God’s Thermostat
By David N. Bass (01/19/05)
No sooner did Americans finish ringing in the New Year than global warming is again appearing in news headlines around the nation. The devastating tsunami in the Indian Ocean has served to renew concern over the possibility of cataclysmic changes in the earth’s crust or weather patterns. Some scientists insist that blame for the destructive tidal wave can be laid squarely in the hands of human beings, while others say such assertions are politically motivated and skew scientific reality.
Whether science or science fiction, global warming has become an international obsession. Great Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair plans to place the issue high on the agenda when his country hosts the top eight industrialized nations from around the world at the G8 summit later this year, according to the Financial Times. “Our effect on the environment, and in particular on climate change, is large and growing,” Mr. Blair told a group of business leaders in September, adding, “We cannot afford to ignore the warnings.”
Sir David King, chief scientific advisor for the British government, echoed the Prime Minister’s sentiment in an interview on BBC radio, saying, “What is happening in the Indian Ocean underlines the importance of the earth’s system to our ability to live safely.” King stated elsewhere that climate change “is the most severe problem that we are facing today, more serious even than the threat of terrorism.”
Closer to home, the global warming debate is also rearing its ugly head in the fiction market. More than a few liberal heads are turning at the subject matter of Michael Crichton’s latest bestseller. While the majority of popular fiction writers unapologetically trumpet the liberal ideology in the pages of their new releases, Crichton is parting company with the masses. His new thriller, State of Fear, pegs global warming as a mere myth and portrays a group of environmentalists as disingenuous and power hungry individuals. They seek to peddle the misconception that the world is on the edge of either being burnt to a crisp or deluged by massive glaciers unless major steps are taken in the near future. Needless to say, liberals are outraged over the content, while conservatives hail the novel as prophetic.
Scientists, politicians, environmentalists, conservatives, and liberals keep butting heads over this controversial debate. With the endless parade of facts, figures, and arguments, the truth often seems to be ignored. Similar to the abortion debate, emotions run high whenever this controversial subject is discussed, so high that the truth is often lost in the heat of debate. But as Christians, we have a mandate to seek wholeheartedly God’s truth. Our attitude should be like that of the Bereans, who “examined the Scriptures every day” in order to determine if Jesus Christ was the promised Messiah (Acts 17:11, NIV).
So what should be the perspective of Christians when it comes to global warming?
Fortunately for our generation, God’s Word is rich with wisdom and insight regarding catastrophic events. It contains promises from the past and both warnings and encouragements for the future. For example, God made a covenant with Noah in Genesis 9:11 after the flood had destroyed the entire surface of the planet: “Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.” In order to show Noah his faithfulness, God made a promise in this chapter that never again would a catastrophic flood wipe out mankind. It was a promise that clearly displayed God’s faithfulness and pointed toward His future promises to the Patriarchs and finally to the culmination of His faithfulness in the person of Jesus Christ.
But that promise was in the past and was one designed to prohibit the possibility for future catastrophe. Are there also verses pointing to future worldwide calamity? In the Book of Revelation, we are given a clear indication of trials and tribulations that will occur before the second coming of Christ. The most relevant disaster to the global warming debate is the fourth bowl of God’s wrath found in Revelation 16:8: “The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and the sun was given power to scorch people with fire. They were seared by the intense heat and they cursed the name of God, who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify him.” Here we see a clear indication that at some point in the future a calamity will strike the earth that will cause a worldwide increase in temperature.
But is this calamity manmade or under the control and will of God? This one point is where global warming advocates loose touch with reality. Many would have us believe that the earth hangs over an abysmal precipice of catastrophe. Since every material thing came into being through a fluke, all matter can just as easily blink out of existence. Conversely, countless Biblical passages show us that God has all power over creation. Jeremiah 10:13 says: “When he thunders, the waters in the heavens roar; he makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth. He sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses.”
The world is not a fragile ecosystem on the precipice of oblivion. Rather, it is in the control and power of a loving and omniscient God. But does that mean mankind is free to abuse and defile the creation that God has entrusted to him? Scripture says that we are to be good stewards and to subdue the earth and care for it, as God states in Genesis 1:28 when he blesses Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden: “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
There is a two-fold obligation here. We are to recognize that the world is in the hand of God (and cannot be taken from there), but we are also to acknowledge that we have stewardship over his creation. Global warming advocates do little to help strengthen our stewardship of the world. Instead, they communicate a message that human life is essentially meaningless and can be wiped out by a freak natural incident in a matter of minutes. The core of this view is anti-theistic. It is simply incompatible with Christianity and does little to make the world a better place.
There is a critical balance to strike regarding global warming. Clearly, the human race has dominion over the world and should display good faith in caring for it. But we should also realize that man cannot second guess an omniscient and omnipotent Creator. We have promises from Scripture that the world, at least in its current state, will eventually pass away (Mark 13:31), but this will occur in God’s timing, not man’s.
The encouragement we have as Christians is that no matter what calamity strikes the world, God has promised that he will never leave or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). Scientists on both sides of the global warming debate would do well to remember that.
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