Crucify, Crucify" in 32 AD. Thank God that HE was willing to pay that price, none of us are.

Human greed and sin will plunder the planet, and still seek to reliquish itself of all blame. From Prince to pauper guilty as sin. That is no good reason to add to the misery though by deliberately making things worse by doing nothing or adding to the problem, if there is another, (but slightly more costly), Way to behave.

Following Christ has always been 'costly'. Climate change deniers just don't want to pay the price of cleaning up their own planet and bequeathing their descendents a decent, healthy place to live in. They are ecological slobs, environmental 'fly tippers', shitting in their own and others nests and fouling the ground they walk on.

Certainly not. I am an Anglican.

Article 38 says I don't have to. Even those in the Jerusalem church didn't 'have to'. Jesus did however commend those who wanted to become perfect. Matt.19:21. I and you and most others are far from even wanting to be perfect, as I have previously stated.
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At this point it seems important to do something we should have done sooner in the thread, and that is to define certain terms.

Climate is the generally prevailing weather conditions in a region. This has to do with temperature, rainfall, humidity, and the like.
(In the very limited region of one's home, we speak of the thermostat as a "climate control device.")

Climate change, therefore, refers to broad trend changes in the generally prevailing weather conditions. It may have to do with a limited area, a broad section of earth, or worldwide.

Man-made climate change refers to the belief that humans are altering the climate on a global scale.

Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the environment, contaminants which cause adverse change to the ground, water, and/or air. Pollution's main adverse effects have to do with poisoning our bodies directly, or indirectly through the food chain. Pollution, in its extremes, can be deadly.

With that said, some comments. First, pollution does not tend to cause climate change; it does not cause broad trend changes in the temperature or rainfall amounts. Second, climate change is a fact which is 100% demonstrable from history; one may observe that lush, arable land has become desert and vice versa, and global temperatures have varied enough to cause food shortages and encourage plagues (the little ice age, for example); moreover, the planetary poles constantly migrate and are even believed to flip (trade places) about every 720,000 years. Third, man-made climate change is an unproven hypothesis for which I have already offered a number of debunking facts in this thread.

I trust that none of us are pollution deniers or climate change deniers. However, 'man-made climate change' is speculative and debatable at best.

I agree that many polluters are 'ecological slobs' and unwilling to do what they should, for varying reasons of which greed is but one.

 

It would seem to me that there are many in here with a very 'liberal' and rather 'Pharisaical' notion of what sin is and the extent of its seriousness and consequences.

By 'Pharisaical' I mean the tendency toward, on the one hand, the assumption that sin is a serious 'spiritual' matter which needs strict control by The Law, (not incorrectly), and on the other hand sin is something that we can avoid by judicious application of 'spiritual' and 'practical' discipline in our lives and more importantly to the true Pharisaically minded person, other people's lives, (an extremely misguided error). It's bounds and extent seem, in the Pharisaical mindset, to be limited only to any deliberate human behaviour which is delineated by the strictures of The Law. So anything harmful to anything or anyone, which has not been legislated for by Law, is considered by them by definition to be not sinful. This is a grave error revealing a serious lack of discernment.

In my opinion this is profoundly mistaken theology and a complete misunderstanding of the gravity and pervasive perniciousness of sin and its deleterious effects upon the human race and the whole of God's creation.

Sin existed long, long before The Law. It was in existence long, long before even the creation of the universe. Sin is any act in opposition to the will and purpose of God, whether deliberate, accidental or even unconscious. Sin has never existed within The Holy Trinity because the Trinity is in perfect unity of purpose with itself; always has been; is and; always will be.

Sin cannot be eradicated or erased by any other judicial act but the undeserved Justification of God The Holy Trinity. The Law cannot Justify, it can only condemn. Pharisaical minds mistakenly assume that the LAW of God can justify if it is minutely obeyed, and that all human deeds not legislated against by law, must therefore be sinless. What the Pharisaical mindset fails to comprehend is that the Law is incomplete, does not cover every example of sin and was added only as a temporary 'stop gap' and our 'tutor in righteousness', Gal.3:19, Gal.3:24, it is not a comprehensive catalogue of crimes and punishments, which in itself can excuse or condemn, it is a means of bringing us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith in God's Judicial act of Unmerited Justification.

