6 Climate Justice and God’s Justice …
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change. These will be placed alongside more contemporary Christian reactions to
climate change events.
Martin Luther was a thoroughly medieval man and a monk in the medieval church.
This fact can sometimes be obscured because he initiated a Reformation that changed
the world in the direction of the modern age. Yet, this is important to understand as
we live in a completely different era. The medieval understanding of the world was
that God created an ordered world that operated in a regular way, with a predictable
rhythm to life. What scientific investigation there was in his time was conducted
on the basis of understanding God’s ordered creation, whose truths were accessible
to reason. Luther’s understanding of creation conformed to this understanding of
God’s created order. He wrote about the cold winter that would return to summer in
an endless cycle. He never expected this to change.
Today climate change is changing this ordered cycle of nature on such a scale
that humans are now affecting the geology of Earth. Our worldview is changing as a
result, leading some to call our new age the Anthropocene (Deane-Drummond et al.
2017). Humans can affect creation to a degree unimagined in Luther’s time. Yet we
must concede that climate change does not completely invalidate the notion of an
ordered universe. It may be that things will correct themselves over time, but perhaps
at the cost of mass extinctions and the mass starvation of human beings.
For Luther, God’s ordering of creation is not only limited to an unchanging
creation, but also God’s providence of creatures. In a lecture on Genesis 35, Luther
demonstrated what the doctrine of creation implies for God’s providence in times
of trouble. In Genesis 35:5, Jacob is traveling to Bethel through the hostile land of
Canaan. The verse reads: “As they journeyed, a terror from God fell upon the cities all
around them, so that no one pursued them”. This, Luther claimed, demonstrates the
Creator’s protection of Jacob (LW 6:241). Luther said that if we learn the doctrine of
creation correctly, which is that “all things are in God’s hands”, then we should trust
our Creator in all things. Luther presses the point home: “For if we firmly concluded
that God is our Creator, we would certainly believe that He has heaven and earth in his
hands and all things which are contained by these” (LW 6:242–243). Luther thought
these words offer comfort—harm will occur only if God wills it. Here Luther cited
Psalm 31:15 (“My times are in your hand; deliver me from the hand of my enemies
and persecutors.”) to emphasize that all things are up to God (LW 6:243).
Throughout his corpus, Luther often used images of winds and threatening seas to
talk about dangerous situations faced by humanity. Here he likened the potential of a
Canaanite attack against Jacob to rising and threatening seas. Luther also compares
God’s protection to his power to calm waters, citing Psalm 65:7:
You silence the roaring of the seas,
the roaring of their waves,
the tumult of the peoples. (LW 6:243)
Luther drives this metaphor further: “We live in the midst of the sea itself, and as
the waters of the Flood were 15 cubits higher than the loftiest mountains, so also now
the ocean is three ells [cubits] higher than the earth” (LW 6:243). Why aren’t we,
asked Luther, overwhelmed by this trouble? “Because”, Luther continued, “God has
101
change. These will be placed alongside more contemporary Christian reactions to
climate change events.
Martin Luther was a thoroughly medieval man and a monk in the medieval church.
This fact can sometimes be obscured because he initiated a Reformation that changed
the world in the direction of the modern age. Yet, this is important to understand as
we live in a completely different era. The medieval understanding of the world was
that God created an ordered world that operated in a regular way, with a predictable
rhythm to life. What scientific investigation there was in his time was conducted
on the basis of understanding God’s ordered creation, whose truths were accessible
to reason. Luther’s understanding of creation conformed to this understanding of
God’s created order. He wrote about the cold winter that would return to summer in
an endless cycle. He never expected this to change.
Today climate change is changing this ordered cycle of nature on such a scale
that humans are now affecting the geology of Earth. Our worldview is changing as a
result, leading some to call our new age the Anthropocene (Deane-Drummond et al.
2017). Humans can affect creation to a degree unimagined in Luther’s time. Yet we
must concede that climate change does not completely invalidate the notion of an
ordered universe. It may be that things will correct themselves over time, but perhaps
at the cost of mass extinctions and the mass starvation of human beings.
For Luther, God’s ordering of creation is not only limited to an unchanging
creation, but also God’s providence of creatures. In a lecture on Genesis 35, Luther
demonstrated what the doctrine of creation implies for God’s providence in times
of trouble. In Genesis 35:5, Jacob is traveling to Bethel through the hostile land of
Canaan. The verse reads: “As they journeyed, a terror from God fell upon the cities all
around them, so that no one pursued them”. This, Luther claimed, demonstrates the
Creator’s protection of Jacob (LW 6:241). Luther said that if we learn the doctrine of
creation correctly, which is that “all things are in God’s hands”, then we should trust
our Creator in all things. Luther presses the point home: “For if we firmly concluded
that God is our Creator, we would certainly believe that He has heaven and earth in his
hands and all things which are contained by these” (LW 6:242–243). Luther thought
these words offer comfort—harm will occur only if God wills it. Here Luther cited
Psalm 31:15 (“My times are in your hand; deliver me from the hand of my enemies
and persecutors.”) to emphasize that all things are up to God (LW 6:243).
Throughout his corpus, Luther often used images of winds and threatening seas to
talk about dangerous situations faced by humanity. Here he likened the potential of a
Canaanite attack against Jacob to rising and threatening seas. Luther also compares
God’s protection to his power to calm waters, citing Psalm 65:7:
You silence the roaring of the seas,
the roaring of their waves,
the tumult of the peoples. (LW 6:243)
Luther drives this metaphor further: “We live in the midst of the sea itself, and as
the waters of the Flood were 15 cubits higher than the loftiest mountains, so also now
the ocean is three ells [cubits] higher than the earth” (LW 6:243). Why aren’t we,
asked Luther, overwhelmed by this trouble? “Because”, Luther continued, “God has