In some ways it seems rather odd to even address the topic of climate change from a biblical worldview perspective. This topic has become so politicized that it seems that it should not even warrant a religious response. But it has become such a major topic of discussion on so many levels, that Christians need to be able to deal with it.
First and foremost, it needs to be understood that while most who are on the climate change bandwagon honestly believe this is a matter based in science, it really is not – it is a religious discussion. Rather than science being the underlying foundation for climate change ideology, it is actually naturalistic philosophy.
What is the Issue?
When discussing climate change with people who are true believers, there are a couple of different problems that one immediately runs into.
The first has to do with the definition itself. When speaking of this topic, the adherents will assert that man is the cause of the problem. They believe that pollution, due to modern technology, is putting out carbon emissions that are doing damage to the planet – to the degree that it will cause man’s extinction in a relatively few years. However, when discussing the topic, they rarely distinguish between natural and man made climate change. They generally look at weather patterns in very recent history, see certain bad things happening, and make an unsupported assumption that it is due to man made causes.
The second problem has already been alluded to, but we need to make it explicit. There certainly is evidence of climate change – and it has been happening throughout the entire history of the planet. However, the evidence that it is caused by human activity has no solid scientific support at all. The projections about what the climate will do over the next century or more is all based on computer models. People who work in the field compile all the data they believe is relevant to climate change, input that data into a computer, and let it run simulations. They then insert variables to see what causes changes. The only problem is, the data is woefully incomplete. It is actually unlikely that scientists even know all of the variables that need to be considered. Beyond that, there are other variables that they do not know how to project – which are not even included in the modeling. The result is, the assertions regarding man made climate change are almost wholly unsupported speculations.
What we have here is a group of people who are basing their understanding of reality on naturalistic philosophy, and trying, as best they can, to use scientific tools to support their beliefs. The only problem is, the philosophy itself is bankrupt, and the tools they are trying to use to support it are wholly insufficient to make their case.
There is another issue that also comes into play that we will discuss further below. That issue has to do with how the topic is being used as a means for influencing society. For people who believe in the Bible, taking care of nature is a matter of God given stewardship responsibilities. While we do have a stewardship responsibility, there no illusion that man is even able to actually control nature. For those who believe in naturalistic philosophy, on the other hand, it is considered a matter of survival that we must control it; with political control being the means by which survival is assured. It is believed that by having the power to take control of people’s lives, human governments can engineer human activity in a way that limits the damage.
The Presuppositions of Conflicting Notions of Climate Change
Biblical Theism
When it comes to evaluating a biblical view about climate change, there are two elements that must be addressed. The first has to do with the very concept of worldview beliefs. The second deals with man’s responsibility for taking care of the earth.
Worldview beliefs relate to what individuals understand to represent reality, as opposed to fantasy. So the first matter that must be addressed is: Is man made climate change actually true?
The second matter that must be addressed is: What does the Bible say about man’s responsibility regarding care for the earth. We will specifically address the first question later, but we need to first look at what the Bible has to say about man’s responsibility regarding care for nature.
In a nutshell, the Bible teaches that man has been given responsibility by God to be stewards (managers) over the earth’s environment. The Bible actually does speak to this topic, so let’s look at some of the things it has to say. (All Scripture is taken from the ESV.)
Genesis 1:26-28
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And 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 heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Genesis 2:15
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
Genesis 9:1-3
And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.
Exodus 23:10-11
“For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield, but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the beasts of the field may eat. You shall do likewise with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard.
Leviticus 19:9-10
“When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.
Deuteronomy 10:14
Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it.
Psalm 8:6-8
You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
1 Corinthians 4:2
Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy.