Thus: In the human race's gradually increasing revelation of God's purpose, through the ministration of The Holy Spirit, it is, at last, increasingly able to discern the true nature of SIN. Until the advent of The Holy Spirit, after the departure of Jesus Christ, the human race had scant understanding of what was SIN and what was not. People who lack The gift of the Holy Spirit suffer the same paucity today. John 7:39, John 14:15-17, John 16:8-11.

Understanding of what is and is not SIN has little to do with obedience to written LAW. Our Tutor has not taught us everything, and we have not understood properly very much of anything that our tutor HAS taught us. Our Tutor is no longer The LAW. Our comforter is in fact Christ himself through the Holy Spirit and it is through HIS comfort and revelation of the truth, ( John 4:23, John 16:13.) that we discern what is SIN and what is not SIN.

So I find arguments which seek to dismiss and excuse ignorant acts of damage and destruction of God's creation, in any degree, singularly unconvincing, let alone deliberate acts of violence against what God has created and sustained. Satan is behind all acts of ignorantly deliberate ecological destruction and he was and is a liar and sinner from before the foundation of the world.

Those who act as his agents, excusing their sin as being "Not against any of God's LAWS" are aligning themselves with the Father of all lies, and unsurprisingly incapable of discerning the truth.
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I hear this spruiked by various right wing journalists on a fairly regular basis. There is however a body of evidence that suggests, and there is a whole raft of scientific opinion that would accept the conclusion, that human activity in the last 250 years has led to increased pollution and ultimately contributed in part to climate change. Now it is possible to suggest that the events a co-incidental and that causality has not been established beyond reasonable doubt. Reason and observation would however lead one to conclude that in the absence of any compelling evidence to the contrary, that the best answer we have for now is that it is most likely that there is an undesirable causal contribution being made to climate change by human activity.

From the point of view of Anglican Christians if we accept that probability, then we might well conclude that we are at least in part failing in our stewardship of creation.

The 5th Mark of Mission
To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth​

Genesis 1:28
God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’​

The truth of course is that none of us have lost sight of this, yet it remains our understanding of how we should exercise this dominion that seems to bring the point of friction. I mean no disrespect, and I am a long way short of being a wholesale greenie, though I wonder if the rise of the green movement is't a response to a failure by the Church to keep alive the wonder of creation.

The so called ecological sins are sins because we dishonour the giver when we trash the gift.

 

I noticed that you didn't quote this sentence of mine: "man-made climate change is an unproven hypothesis for which I have already offered a number of debunking facts in this thread." I won't repeat all of those facts (too redundant), but I take note that you introduce no facts of your own as you merely state the claim that "There is however a body of evidence that suggests, and there is a whole raft of scientific opinion that would accept the conclusion, that human activity in the last 250 years has led to increased pollution and ultimately contributed in part to climate change." We certainly aren't able to evaluate this claim without knowing what proofs it rests upon. Which pollutants have altered the general global weather patterns? I hope you're not thinking of carbon dioxide, for CO2 is not a pollutant and I've explained from atmospheric physics why increasing the CO2 concentration won't raise temperatures.

 

I didn't specifically quote your sentence, however I did express a similar sentiment when I said

That is a fair call, ... to a point. The balance of it is another matter. Typically the earth relies on it's forests to restore this balance through a process called photosynthesis which captures carbon into wood growth and releases oxygen for the welfare of the earth. Massive deforestation does impact the planet's ability to manage this, especially if it is accompanied by and increase in the emissions of CO2.

Of course the difficulty in this area is that there are alternative facts thrown about quite glibly. I have tried not to take that approach and not to take a heated approach to it.