Dams Against the Flood of Information and Goods
an interview with
Hans Kessler
Dams Against the Flood of Information and Goods:
A World Empty of God in the Hand of Human Omnipotence
An Interview with Hans Kessler
[This interview originally published in: Die Furche is translated from the German on the World Wide Web, http://druckarchiv.kleinezeitung.at Hans Kessler teaches systematic theology (fundamental theology and dogmatics) at the University of Frankfurt. For eight years he has been occupied with questions of creation theology. His books: "Das Stohnen der Natur" (The Groaning of Nature, Plea for Creation Spirituality and Creation Ethics) and "Okologisches Weltethos" (Ecological World Ethos) are fruits of this activity.]
die Furche: Isn't it astonishing that the environment is emphasized and researched while little has changed in the basic orientation of our economy?
Hans Kessler: Firstly, public discourse on these questions hasn't lasted so long, only since 1980. In the years since 1980, there has been a great change in public consciousness. Obviously we are under an enormous time pressure today. Time presses. Nevertheless environmental consciousness has increased enormously.
die Furche: Has anything changed?
Kessler: Some things but much too little, also in the church. For 300 years we have fallen increasingly to a forgetfulness of nature and creation. Creation has a marginal life in our life as Christians.
die Furche: Is this a false view of the world around us?
Kessler: Yes. European churches share the fate of european modern times: the modern dualism, separation from God and the world. God is shifted somewhere in the world to co0me, an abstract worldless God; the world is empty of God. Perhaps vacationers who travel to the mountains or the ocean sometimes have an elevated feeling... Who has the consciousness of God's presence in the world? The separation of God and the world has led us to transpose God into a world to come remote from the world since we alone amnage and govern in our world. The biblical tradition saw this differently. "You are behind and before me" (Ps 139) or "In him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17). God's transcendence is proclaimed. God embraces all things, the whole cosmos, not only us. Hower there is also a counterpart: God is also the one who fills all things. "Heaven and earth are full of your glory" (Isa 6). That things are filled by God, this message of God's immanence, has been repressed. When we studied Thomas Aquinas, such declarations were simply suppressed. Thomas made very strong comparisons. As the soul is in the body, so the whole God is in all created things. The cosmos is penetrated by God. Naturally God does not merge in this cosmos... God is surrounded by this ocean and simultaneously immersed in it. A third dimension should be added: God addresses us as the great loving partner out of his transcendence and immanence.
die Furche: Our age knows nothing of this God...
Kessler: Yes. In the modern age, we pushed God into the world to come. As a result, the world was empty of God and godless. One didn't even need to cancel the worldless, abstract and irrelevant God. Only the world existed.
die Furche: Then the person has a free hand in his action...
Kessler: Yes. In addition, arbitrariness of power (not love and care) is ascribed to this God who only faces the world and transferred to his image, the person. This is disastrous. Then the person arbitrarily plays out his omnipotence in this world.
die Furche: Is Christianity responsible in the present misery, as Carl Amercy says?
Kessler: One cannot simply blame Christianity. Amery relativized his critique in the last years. There is also eastern "Christianity". That modern-western attitude toward nature didn't develop there.
die Furche: Hasn't Christ's message decisively contributed to the detachment of people from creation?
Kessler: Can one really say that? Up to the Middle Ages, people felt at home in creation. Since the 17th century, the separation between God and the world was brought into western thinking (Francis Bacon, Rene Descartes). Now one begins to read only the commission to rule from the Bible in the sense of boundless control over nature. On the other hand, Jesus' Sermon on the Mount proclaims: Consider the birds of the air and the lilies of the field... In his kindness, God cares for all things. He makes his sun rise over the good and the evil...
die Furche: But the person is brought out...
Kessler: Yes, in the middle of creation (not above it) as far as he turns to God and can be open for God's kindness. As a result, a person can represent God's existence in this world. The commission to rule from Genesis 1 can also be understood in this way. God is implied in the book of wisdom. God loves all the things that he created and therefore spares all things. As a result, a person in the world should govern, show mercy and be sparing and just as God's likeness.
die Furche: The environmental crisis leads to the deepest questions of existence. The "Green movement" also senses this. Is there a danger that a new pantheism will break out?
Kessler: Pantheism has a profound core of truth. There are things which were desacralized in modern times of their own holiness and dignity. However pantheism says too little and allows God to merge in nature. It ignores that God also surpasses the cosmos. When the universe and nature are everything, everything runs naturally. Then we people are only the supreme or highest products of nature which strangely become cancerous ulcers of nature. Strictly speaking, one cannot change anything. However for the environmental project, it is serious that there is no standard to which a person must hold aside from the standard of nature. Only its systems are in hand. This is very important. One thing is lacking which a person needs: consciousness of responsibility, an ethical norm.
die Furche: What is the beginning of conversion from the contemporary dilemma?
Kessler: The new perception of nature cultivated in pantheizing circles is important. A new sensitivity for processes in nature is arising. This is vital so we don't only develop a new view from our heads. We could gain this much more deeply from the Christian tradition. The whole person must develop a new sympathy to the surrounding creation.
die Furche: Still a gulf remains between consciousness and corresponding acts...
Kessler: Yes. Where do we gain the strength to act on what is known? We Christians would do well to bring the redemption potential of the Christian faith into the environmental debate. The Christian faith liberates people from simply circling around themselves and living in old paths. There is strength to advance on new ways in our relation to God.
die Furche: Does this mean expecting God's help in life?
Kessler: Yes. God hasn't renounced us. God stands behind us, holds us, embraces and supports us even in conditions that we regard as hopeless. We need not fear falling abysmally. Our life doesn't simply go up in smoke, fizzle out or come to nothing. God prepares very different things for us; we don't have to extract everything from our life. Our life is not the only and last occasion. We don't need to create our basis of existence; God provides this basis.
die Furche: How does this help?
Kessler: When we are taken under God's wings, our senses, head and heart become free for the tasks facing us today.
die Furche: Many reply: that sounds good but what do we do concretely now?
Kessler: Christian groups and communities must create spaces where a life from this relation to God is possible and different. What is central is developing spaces in Jesus' spirit where a different, creation-friendly lifestyle is realized, where people strengthen and encourage one another and eyes are opened. What is crucial is that people consciously open themselves to God's kindness and manifest that kindness in their own lives in relations to fellow persons and fellow creatures and in better regulations and structures.
die Furche: That is conversion. How does conversion appear in concrete lifestyles?
Kessler: Yes. I'd like to emphasize one characteristic: resistance against acceleration. No person can process the increasing flood of goods, possibilities and information. Out of this tangled mess, there are only fundamentally irrational selections. Decisions made this way are not rational. We Christians must contribute to a calming, to stopping in the middle of the hectic state, becoming still, looking and listening to ourselves, our rhythms and the rhythms of nature. That would be an important contribution to a new perception of time. This presupposes that we are anchored. Only this way can we oppose and have our own ideas. Only this way can we develop powers of resistance. Only from a supportive foundation can a hope be gainerd that is not destroyed by the next disappointments.