Appearance of Life On Earth

 

From the Ark's Window column of the Catholic Times a University professor gives us a meditation on the appearance of life on earth.

The Earth is incomparably older than humanity. If we compress the Earth's age into one year, humanity was born around 11:26 PM on December 31. That means humans have lived for just over 30 minutes. Humans have never witnessed the Earth's beginnings or its activities. We have merely lived according to the principles of life given by the Earth, our cradle.

Yet, in just the past hundred years or so, humans have begun to shake the Earth drastically. People have altered the Earth's environment, which is a condition for their own existence, and, in turn, have been affected by these changes, putting their lives at risk. Humans, once inhabitants within the Earth's geological structures, have now appeared as agents altering those very structures.

It is now diagnosed that the Earth has entered a new era called the 'Anthropocene'. Humans are the unprecedented driver of change, causing climate change and rapidly decreasing biodiversity. How did humans, as part of nature, come to alter nature itself?

Our ancestors eventually learned how to create fire by rubbing dry sticks together. The occurrence of fire follows natural laws. When materials collide, friction generates heat and can produce fire—this is natural law. However, the fire ignited by humans is the effect of natural laws abstracted by humans.

Humans standardize natural laws as methods and turn them into techniques to pass on to others. They create fire to cook meat, heat their homes, and illuminate the darkness, living nights as if they were days. By manipulating natural laws according to their intentions, humans came to perceive themselves as controllers of nature, which also led to the emergence of civilization. The more natural laws were used as tools, the more sophisticated civilization became. 

 Of course, civilization is also a work of technology found in the laws of nature. The fact that hundreds of tons of iron lumps fly through the sky is also an effect of technology that controls the laws of nature. The fact that iron travels on the sea is also the result of manipulating the laws of nature. However, a law of nature that is bigger than flight is fall. Fall is a deeper law of nature. A ship on the sea is destined to sink someday.

In this way, the technology that humans have found in the laws of nature is always being challenged by greater and deeper laws of nature. Countless lives are groaning due to human-caused climate change, and humans are also groaning. The deeper nature has been challenging humans.

It is a matter of course that the Earth preceded humans. Even in the Bible, it is said that grass, trees, fish, birds, animals, and, of course, insects and microorganisms preceded humans. However, humanity, which lived on Earth for only about 30 minutes, has disrupted the order of the Earth by instrumentalizing the entire life that preceded it. Studies also indicate that the sixth mass extinction of life has begun. This is a serious reality.

At this time, the following questions from the Bible come into view: "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?" (Job 38:4) Humans, who have not seen the beginning of the earth, act as if they know all the world, but suddenly humans have become almost like gods. But what is the result?

At this time, Christians are very aware of this. We have been talking about the "kingdom of God" for more than 2,000 years, but the question is why the world is moving towards a "human kingdom" that tramples on countless lives. The question is whether even the 'kingdom of God' has been accepted in a human-centered way and is establishing itself in the place of God.

That's right. We must reset the direction of faith and theology. The boundary between humans and humans, as well as between humans and non-humans, must be changed from a closed 'solid line' to an open 'dotted line'. We must communicate win-win and make use of the diversity of life: the organic nature of the earth, the foundation of human beings.