Naturalism
When discussing climate change, the large majority of those who believe it is a man caused problem create a lot of confusion simply by the way they talk about the topic. When they speak, they almost exclusively use the term “climate change.” The problem is, the climate is always changing. This has been the natural order of how the earth’s climate has worked since the very beginning. What these people really mean, though, is that the changes in the climate are due to man made causes. It is man made climate change that they address in their advocacy. By not making this clear, they create a lot of confusion in discussions on the topic. This allows them to be very lazy by not having to provide specific documentation for their arguments. They truly believe that it is possible for man to change the climate.
Making that argument based on a naturalistic worldview, however, requires that it be backed up by empirical science. That is simply a prerequisite of Naturalism. This worldview begins with the belief that the natural universe is all that exists, and everything associated with the universe can be accounted for by natural laws that can be understood. Thus, when people who adhere to a naturalistic worldview claim that the root cause of climate change is human activity, they must be able to document it using empirical science.
They run into a huge problem, however, because there is no empirical science able to demonstrate man caused climate change. Scientists can document that the climate is changing – it always has and always will. But there is no actual science able to demonstrate that man is causing it.
Naturalistic philosophy is focused on the priority of the collective – as opposed to that of the individual. It is the “survival of the species” that is considered the highest moral priority. It is also generally considered that a centrally planned approach to guarding human life on the planet is necessary to ensure its survival. They believe that to do this, a central government must control the plan. By asserting that man made climate change is a real thing, and insisting that government must do something to curb it, government gets the power to control everything they deem to have an effect on climate change – use of fossil fuels, the kinds of foods people eat, what kind of vehicles they drive, where they live and in what kind of dwellings, and the like. Thus, the climate change agenda is not based on science, it is based on naturalistic philosophy, and its most prominent expression is political, not scientific.
Is the Secularist View of Climate Change True?
When it comes to secularist morality, it is impossible to say that any particular belief is “true.” Naturalistic philosophy has no objective basis for declaring something objectively right or wrong. All morality is necessarily relative to the situation.
At this point you may be wondering why morality is even being brought up in the context of climate change. The reason is that, as we have already seen, there is no scientific basis for demonstrating man made climate change actually exists. That being the case, there has to be another reason for advocating for it so adamantly. And there is. The purpose for promoting the man made climate change agenda is political, not scientific.
What is generally touted as science are the computer generated climate models that certain “climate scientists” build. The problem with this, though, is that there is no way to demonstrate that the computer models are accurate. Even the variables that are considered relevant to climate change cannot be accurately computed. But this is only the beginning of the problem. Additionally, there are far too many variables to allow for accurate computations, and there are certain variables that cannot be computed at all – as human knowledge has not attained the level of understanding necessary to compute them. One only need look at another area where computer modeling is widely used in order to see the problem. The accuracy of hurricane forecasting models has become VERY sophisticated. But even with that, forecasters cannot predict a accurate track more than one day out – and climate models are far more complex than hurricane models.
So those who promote climate change actually have an agenda that goes beyond climate. Their real purpose is to promote a political agenda using climate change as a vehicle. There simply is no actual science able to demonstrate that man made climate change actually exists.
What is the Answer?
God gave mankind the responsibility to be stewards (managers) over the earth. As such, Christians truly ought to be concerned with the kinds of pollution that can cause harm to life on the planet. At the same time, we need to have our heads fully set in reality. If actual evidence appears that human beings are to blame for creating adverse affects to the earth’s climate, then Christians ought to be in the forefront of correcting those problems. As it stands now, though, there is no evidence that any changes that are taking place in the earth’s climate have anything to do with human activity.
Changes are occurring, and have since the dawn of time. But nearly all of these are natural changes, not man-made. Trying to use climate change as a pretext to accomplish political goals is not honest. Additionally, the political goals that those with a Socialist inclination are attempting to create actually promote outcomes that do damage to human society and limit human freedom. As was said before, Christians ought to be good stewards of the earth, and do so based on God’s revelations to mankind. At the same time, we should actively resist those who would use climate change as a pretext to create outcomes that work against God’s purposes in the world.
© 2020 Freddy Davis